Frank: The Voice (113 page)

In mid-March, though, Pegler had a halfhearted last whack at
Frank. The occasion was the arrival at San Quentin of Jimmy Tarantino, the New Jersey lowlife and co-founder (with Hank Sanicola) of the short-lived scandal sheet
Hollywood Nite Life
. Under Tarantino’s guidance,
Hollywood Nite Life
had been nothing more than a vehicle for shaking down film-colony denizens with sexual and pharmaceutical idiosyncrasies: Frank had gone to lengths to distance himself, and to make sure Sanicola distanced himself, from the whole business. Tarantino had kept up his extortionate ways, had been nabbed and convicted, and now Pegler, who’d gotten mileage from the subject back in the day, was dredging up the past: “
Frank Sinatra, an intimate friend of Tarantino …”; “
Sinatra’s participation in an orgy of several days and nights in a de luxe hotel in Havana with Lucky Luciano …”; “
Willie Moretti … Sinatra’s original backer …”

It was a reminder to the Hearst-reading public that Frank had once been down-and-out and a little bit dirty. (Why Pegler didn’t dig into Sinatra’s recent investment in the Sands is a mystery.) The public didn’t care. The public wanted to know about Frank and Ava and the Academy Awards. Pegler was growing more shrill and irrelevant by the week; even Joe McCarthy was running out of gas. America was in the mood to forgive Frank, and Frank had his eye on the brass ring.

He went to prizefights and harness races and jazz clubs, and the whores came to him. New York in the early spring of 1954 was a cavalcade of pleasures, and Van Heusen and Sanicola were working overtime to keep Frank away from the telephone, maybe even coax a smile from him now and then. They were finally beginning to get some results. His smile grew broader; his pals smiled back. Five nights in a row, he ate with them at La Scala on West Fifty-fourth Street, Frank and Hank and Jimmy and the music publisher Jackie Gale, plus whatever hangers-on happened to be hanging on. And five nights in a row, they all told Frank that he was going to take the Oscar. Every night they closed the joint: late nights with cigarettes and anisette and gorgeous
broads and loud laughter. Frank would never let anyone else go near the check.

Then, very early in the morning of March 24, it was time to leave. Chester’s plane was parked at Teterboro; the sun would be rising in an hour or two. As Frank and Hank and Jimmy left the restaurant, someone at the table called out: “
Bring back that Oscar!”

Frank turned around to look at whoever it was, sitting there staring at him like he was God. He nodded. “I’m gettin’ it,” he said quietly.

He drove straight from Van Nuys Airport to 320 North Carolwood, for an Italian dinner. It was cool and rainy in Los Angeles, but the house was warm and smelled wonderful; after the kids jumped on him and he kissed Nancy on the cheek, Frank put
La Bohème
on the hi-fiand, just for a moment, with tomato sauce in his nostrils and Puccini in his ears, thought of another household long ago. He sat in the den—his den—and put his feet up and sipped Jack Daniel’s and listened to the splendid music; Nancy came in and sat down, smoothing her skirt decorously, and they talked for a bit, for all the world like an old married couple, about how the kids were doing. Nancy Sandra, in the eighth grade, was loving school and had a ton of friends—male and female—but while Frankie was getting decent marks in fourth grade, he never
said
anything. He played with his planes and trains and cars and kept to himself. And little Tina’s first-grade teacher said that she was daydreaming instead of paying attention (it would turn out that she had astigmatism).

When they sat down at the table, though, all four of them were smiling at him mysteriously.

He looked around the table—Tina giggled—and raised an eyebrow. Nancy ordered them all to eat before the food got cold.

They ate. Family chitchat, about school, about the coyotes they sometimes heard howling in the hills at night. Frank grilled his older daughter about boys; Frankie watched his father as if he were trying to memorize something. The maid cleared the table and put coffee cups
at Nancy’s and Frank’s places. Frank’s attention was distracted for a second; when he turned back, there was a small white box tied with blue ribbon sitting next to his cup.

He looked around the table at them.

It was a small gold medal on a thin chain, with Saint Genesius of Rome, the patron saint of actors, on one side and on the reverse a little Oscar statuette in bas-relief. “
To Daddy—all our love from here to eternity,” the inscription read.

Tears started to his eyes.

Frank looked at Big Nancy, for it had been her doing, of course: she was smiling that damn Mona Lisa smile of hers. He thanked her.

She just kept smiling.

The kids shouted for him to put it on.

He hung the chain around his neck and slid the medal under his shirt collar. He patted it twice as he looked at his family.

Then he went home alone.

The next day he awoke with a headache. It was still raining; the sky was the color of slate. George brought him the
Times
and the
Examiner
and yesterday afternoon’s
Herald-Express
and made him coffee. Frank opened the papers and looked for his name. Louella had called late last night; she must have something. There he was in Winchell: “
After being exiled too long, F. Sinatra rejoined the jukebox royalty. His balladandy, ‘Young at Heart,’ is among the Top Ten.” Good. A headline caught his eye:
NEWCOMER IS HOT FAVORITE FOR ANNUAL SCREEN AWARD. Good. But then, under Aline Mosby’s byline, the piece, datelined Hollywood, March 24, began: “Audrey Hepburn, a newcomer to movies who says she’s flat-chested and homely, is the hot favorite to reign as 1953’s best actress at tomorrow night’s 26th annual academy awards.”

He read on:

His gaze roved restlessly down the column. Hepburn a cinch … Best Actor’s contest a photo finish between Bill Holden, star of
Stalag 17
, and Burt Lancaster …

There.

“ ‘Eternity’ is favored to be awarded the best picture honor by members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, with ‘Shane’ a close rival,” the piece continued.

Here was Louella. “
Tonight’s the night for Frank Sinatra,” she wrote.

Was Parsons giving him the win or taking it away? He thought of the oracular pronouncement Chester had made when Frank had moaned that he didn’t think he had a chance:
Anything can happen. There are a lot of upsets in these contests
.

It was cold and drizzly, a night for keeping the Cadillac’s convertible top up. He pulled in to the drive at 320 North Carolwood and walked to the front door, umbrella in hand. The door opened, and there they all were in the sweet-smelling foyer: behind, Nancy holding the baby’s hand, and in front, Frank’s two dates for the evening, Nancy junior in a white fur cape and Frankie in an overcoat and bow tie. Their eyes were big.

He exclaimed: how beautiful; how handsome. Little Nancy beamed; Frankie frowned.

Big Nancy was smiling her smile.
Good luck, Frank
.

He kissed her on the cheek and thanked her. Then he kissed the grinning Tina and thanked her too.

He patted the pocket of his tux jacket, where the medal sat. His right knee kept shaking, as if he were running in place.

Let’s go
.

It was a long evening—ninety minutes, not nearly as long as the show is these days; but for Frank, endless. Donald O’Connor was the host, and he liked Donald; everyone did. But he couldn’t pay attention while O’Connor made his jokes and the audience tittered and the band played and the film clips were shown and the show halted for commercials
and started again and the endless awards were given out: his knee wouldn’t stop shaking, and the only sound he could hear was white noise, a buzz in his head …