Lady Blue Eyes_ My Life With Frank - Barbara Sinatra [20]
As if I didn’t have enough to worry about, a third suitor appeared out of the blue. He was a well-tailored, middle-aged man who’d sit alone at the back of the dinner theater to watch our rehearsals. He was a friend of the director Sammy Lewis, and I could tell he was important by the way the bosses reacted to him. Sammy came over to me one day and asked, “What have you done to Zeppo Marx? He’s been asking questions all around the hotel about you.” So that’s who he was—Zeppo Marx, the former straight-man member of the wacky team of Groucho, Chico, and Harpo. I’d not only seen Marx Brothers movies as a teenager in Wichita but met Zeppo once at a Miss Universe dinner in Romanoff’s restaurant in Los Angeles. I should have remembered him because I’d thought him very rude; I sat next to him, but he hardly said a word to me all night. It was only later that I realized he was deaf in one ear and I was sitting on his wrong side.
At fifty-six, with a surprisingly good singing voice and a dry sense of humor, Zeppo had taken early retirement to do the things he enjoyed, which included gambling, women, golf, management, and anything mechanical. He was successful at all five, especially the last, which made him more money than comedy ever did. He invested some of it in the El Rancho casino with his brothers and was a regular at the craps tables. Divorced with two adopted sons, he was carefree and single with lots of show business friends and plenty of girls. Now he’d set his sights on me. Eagle-eyed Penny was the first to spot him. “That Zeppo Marx can’t stop staring at you,” she told me. “He’s a good guy to know. Lucky girl!” I wondered how lucky I’d really be. After my experiences with Bob and Joe, I wasn’t looking to start afresh with anyone, least of all someone with a reputation as a womanizer, even if he was a funny, rich one.
One night just before the final show, I peeped out from behind the stage curtain to check how full the house was. To my surprise, Zeppo, Joe, and Bob were sitting together in a booth right at the front of the theater. A few nights earlier they’d sat separately, staring daggers at one another across the room, so when the show was over, I’d declined to sit with any one of them for fear of setting them off. Now, it seemed, they’d decided to join forces so that I’d sit with all three of them.
As part of our Spike Jones floor show that night, we had to do a crazy high-kick routine with the chorus girls in which only our legs showed through long slits in a heavy black curtain. The show went down well and I didn’t mess up, but it was with some reluctance that I wandered out front afterward. As soon as Joe saw me approaching, he jumped up and asked, “Where were you placed in the lineup?” Flashing me a warning look, he added, “I’ve got twenty-five bucks riding on this.”
I thought for a moment and began to count.
Bob piped up, “I said you were the twelfth.”
Joe shook his head. “No,” he said with conviction. “Barbara was in the middle. Twenty-second along.”
Zeppo gave me a quiet, intelligent smile. “You were at the end, fifth from the left,” he said. I laughed and nodded. He was right, much to Joe’s dismay.
Sitting down next to Zeppo and making sure I was on his right side this time, I asked him, “How did you know?”
He gave me a wry grin. “Easy,” he said. “You were the lowest high kicker.”
Knowing I was the worst dancer in Vegas, Joe and Bob roared with laughter. While they made jokes at my expense, I looked across at Zeppo, seeing him in a new light.
I can’t remember what it was exactly that made me realize I might end up with Mr. Marx, although marriage was truly the last thing on my mind. Maybe it was that he sent Bobby a bicycle for