Lady Blue Eyes_ My Life With Frank - Barbara Sinatra [143]
Steve and Eydie were among the stars who helped salute Frank when he was given a Society of Singers ELLA Award for lifetime achievement at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles. Others included George Burns (who was ninety but still managed a song), Tony Bennett, Jack Jones, and Peggy Lee, who’d always had a crush on Frank, but then who didn’t? That was the last time Frank sang with Ella Fitzgerald, who serenaded him with “There Will Never Be Another You.” I loved Ella—she was the best: laid-back, easy, and brilliant. Frank had had the greatest respect for the singer known as the First Lady of Song ever since they’d worked together in the fifties. “She has great pipes,” he’d say. They were very close even though they didn’t get to perform together as much as either of them would have liked. As for me, I just liked the way Ella perspired—she was real. She was also terribly nice and extremely humble and performed some of my favorite songs, like “Have You Met Miss Jones?” and “Miss Otis Regrets.”
After making a good recovery from his cataract operations, Frank was in reasonable health and better spirits. We went back to Europe, where he gave another milestone concert amid the ruins of Pompeii. He launched an album of Christmas songs and enlisted old friends like Angie Dickinson to help him man a charity hotline. He sang with another old pal, Shirley MacLaine, in New York. She came to the house so they could rehearse together and he liked her a lot.
So, life was good and our days were filled with the usual fun and frolics—until, that is, the night of May 6, 1992. Jilly Rizzo was about to celebrate his seventy-fifth birthday with a gang of us in Palm Springs. He’d spent the previous day at his house with Tony O, cooking “gravy” for the pasta and preparing for the party Frank had helped him arrange. The house was full of friends, and they were all looking forward to the big event. Jilly? Seventy-five? No one would have believed it.
At around midnight, Jilly decided to go back to the house of his girlfriend Betty Jean and get a (relatively) early night so that he’d be fresh the following day. Betty Jean had taken his car, so he borrowed her white Jaguar XJ and headed home. Just as he was crossing a major intersection on Dinah Shore Drive, a car driven by a drunk smashed into the side of Jilly’s Jag at considerable speed. The electronics locked down on impact, and the gas cap was knocked off before the car burst into flames. Unable to open the doors, Jilly was trapped inside and burned to death.
When I first heard the news early the next morning, I couldn’t believe it. As George Schlatter said, no one expected Jilly to die of natural causes, but we still didn’t expect something like that. On a day when we should have been celebrating his life, we were mourning his death. The biggest trauma for me was wondering how to tell Frank. I let him sleep in as usual until lunchtime, although I was terrified that he might wake early and hear it on the TV news, so I kept going into his room to check. Then, when he finally emerged in his pajamas and was sitting in the den reading the newspaper (which I’d scanned to make sure the story wasn’t in it), I wandered in and sat down. Taking a deep breath, I blurted, “Darling, I have some very bad news for you. Jilly’s not with us anymore. He was in a horrible accident early this morning, on his birthday. I am so very sorry.” Frank sat there in stunned silence. After I told him what happened, he withdrew in just the same way he had with the passing of Dolly and Dean, locking himself away, not speaking and not wanting to be spoken to.
Somehow, he managed to pull himself together enough to be a pallbearer at Jilly’s funeral, which was held at the same church where Dolly’s service had been. And, boy, was there a cast of colorful characters. I hardly recognized any of them, but there they all were—in their suits and with faces so somber they must have known him for years. For once, there were no cameras and no press. I guess the “boys” arranged that. Frank didn’t even notice. He went through the