Lady Blue Eyes_ My Life With Frank - Barbara Sinatra [78]
Frank’s friend Pat DiCicco sought me out during the reception. “Please, Barbara,” he said, “do me a favor. Stay married for at least three months.”
“This is our wedding day, for Pete’s sake! What are you saying?” I asked. Then I figured it out. “So who do you have a bet with?”
“Paul Mano,” he replied sheepishly. “Don’t say anything, but whatever happens, don’t get a divorce for at least twelve weeks, okay?” I have no idea how much those two bet, but knowing them, it was a lot. Pat was once married to Gloria Vanderbilt, and Paul wasn’t short of a buck or two. Of course, Pat won the bet. In fact Frank and I made it not just to our third month but into our third decade. I should have insisted on a cut.
My wedding gift to Frank was a Jaguar sports car in British racing green, the first twelve-cylinder and fastest Jaguar ever made. I’d hidden it at the Annenbergs’ and had someone drive it out and present it to him halfway through the reception. He was thrilled. Then during dinner, Frank disappeared, and just as I was wondering where he’d gotten to, I looked outside and gave a delighted shriek. Coming through a gate in the hedge was a peacock blue Rolls-Royce with half a dozen yellow roses tied to the windshield. Frank, who’d changed into a silk shirt that matched my dress, drove it right up to the picture window of the room where we were all eating, a boyish grin on his face. The evening party went with a swing after that. I can’t even remember what time we went to bed.
We stayed at the Compound that night, and the following morning I awoke to the vision of Frank’s smiling face. He was leaning up on a pillow and staring down at me. “Good morning, Mrs. Sinatra,” he said before giving me a tender kiss. “You’ve made me the happiest guy in the world.”
Later that day we drove up to his house at Pinyon Crest with half a dozen friends: the singer Morton Downey and his wife, Ann; the novelist Judy Green and her husband, Bill; and Paul and Sheila Mano. We swam and sunbathed, played games and ate and drank what we liked when we liked. It was heaven. Out on the tennis court one day, I played a winning lob, and someone shouted, “Nice shot, Sinatra!”
Spinning round, I almost tripped over my own feet. “Oh, my God!” I cried. “That’s me!”
After Pinyon Crest, Frank and I flew to Belle-Rive, Claudette Colbert’s stunning plantation-style house on the oceanfront in Barbados. The weather was beautiful, and we had a blissful ten days, madly in love. Frank told me he was so happy that he thought flowers might grow out of his nose. I had rarely seen him so relaxed. However long it had taken us to get to that point, it had been worth it in the end—for us both.
Several people asked me how I managed to calm Frank down after he’d been such a hell-raiser. My answer was “Timing.” He was sixty years old when we married; he’d been everywhere, done everything, and met everyone. He said that being married to me gave him “a kind of wonderful tranquillity.” As he later explained in an interview, “There were moments when it was too quiet … when there’s something lacking somewhere. When Barbara and I were married, I found it to be a better life. She’s a wonderful woman.” Then, of course, he spoiled it with “It’s too bad she’s so ugly!” In truth, he was ready to settle down, and lucky me, I was the one he was ready to settle down with.
TEN
Frank and me with his mother, Dolly.
COURTESY OF ALAN BERLINER/BEIMAGES
You Make Me Feel So Young
Being Mrs. Frank Sinatra took some getting used to, but my romantic husband went out of his way to make me feel loved and cherished every day, taking the time to express his feelings. He turned every day into Christmas.
Frank was often buying me something, and he would always let me know how he felt about me. For a man who was so macho in every other way, the purity of his feelings for me and his unashamed