Lady Blue Eyes_ My Life With Frank - Barbara Sinatra [76]
On the morning of our wedding, Frank’s lawyer, Mickey Rudin, knocked on the door of my room and asked me to go with him and Sidney Korshak to one of Frank’s guesthouses. With my hair still in curlers, I did as they asked. They invited me to sit down. Then Mickey, a cigar in his mouth, slid a document across a table and said, “You have to sign this, Barbara, before you marry Frank.”
I glanced down, looked up at the two men, and asked, “What is it?”
“A prenup.”
I was shocked. “Does Frank know about this?”
“Of course he does,” replied Mickey.
I flicked through the pages of what looked like a complicated legal contract and tried to buy some thinking time. I had few qualms about signing a prenup, but I wasn’t so happy about the timing and the fact that I hadn’t been given a chance to have anyone look at it on my behalf.
“I really don’t think I want to sign this right now,” I said finally, pushing the document away.
“Unless you do, there’ll be no wedding,” Mickey replied. I could tell from the expression on his face that he was serious.
A few hundred yards from where I sat, frozen in indecision, I could hear the caterers laying out the tables in the Compound’s Grand Hall. In an hour or so our guests would arrive. They’d include the future president Ronald Reagan. Looking up at the man who’d held my hand through my divorce negotiations with Zeppo, I asked, “Sidney, have you seen this?”
“No, Barbara,” he replied. “But if you sign this, you’ll be safe.”
Taking the pen Mickey offered me, I decided to trust my best friend’s husband, and so I signed. “If that’s all, gentlemen,” I said, rising to my feet, “I’m getting married today.”
As I left the guesthouse, Sidney gave me a knowing look. I knew then that he would take care of me whatever happened. In any event, I thought the document I’d just signed would probably come into play only if Frank and I divorced, and after all the trouble I’d gone through to get Frank to the altar, I had no intention of divorcing him. Nor would I let anything spoil my day. Squeezing Sidney’s arm, I went to prepare to meet my groom, happy in the knowledge that Frank and I would never discuss money again.
Once I was ready to leave for the ceremony, I walked to the bar to meet Frank. An enormous smile lit up his face. “You look stunning, sweetheart.” He looked extremely dashing in his suit, so I said, “You don’t look so bad yourself!” I never worried about it being bad luck for him to see me before the wedding; it was hardly the first time around for either of us, and we loved the idea of arriving together. We crossed the golf course and entered Sunnylands via the back gate, and then Frank took his place in the main drawing room. He waved cheerily at all our guests and quipped, “Good-bye, y’all!”
My father was waiting to walk me down the aisle. The retired butcher who never thought he’d leave Bosworth was more nervous than I’d ever known him be. Willis Blakeley and I were a long way from Pa Hillis’s general store and the Spit ’N’ Argue Club. Any apprehension we had, though, was broken by the sound of Frank’s voice yelling: “Hurry up, Barbara! Everyone thought I was the one who wasn’t going to be here!” Laughing, my father gave the signal that we were ready, and the opening chords of “True Love” were struck up by Jimmy Van Heusen, who was playing the piano without any socks. Taking my father’s arm, I walked down a long corridor of white marble lined with some of the most fabulous Impressionist and Postimpressionist paintings in the world, but I barely noticed them. When we turned the corner into the vision of loveliness