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By Root 819 0

organize a variety of fund-raising events for the children’s center—from fashion shows to gala dinners, polo matches to tennis tournaments—but the chief focus of my attention has become the three-day Frank Sinatra Celebrity Invitational Golf Tournament in Palm Springs every February. Now in its twenty-third year, it has featured some of the world’s finest celebrity players. Originally billed as “Frank’s little party in the desert” and attended by everyone from Perry Como and Sammy Davis to Angie Dickinson and Kenny Rogers, it has earned millions. There are luncheons and a fashion show, pasta dinners, cocktail parties, and auctions. Our guests have included friends like Dennis Quaid and Jack Lemmon with his wife, Felicia, Eydie Gorme and Steve Lawrence, Frank Jr. and Wayne Newton. Those who play golf every year include the television stars Dennis Farina and Joe Mantegna. The highlight is a black-tie gala at which a top celebrity performs. I have been fortunate enough to have Tony Bennett, Julio Iglesias, Quincy Jones, Smokey Robinson, and Barry Manilow perform for us in the past. In 2011, it was the wonderful Tony Orlando. On the final day of the tournament, I host an open house at the children’s center for people to come and see where and how the money is spent.

In recent years, the tournament has barely broken even, but in 2010 we moved to the Eagle Falls Golf Course and Fantasy Springs Resort and Casino in Indio, California, which was a huge success. R. J. Wagner and Dick Van Dyke were the cohosts, and the players included Pat Boone, Tom Dreesen, and Elke Sommer. At the gala dinner, I honored “Saint” Wallis Annenberg in a special presentation and speech. Walter Annenberg’s daughter has picked up his philanthropic baton and done so much more. I was thrilled when she donated $500,000 to the center. Eagle Falls is owned by the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians. Their involvement came about after Frank opened the new theater at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut, one of the biggest in the country, run by the Mashantucket Pequot tribe. Afterward, the tribe sent a delegation to visit the children’s center and then persuaded the Native Americans in the Palm Springs area to support us as well. The ripple effect of Frank’s good deeds rolls on.

Three years after the children’s center opened, the legendary New York Friars Club honored me for my work and for the educational forums on child abuse that I helped set up. Their tribute at the Waldorf was quite the star-studded affair, so I wore quite the gown for it—a dress with enormous pink fabric roses on a green bodice. It was almost as big as a voluminous silk taffeta coat I wore once, which, by the time I’d settled into the backseat of a limousine, left no room for Frank! The “roast” they gave me, hosted by my husband the “Abbott,” and attended by my family and friends, was hysterical. Everything from my cooking ability to my humble roots and my penchant for nice rocks came under fire while I sat on a dais and listened to tributes and wisecracks, testimonials and insults in equal measure. Dionne Warwick sang “That’s What Friends Are For.” Frank and Liza performed for me in an event that he’d personally organized. I had the night of my life.

It wasn’t my first experience of a Friars Club roast. Not long after we were married, I’d sat in on the roast given to Frank at the MGM Grand in Vegas, which had to be one of the funniest ever. Telly Savalas, Orson Welles, Don Rickles, Red Buttons, Rich Little, Dean Martin, George Burns, Gene Kelly, and Jimmy Stewart were among the many speakers invited to get a rise out of Frank, who had tears of laughter streaming down his face. Rickles slapped Dean across the face and yelled, “It’s morning!” then he pointed me out in the audience as “Frank’s new wife—the one with the diamond on her nose!” I laughed until my ribs ached.

My biggest challenge now is how to keep the children’s center going after I am gone. To do so I need to find younger blood, which isn’t that easy in a town largely for retired people. I only hope that I can find the