Lady Blue Eyes_ My Life With Frank - Barbara Sinatra [26]
After the ceremony, we went straight to the tables, where I used to help dress the room. Ida and Penny were still around, and we had a drink and caught up with all the news. Zep and I spent the rest of our weeklong honeymoon taking in shows like the one at the Copa Room of the Sands with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis, Jr. I sat next to Mary Benny, the wife of Jack, and the two of us laughed so hard at the impromptu way those three fed off one another. One would sit in the audience and suddenly jump up to say something; another might break into a song or pretend to be drunk. It was all unscripted, and you could tell they were having as much fun as we all were.
I moved into Zeppo’s Palm Springs house, and he immediately added a room outside for Bobby, which impressed me enormously until I realized that it was to keep my son out of the way. But Zeppo could be sweet, charming, and as funny as anything when he wanted to be. One night early on in our relationship, after we’d come in from dinner at a restaurant, he watched me as I undressed. First I slipped off my dress, and then I undid the long blond hairpiece I’d worn that night and placed it in a drawer. Carefully, I peeled off my eyelashes, and then I reached into my bra and pulled out the falsies I sometimes wore to give me a little extra boost. They too went into the drawer. Laughing, Zeppo said, “I don’t know whether to get into bed or the drawer!”
He bought a new yacht, which he named the Barbara Ann, and kept it at the Salton Sea Club or down at the Balboa Bay Club near Newport. We’d sail to Catalina Island and I’d water-ski, but I’d never been much of a sailor since the Queen of Bermuda days, and my namesake ended up as a party boat for Zeppo. In his sixth decade, my husband didn’t have to work, even after he claimed to have lost $6 million one night alone at the craps table. Having trained as an engineer, Zeppo had made most of his money with a company named Marman, which machined parts for the war effort. He’d helped invent the Marman screw clamp, which was used to secure bombs and fitted to fuel lines in just about every airplane made during World War II. He also produced a two-cylinder motorized bicycle. He patented a wristwatch that could tell if someone was about to have a heart attack, although nothing ever came of it. When he wasn’t tinkering around with bits of metal and springs, he’d run a talent agency with Gummo, representing writers and actors, including Barbara Stanwyck. He always said that the only clients he didn’t like to handle were his brothers.
I continued working in Palm Springs and L.A. whenever I could, but Zeppo didn’t like it. Through his showbiz friends, I was offered a couple of minor television roles and walk-on parts. In one brief appearance I made on The Jack Benny Program, I was in a sketch with the comedian Ernie Kovacs. Ernie was wearing a huge false mustache, which I was supposed to find ticklish when I kissed him. Just as in my screen test for Fox, I got an attack of giggles the minute I stepped in front of the camera, and when Ernie made some ad-lib wisecrack, I cracked up, only this time it was incorporated into the show.
Although Zeppo bought me a car and a mink coat, he wasn’t extravagant with his gifts and only ever gave me one important piece of jewelry—a ruby and diamond bracelet. He didn’t want me to have my own money. It was jealousy, I think, and fear that, if I had the means, I might escape. I should have remembered Marsha in Vegas and learned how to stash. Just like Bob and Joe before him, Zeppo also had quite a temper on him. He reminded me of a little banty hen we’d kept back in Bosworth. We’d have a fight every time a bill came in; he’d even call up my girlfriends to confirm how much I’d lost at gin rummy, and we only ever played for dimes. In the end, I made sure