Lady Blue Eyes_ My Life With Frank - Barbara Sinatra [111]
Mostly, Frank was just acting out, and there was nothing anyone could do until he was spent. The passionate, Italian side to his character that made him such a terrific entertainer also left him prone to mood swings and meant that he had a good cop–bad cop routine. I just had to wait for the good cop to come back. I sometimes think Frank got a kick out of teasing people anyway. What else was left to him? He’d been everywhere, done everything, met every world leader, and bought everything he wanted. What was left but to wind people up sometimes, mess with their minds, and see what happened?
Unaware of the drama that was unfolding in our suite, Jolene came running in like Pollyanna in a kimono to announce that the food had arrived and her party was about to start. The corridor was lined with waiters bearing trays and trays of delicious Chinese food. Behind them were her guests, also dressed in kimonos. The minute “Injun” looked around the room and realized what she’d stumbled into, she turned right around, sent the food back to the kitchen and the guests to the bar. It was like something from a Broadway farce.
Almost as quickly as Frank’s tantrum had flared up, everything was calm. Jilly stopped yelling. The police and the manager left. The guy next door went quiet. Frank sat slumped in a chair in his suit and tie and looked at me in my kimono. “What the hell happened to Jolene’s party?” he asked. I called everyone up and assured them it was safe to come back. The waiters who’d been turned away took some persuading, but eventually we had our party—kind of—and ate the food that had now gone cold. Exhausted by the end of it all, I took myself off to bed.
After a while Frank came into the bedroom, pulled off his clothes, and sat on the other side of the bed, staring down at his feet. He looked like an exhausted little boy. Finally he said softly, “Well, there’s one thing you won’t have to worry about.”
“What’s that?” I asked, half-hidden under the covers.
“I’ll never have an ulcer.”
“No,” I told him, “but you’re a carrier.”
THIRTEEN
Making new friends in Africa with Father Rooney.
COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR
What Now My Love
In the spring of 1980, Frank was producing and starring in a thriller called The First Deadly Sin with Faye Dunaway and was going to be tied up in New York for weeks. Although he hadn’t made a film in three years, we both knew the routine, and it was deadly dull—which was the main reason he wasn’t crazy about the movie business.
Actors spend so much of their time sitting around and waiting, reading rewritten scripts, learning new lines, rehearsing, and then waiting some more. Known as One-Shot Sinatra, Frank had a reputation for being difficult or impatient on set, but I don’t think that was entirely fair. George Schlatter always said Frank’s favorite two words were Jack and Daniel’s and his least favorite were Take Two. If someone wanted him to do more than one take, they’d better give him a good reason. A lot of people improve as they repeat their lines, but he never did. He felt that it took the energy away from a scene to do it over and over again. He wanted and expected everyone else to be ready so that he could walk in, say his lines, and walk out again. If they called him to the set at 8:00 A.M. but didn’t use him for three hours, he’d threaten to abandon the whole project.
Even when he was being his most bullish about movies, though, Frank would still find a way to inject humor into a situation. Once, when a director told him they’d have to shoot over the weekend because they were five pages behind, Frank took the script, tore out five pages, and announced, “Now you’re on schedule.” On another occasion, when he did a commercial for Budweiser, the director filmed a full dress rehearsal and then handed out notes about how it should be done next time. When he went to Frank’s dressing room and found him slipping on his coat, he asked, “Where are you going?”
“I’m getting out of here.”
“But the show!”
“I just did the show.”
“No! That was the