Lady Blue Eyes_ My Life With Frank - Barbara Sinatra [108]
Still, his kindness and consideration always won out. We were at a dinner party one night with Bennett Cerf and Betty Bacall when Frank wandered into a guest room to collect a pack of cigarettes from his overcoat. There he found the producer Arthur Hornblow finishing up a telephone call to a woman. “I hope she’s pretty,” Frank said softly. Arthur replied that she was; it was his mother, Susie, who was in poor health in Florida but still excited about the latest Yankee scores.
“What I wouldn’t give for one more telephone call with my mom,” Frank told him wistfully.
At his suggestion, they called Arthur’s mother back and put Frank on the line. “Is this really Frank Sinatra?” she asked. “You sound too much like him not to be. I love your voice.”
“Well, I love your voice too, Susie,” Frank said. “Tell you what—I’m going to call you every Saturday night at six o’clock, and we’ll chew over the Yankees’ performance, okay?” He kept his promise and never missed a Saturday evening call to Susie Hornblow until the day she died. For good measure, he sent flowers to her on Mother’s Day and to other widowed mothers in the same hospital. Frank added her name to his list of lonely women he’d call on a regular basis. They included a relative of Freeman Gosden’s and several single mothers. Few believed them when they claimed that Ol’ Blue Eyes was a frequent caller, but they knew the truth and that was all that mattered.
When the Shah of Iran was allowed into America briefly by President Carter for urgent medical treatment, Frank went to visit him in the hospital in New York. The shah had been deposed by then, and his presence on U.S. soil was highly controversial, but that didn’t bother Frank—he was always for the underdog. During Frank’s visit to the heavily guarded private room, the shah commented on a Bulgari pendant he was wearing around his neck, a birthday gift from me. Frank rarely took it off, but that day he undid the clasp without thinking and handed it to his friend as a keepsake. It was the last time he would ever see the shah alive. In keeping with his philosophy of kindness to widows, Frank made sure to keep in contact with Empress Farah, who eventually settled in Washington, D.C.
Greg Peck certainly never forgot Frank’s kindness when his son died, and they adored each other mutually. Greg and Veronique somehow managed to move on from their personal tragedy and became stalwarts of our parties at home and abroad. We had so many laughs with those two, especially at the Compound. Every night was like a Vegas act with our cast of friends. We might have the singer Frankie Randall at the piano, and maybe Liza Minnelli or Dean Martin singing. We had the best comics (natural and professional) with us for days at a time, so the stories, antics, and jokes were never-ending. The Pecks had a hilarious comedy routine they used to perform about baseball, in which Greg would try to explain to his French wife what a “strike” was. We’d laugh until our sides hurt. Greg had a few other tricks up his sleeve too. One night he walked into the bar, his face somber, and said, “Girls and boys, I have an announcement to make. Veronique’s left me and I’m very broken up about it. I wanted you to hear it first, but it’s over.” For a moment, none of us knew what to say. Then he added, “But I’ve met a girl in Cathedral City. Her name’s Trixie, and I’ve invited her over. Do you mind?”
Cue Veronique, who walked into the room in a dress cut up to her thighs and down to her breastbone, wearing a big black wig, high heels, and fishnet hose. She was smoking a cigarette through a long holder. As Greg announced, “This is Trixie, everybody,” she teetered to the bar and ordered a drink