Lady Blue Eyes_ My Life With Frank - Barbara Sinatra [103]
I invited almost everyone we knew, including the entire kitchen cabinet—President-Elect Reagan, Walter Annenberg, and Spiro Agnew. The rest of the guest list included Paul Anka, Fred Astaire, Tony Bennett, Peggy Lee, Alfred Bloomingdale, Frank Capra, Mary Benny, Don Drysdale, Morton Downey, Armand Deutsch, Sammy Davis, Jr., Johnny Carson, Henry Fonda, Peter Falk, Cary Grant, the Firestones, the Gosdens, Harry James, the Kluges, Dean Martin, Mort Viner, Jack Lemmon, Burt Lancaster, the Korshaks, Robert Mitchum, Roger Moore, Tony Orlando, Wayne Newton, Steve Ross, Don Rickles, the Pecks, the Schlatters, the Wagners, Jimmy Stewart, Orson Welles, and Dinah Shore. Most were invited along with their wives, husbands, or significant others.
Their invitations read:
Please keep this under your Stetson but I’m tossing a surprise birthday party for my blue-eyed cowboy on December 12 at 7:15 p.m. at Dominick’s restaurant, Rancho Mirage, Highway 111. Keep it under your Stetson but wear it. The party will be Western attire. You can be a good guy or a bad guy, a homesteader or a dance hall queen. We want to see you there and don’t breathe a word. I’ve got an itchy trigger-fingered posse ready for anyone who blabs. Please RSVP, ya hear! Love, BAS. P.S. No gifts please.
On the night of the party, I asked our friends to meet at Dominick’s restaurant before being transported to the ranch in a convoy of yellow school buses. When Milton Berle’s wife, Ruth, arrived and saw the stables, she quipped, “Oh, so that’s where Frank was born!”
To make sure that Frank was also dressed up, I told him that we’d been invited to a Western-style party for the birthday of his friend the cardiologist Danny Kaplan. I hired cowgirl and cowboy costumes for us and managed to get him into his blue suede jacket, red neckerchief, and tan cowboy hat without too much complaint. Then we got into his car. Mr. Punctual was driving, but as we approached the street near the stables, I suddenly said, “Oh, Frank, I have a sick horse and I just have to stop by and check on it before we go to dinner.” It was all part of my master plan.
But master plans need the master to be compliant. “No,” he replied flatly, his hands gripping the steering wheel. “We’ll be late. You can see it tomorrow.”
My heart almost stopped. “But I have to,” I protested. “I promised the vet.”
“No way, baby,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m not going to the stables tonight, least of all dressed like this!” We were almost at the intersection where he’d have to turn so as not to be late for his own party, something he’d never forgive me for.
In desperation and thinking of our waiting guests, I panicked and cried, “Frank, if you love me, if you’ve ever loved me, then make this turn here—right now!” He looked across at me as if I had gone raving mad, but he knew how much I cared for my horses, and by playing on his own love for animals, I finally broke him.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” he cried as he made the turn. Driving too fast, he bumped us up the track. The moment he pulled into the yard and saw all the party lights he got the message. “So this is what it’s about,” he said, eyeing me suspiciously. He knew then that I’d truly surprised him, although I don’t think he was too thrilled about it. His friends were waiting, and thank goodness, everything went according to plan. I could tell Frank was nervous all night, though, because he wasn’t completely in control and he didn’t like that at all. Toward the end of the evening, he told me, “I want to go home,” and Frank had never said that.
“Wait a minute!” I cried. “You’ve got to hear the jazz orchestra. That’s the part you said you really wanted.” He did stay for that, sitting up front by himself just as he’d wished while they played him a terrific set. But then he really did want to go home, so that was the end of that. He never thanked me for organizing his surprise party, but he didn’t tell me, “Never do that again!” either. Not that I had any plans to.