Lady Blue Eyes_ My Life With Frank - Barbara Sinatra [48]
The pace Frank set once he arrived was exhausting. This was clearly someone who liked to be entertained. The man who’d almost died at birth was determined to live every minute of the second chance life had thrown him. He wouldn’t let anyone slow him down. We were out every day and expected to party every night. One day I told him, “I really can’t go out tonight, Frank. I’m sorry, but I just don’t feel like it. I’m too tired.”
His eyes took on a glint. “You’re going, Barbara. You’re going tonight, and you’re going every night,” he told me. As I was soon to learn, there was no arguing with Frank. That night he hosted dinner for twelve at Le Pirate, an outdoor restaurant renowned for its eccentricities. Our crowd included Pat Henry, the producer Sam Spiegel, and the actor Vince Edwards and his wife. Robert Viale, the crazy owner, greeted us with fireworks and gunfire while a gypsy band played frantic fiddle music and dancing girls whirled around us playing tambourines. We were shown to long benches at trestle tables while acrobats dressed as pirates swung between the branches of the trees. Mr. Viale produced a Nebuchadnezzar of champagne and sliced off the neck with a sword. The house donkey wandered between tables eating food from plates, showing a preference for lobster. There was a huge fireplace, and every now and then waiters would hurl chairs or tables into the roaring flames. When we’d finished eating, we were encouraged to do the same with our plates. Anyone who wanted to go up to the first-floor bar had to climb a large tree in the center of the courtyard to reach it, but if they did they were pelted with food by fellow guests. It was insane.
Bobby’s eyes were popping right out of his head. He leaned toward me and shouted, “We’re in a nuthouse!” Frank, sitting at the head of the table, loved the craziness of it all and kept ordering more champagne, more food, and more music. This man of the world, who must have seen just about everything there was to see, took childish delight in the pranks happening all around us. But then I shouldn’t have been surprised. Swifty Lazar, one of the smartest-dressed people I knew, had warned me what a practical joker Frank was. He told me how he’d returned home one day to find his immaculate wardrobe bricked up and plastered over. Frank would also have the food and drink moved to his house half an hour before Swifty was to throw a party.
Frank and Dean Martin used to puncture tiny pinholes into the filters of friend’s cigarettes so they wouldn’t draw, or snip into their bow ties so that when they went to put them on the ties would fall apart in their hands. Cherry bombs were another favorite; those red-colored party explosives were thrown into yards, used to blow up mailboxes, tossed as ammunition against journalists, or set off at the end of someone’s bed. Frank and Dean had a brown terry-cloth robe made for Sammy Davis, Jr., at the Vegas steam room where they wore white robes, the same place where they shoved a naked Don Rickles out of the steam room door into the crowded pool area. Frank, a man who never slept on planes, regularly stuffed candy into the slipped-off shoes of those foolish enough to nod off.
After dinner at Le Pirate, Frank took us to the casino and bonded further with Bobby over a blackjack game. He liked to play only blackjack and craps, and was happy to teach my son a few tricks. Then he took me to the card tables and taught me the game of chemin de fer. It was so romantic sitting next to him at the card table as he leaned over to see what hand I’d been dealt and advised me which card to play. Henry Ittleson wandered off discreetly to play his usual baccarat. The casino saved a chair for him every night, and he didn’t like anyone