Lady Blue Eyes_ My Life With Frank - Barbara Sinatra [66]
It wasn’t just Dolly who was putting pressure on us in those early days, although her feelings toward me certainly placed Frank in a difficult position. Our bigger challenge, however, was probably overfamiliarity with each other. As the months passed and we continued with his grueling touring schedule, Frank and I were thrown together twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, in hotel suites, limousines, theaters, trains, and planes. Most of the time I can honestly say the experience was nothing short of wonderful; it was a real thrill, and I felt privileged and honored to have such a ringside seat. But with Frank’s constant need to be entertained after he’d entertained, staying up late night after night, drinking with his buddies on top of the traveling, the rehearsals, and the shows, the days were long and the nights even longer, and one or the other of us wasn’t always at our best. I’d defy any couple not to fight every now and then under those circumstances.
Although Frank never stopped being the romantic, he could be difficult with those around him—especially if he’d had too much to drink or felt a show hadn’t been perfect. He was never more keyed up than in the hours following a performance, when he needed to burn off some of that incredible energy he’d built up. Sometimes that need manifested itself in a tantrum, but more often than not it just required him to drink with his buddies. We were at Caesars Palace in Vegas one night when I came back to our suite after a dinner out with friends and found Frank much the worse for wear. Dean was sitting at the bar mummified. Frank was lying on the floor. Others were slumped all around. I walked in, took one look at all of them, turned around, and walked out. The next day Frank asked me, “What happened to you last night?
“I went to bed,” I told him. “I didn’t want to watch my drunken man rolling around on the floor with his drunken bum friends.” He was visibly taken aback.
Frank never went off on me like he did with some people, and he rarely yelled at me because I was one of the few who’d yell back. Realizing that, his friends began to call on me if he was in one of his moods because they knew I was their best bet at calming him down. One night at the Waldorf in New York, I was in the old Cole Porter Suite in the Towers and Frank was down in the bar with a bunch of friends when Jilly called me at around four in the morning. “Will you please come down here, Barbara?” he whispered into the telephone. “Frank’s going to tear the place up if you don’t.” If Jilly couldn’t calm him, then I knew we were in trouble.
Recalling Jimmy Van Heusen’s advice that if Frank was drunk it was best to disappear, I reluctantly threw on a robe and took the elevator. I could hear Frank being belligerent even before I entered the bar. I don’t know what had set him off—maybe nothing. It was usually the booze talking anyway, and I’d learned to bounce with it. When I walked in, Frank looked up, bleary-eyed, and said, “What are you doing down here?”
“I came to get you.”
He looked around at his buddies and said, “Well, maybe I’m not ready to be got yet.”
“Well, maybe you are,” I replied, staring him down.
There was an awkward silence as he reached for his glass and took another slug. I shrugged my shoulders and walked back toward the door. Turning, I said, “Frank, I’m going to take the elevator now, and I’m going back to bed. I’d like it very much if you came with me.”
He looked right back at me and then downed the last of his drink. “Well then, why didn’t you say?” He stood up and followed me out like the puppy that he really was.
There were times, of course, when he couldn’t be calmed; he just didn’t want to be. I sometimes think he acted out when he was like that. He liked to push people’s buttons and test their boundaries. He’d always been easily bored, and his fiery personality demanded drama and performance. There was no doubt about it, Frank Sinatra was an event, and it wasn’t always the easiest of tasks to talk him down off the ledge, but usually beneath