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By Root 799 0

” to me at a party for one of our wedding anniversaries, which was one of the few times he sang at an informal gathering. It was also where we first met the singer Michael Feinstein when he was just starting out. Michael had been hired to play the piano that night and thought, What can I do to get Frank Sinatra’s attention? Frank had his back to him at first, but as soon as Michael began to play, Frank stopped talking and turned around with a look of astonishment on his face. Then he went over to the piano, where Michael was playing some of Frank’s earliest and least known songs. “Where did you get these tunes from, kid?” Frank asked, incredulous. “You’re only fifteen years old!” They were friends from that day on, even more so when Frank found out that Michael was a huge Gershwin fan.

Another place we liked was La Dolce Vita on Santa Monica Boulevard. It was there that Frank and Swifty Lazar got into a heated argument when they were both well into their seventies and Swifty was in a wheelchair. Swifty made some remark that Frank objected to, so, bristling, he told Swifty, “I oughta knock your damn brains out!”

Swifty, who was such a feisty little guy, pulled himself up to his full four feet whatever and said, “Yeah? Well, come on then, I’ll take you on, Francis. Let’s go outside!”

That was all Frank needed—something to make him laugh. He slapped Swifty on the back and said, “Swifty, you’re probably the only one I could still beat.” Everyone cracked up.

In Palm Springs, we usually dined at the Tamarisk Country Club, Dominick’s, or Ruby’s Dunes. For my parents’ sixtieth wedding anniversary we threw a huge party at Tamarisk. It was amazing to me that they had stayed together so long, especially when they’d had such different dreams. My father could never have imagined when he was chopping meat at the butcher’s counter in Blakeley’s that he’d end up being toasted by Frank Sinatra at a Palm Springs country club one day. My mother, who never lost her Rochelle Hudson looks, was far better suited to the life she’d made for them in the desert.

Sadly, toward the end my father had prostate cancer and other problems, but I hired staff to take care of him. Frank and I were in New York in 1989 when I got the call that his ninety-four years on this earth had come to an end. “I’ll be right there,” I told my mother, long distance. Replacing the receiver, I told Frank, “My father died. You stay and work and I’ll fly home on my own.”

To my surprise, he said, “No way, sweetheart! I’ll cancel. I’m coming back with you,” and he did. I was amazed and touched that he did that, but then he’d always gotten along extremely well with Willis Blakeley and was sad that he’d gone. The funeral was small and private, and Bobby stood up and said a few nice words about his grandfather, which I truly appreciated. As I watched my father buried in the same cemetery as Frank’s parents, I felt surprisingly little. My father had never been a very demonstrative man, and he didn’t like too much fuss. I loved him, but I’d been closer to Pa Hillis than I had ever been to him. I knew that I’d helped give him and my mother a good, long, and happy life. They had a comfortable home, all that they could possibly need, and the kind of life they might never otherwise have had. Although they never said, I think they must have appreciated that.

My mother, who was twelve years younger than my father, handled his death very well. His last few years had been rough on her, giving her almost no life at all. I’d take her to lunch at the Racquet Club, but despite always complaining that she wanted to get out more, she never liked to leave him for too long. After he died, I told her, “Mother, I have a wonderful life ahead planned for you. You’re going to have a lot of fun.” I sent her on a cruise with a girlfriend, but by the time she got back she was exhausted. It was too late for her, and she didn’t last long after that. She had emphysema and congestive heart failure, but she never stopped smoking and we had the worst fights about it. Then she started to get sick, and I told