Lady Blue Eyes_ My Life With Frank - Barbara Sinatra [65]
“I’ve packed in smoking as you asked,” I told him. “But the deal is that you can no longer smoke when I’m around and neither can anyone else. If you want to kill yourself, go ahead, but don’t kill me.” To my surprise, he agreed, and although he smoked unfiltered Camels to the day he died, he almost always stepped away from me to do so. He wouldn’t even smoke in the car.
A friend of Frank’s once said that one of the qualities that most endeared me to him was my stamina, although I think we killed a few people along the way. My son, Bobby, sure learned how to live life to the full under Frank’s tutelage, and drinking and staying up all night were just part of it. In true Sinatra style, Bobby began dating some of the most eligible women on the circuit. I thoroughly approved of them all, especially those who understood the pressures of life in the spotlight in case Bobby ended up being Frank’s stepson one day.
Not that Frank was offering anything like that yet. When we first started dating, the option of marrying him someday had been mentioned, but he’d never spoken about it since. I was beginning to think he might be allergic to the word marriage. What he was offering instead was excitement and laughter, the chance to be his lover and companion, and the joys of being treated like a goddess. He was one of the most famous men in the world, after all. Everyone, from world presidents to the Pope, had a favorite Sinatra song. Women adored Frank because he was such a romantic. Despite my secret hopes for something more permanent eventually, I knew that just to be at his side made me the luckiest girl alive.
As a respite between legs of the tour, we’d slip back to Palm Springs for a few days to unpack and catch our breath. I think it was then that I first realized Frank’s mother, Dolly, was as unhappy about our relationship as Zeppo’s friends and family seemed to be. She rarely visited the Compound if I was there and barely acknowledged me if we saw her elsewhere.
I heard through the grapevine that she’d asked Frank, “Aren’t there enough whores around? Why do you have to work on your best friend’s wife?” Not that I should have been surprised. Dolly was a feisty little dame who had a hold over Frank like no one else. They had such a love-hate relationship, and I think she was probably the only person Frank was afraid of his whole life. Having almost died giving birth to her thirteen-and-a-half-pound son, an event that left her unable to bear any more children, Dolly had invested all her emotions in her only child and encouraged him from the start. Trouble was, she also acted like she owned him and wouldn’t stop bossing him around, as well as bad-mouthing everyone from me to his children and his ex-wives. A Catholic who became more devout the older she got, she despaired of his three failed marriages and wanted Frank to find a “good, Catholic” girl and settle down. Sadly, I didn’t fall into either category.
In spite of Dolly’s open hostility to me, though, I liked her very much. She was fun, with a terrific sense of humor; I could certainly see where Frank got his from. Standing less than five feet tall, she swore like a trooper and had a filthy nickname for everyone, but she cooked like an angel. She liked nothing more than to have Frank and his Italian American friends, like Jilly, Joe Tomatoes, and Gerry the Crusher, around dipping bread into her “gravy.” She’d always bawl them out about it, but she didn’t mind. Nor did she seem to mind “Uncle Vincent” living with her until the day he died. He was a sweet man, some distant relative or old family friend who’d lived under the same roof with her and Marty forever, although no one could remember why. As bighearted as her son, Dolly took him in, fed and cared for him selflessly. The more I got to know Dolly, the more I admired her. She was a survivor, as I was. I hoped that, as time went on and she realized that Frank and I were serious about each other,