Lady Blue Eyes_ My Life With Frank - Barbara Sinatra [83]
The schedule was nothing short of energetic. Frank drove the pace during that period (although later it was his management team that pushed him), and everyone had to go with it. As always he wanted me ringside at every concert, so I went with him 99 percent of the time. Even in his seventh decade, his stamina was incredible. People would fall like flies from flu or exhaustion all around him and he’d just keep going, as long as he had “Dr. Daniels,” which he claimed killed all known germs. Not that he drank all the time. Nor did he always drink Jack Daniel’s. He loved European wine and would often drink the best red wines with pasta and meat. He rarely drank water on the grounds that “fish fuck in it,” but he could go on the wagon for weeks at a time, especially if there was a big tour coming up. And he never drank before a show, only afterward.
Having been the “skinny hundred-pound Dago” from New Jersey who once joked that if he lost any more weight he couldn’t be seen behind the microphone, he began to develop a little middle-aged spread. So he cut out the candy he loved—especially Tootsie Rolls and cherry Life Savers, which he ate by the packet and which would dye his tongue red. For his meals, he’d eat anything he liked, but in child-size portions only. It worked, but dieting seemed to make him even more hyper. On one interminable flight to Tokyo, he didn’t sleep and couldn’t settle, so he walked up and down the plane, talking to people and drinking all night. He gave his concert, then got straight back on the plane and drank and walked all the way home. I don’t know how he did it. I could never have sustained that. Maybe it was the adulation he always received in Japan that kept him going. The Japanese were crazy about him—their women would try to elbow me away from him. That was one country where I was truly grateful for the bodyguard Frank had provided for me at concerts from the day we’d started courting.
On the road and off, Frank had a team of people looking after his every need, so my chief role was to get the social side of things organized. My husband still needed company after a show, so I’d arrange a dinner somewhere, order a menu of (usually) Italian food, make out a guest list, and figure out the seating plan. We had several secretaries and assistants in an entourage of around ten, so I had plenty of help. Once we arrived in a city, we’d take over an entire wing of a hotel; then I’d get to work finding out who was in town and available. Close friends would be sent our schedule and invited to join us if they could.
Knowing Frank’s love for having an eclectic mix of people around him, I’d try to find singers and sportsmen, actors and industrialists. I’d research who was new and hot and who was not. When we got to the restaurant, I’d tell everyone where to sit according to my seating plan and just hope I’d gotten the mix right as the wine was being poured and the antipasti served. I’d never sit Frank next to someone he didn’t know or might not like. I did that only once, by accident, in Australia, when he ended up having to make polite conversation with a country singer he didn’t take to at all. That’s when the Mr. Hyde in his character flared up, and boy, I never made that mistake again.
The responsibility for Frank’s social life wasn