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“We used to talk a lot between scenes and he always talked about ‘class.’ It seemed to be his favorite word. He said that one of the classiest things he’d ever seen in his life was Gene Tierney walking into a Broadway theater one night wearing a white mink jacket. Frank went on and on about how she looked and how she carried herself. He was like a little kid talking about the queen. ‘That’s class,’ he said. ‘Real class.’ It was sort of touching the way he described the scene as if it was almost unachievable for him. He also talked about Ava [Gardner] the same way, as if a woman like that was totally unobtainable for a man like him.”

While Frank fantasized about Ava Gardner, Nancy clung fiercely to her reconciled marriage. She and Frank had tried for a new start by buying a $250,000 house—with a cobbled courtyard, swimming pool, and gardens—on Garolwood Avenue in Holmby Hills. They also designed a $150,000 air-conditioned house in Palm Springs with a swimming pool shaped like a grand piano. On June 20, 1948, they had their third child, Christina, who was a present for Father’s Day.

Now that Nancy was firmly entrenched in Hollywood, she wanted nothing more to do with Frank’s relatives from Hoboken, especially his Uncle Babe, who had been arrested several times for usury and loan-sharking. Now she was informed that Frank’s cousin, Junior, was en route to California with his wife, Antoinette, and their four young children, including Frank’s godchild, Salvatore.

“My husband worked for Frank until January of 1944,” recalled Antoinette Sinatra, “when he returned home and got a job in the shipyards. Then he got a call from Hank Sanicola a few years later, and so we came to California and left everything behind in Hoboken. Hank put us up in a tiny, cramped trailer in a dirty pet cemetery in Tarzana. It was just awful, and I cried for days. Finally, I went to see Frank, who was doing Your Hit Parade for Lucky Strike. I started crying again, and he put his arm around me and said, ‘What’s wrong?’ I told him, and he said he would take care of everything.

“He instructed Bobby Burns to get us out of the pet cemetery and take us up to the Sunset Plaza. Then he asked us to come to his house to see Nancy and the kids and have dinner. So Bobby drove us out to their house, but when Nancy saw us coming, she decided to be out. Little Nancy came to the door and said, ‘My mother said to tell you she’s not here.’

“I couldn’t believe that an Italian girl could treat family this way, especially after everything I’d done for her. When she lived in Hasbrouck Heights, I used to run all her errands, go to the Italian market for her, pick up her groceries, and take her phone calls in the middle of the night when she’d be calling Junior to find out where Frank was and who he was with and when he’d be home. Now she’d gotten real fancy-pants and was acting like a louse to us just because we was from Hoboken. When I finally saw her a few days later, she offered us money to go back home. She said she didn’t want us around and that she’d pay for us to go back where we belonged. We stayed, and my husband later went to Frank to borrow money for a down payment on a house, but Nancy found out about it and wouldn’t let him loan us the money. So he gave us five hundred dollars to buy a trailer in North Hollywood Park instead. I knew they were having marriage problems, but they always had those problems, so I didn’t think much of it at the time.”

Frank paid little attention to his wife. He showered her with gifts as if to salve his conscience and buy a little peace, but, ever restless, he continued seeking something else away from home, and not always with discretion.

One night late in the fall of 1948, he banged on Mel Tormé’s door looking for Candy Toxton, a beautiful blond model he had known for some time. Toxton and Tormé had recently become engaged and were celebrating his birthday with a large group of friends.

“The party was in full swing when there was a knock on the door,” recalled Tormé.