Living With Miss G (10 page)

By the time Miss G and Frank came back from Las Vegas, they seemed to
have resolved some of their difficulties, but once back in Pacific Palisades they
were at it again. Trouble was, they were both insecure and neurotic. Both of
them had a sense of guilt, and both were aware the media were probing and
saying nasty things about their relationship. A love affair under the glare of such
unwelcome attention becomes something of a nightmare. Fights were part of
their lifestyle and certainly a part of mine and Hank Sanicola’s.

I would hear the quarrels start, hear the voices raised, hear Frank take
umbrage and storm out of the door shouting, “Rene, Rene, call Hank! I’m
leaving!”

I’d call Hank. As soon as he heard my voice, he’d groan and say, “Jesus.”
“Hank, Mr. S wants you to bring the car around and pick up his clothes.”
“Not again!”
Hank would bring the car around, and I’d be waiting with the broom

handle, which was our local means of transportation for Frank’s clothes. We’d
trudge up the stairs and hang Frank’s suits on their hangers along the broom
handle and take them back to the car. Hank would fill a suitcase with Frank’s
bits and pieces and put that in the car. It was all very serious—no laughter, no
jokes. This was the end of the world. They would never meet again—ever.

Occasionally, very occasionally, Frank would say, “Don’t take them all.
Leave that and that.” We would know this was really nothing more than a
lover’s tiff. If he said, “Take the clothes back Hank, and then come back and
fetch me,” we knew that was THE END. But, of course, it never was. Often next
morning Frank, not having left and not having been picked up, would say in a
slightly puzzled voice, “Rene, where are my clothes?” I would say with a
forgiving sweet smile, “Why Mr. S, they are around at your office.”

Hank was less patient than I was. He’d hiss at me, “Jesus Christ, Rene, I
take the clothes back, I come back for Frank, and they’re back in bed together.”
“Hank,” I would explain, “it’s their love play.”
“Couldn’t they invent something else? Judo wrestling or something?”
“Love,” I repeated, truly meaning it. “No one could stand the sort of torture
they’re going through without being madly in love.”
“Umph,” Hank would say, “Let’s abolish it.”
It was during this period of unhappy ecstasy between Frank and Miss G
that Frank’s children now entered our lives. Nancy had played the family angle
for all it was worth. Although one might say who could blame her, I certainly
could. She’d known her marriage had ended, but instead of cherishing the years
she’d had with Frank she decided to hit back. By the time Nancy and her
lawyers had finished with Frank he was flat broke, and Nancy was a very rich
woman, her fortune due to Frank’s talent. I felt this was mean.
Miss G left all her three husbands without ever extracting more than a
grubstake–a used car from Mickey and nothing from the other two—although
Frank was very generous once he’d started to make millions. After the divorces,
the three well-heeled guys walked away with practiced, well-satisfied smiles—
Artie Shaw with the broadest. Miss G was never mean to her past husbands and
never bore them malice, although she could be a teeny-weeny bit difficult to live
with.
For a time, Frank had to go home to visit his kids and would return
dejected and depressed. Miss G would immediately jump to the conclusion that
he couldn’t live without them, so he couldn’t live with her. A good subject for
any discussion.
Through his lawyers Frank got visitation and other rights so the three kids
could come and pay us a visit at Pacific Palisades. I should have hung the house
in black. In that first visit of Frank’s kids, Miss G got so mad she flounced
upstairs and slammed her door shut with an eloquent vehemence. Frank gathered
the kids and took them home. When he got back the fight was on. The way they
were in and out, banging doors, I was surprised we were left with even one door
latch that operated. One sulked in one room, and the other sulked in another. I
can’t remember if I rang Hank.
Eventually, Miss G softened to the children’s presence and would go
overboard to make their visit something akin to Disney World. (Okay, I know it
hadn’t been invented then, Miss G was just a little ahead of her time.)
Everything was done to please the hearts and light the smiles of the three little
monsters bearing down on us. Chocolates, fruits, cakes, ice cream, soft drinks,
toys, games….
They arrived with washed faces and pretty little dresses on the girls, and
little Frank, Jr., was cute as a button in his outfit. Nancy, eleven, was the biggest
monster because her mother had put plenty in her head. Tina was the youngest
and like any other little kid with her feet dangling. If little Frank or Tina wanted
to do anything or eat anything, little Nancy wouldn’t let them. She ruled the
roost. Frank walked around like a sick cat, homesick, children sick, everything
sick, knowing that nothing was going to work.
Miss G beamed and smiled and laughed and joked and knew that nothing
was going to work with little Nancy’s “No, thank you,” and “No, Tina doesn’t
like that.” Pretty soon she announced, “Daddy, I think it is time we went
home.”
In the years to come, Miss G and Tina would form a real living friendship,
so much so that on one occasion in New York a handsome, admiring young man
on a building site shouted down, “Hey ma’am, that’s a real beautiful daughter
you’ve got there with you.”
I must say I had a great deal of sympathy for Frank during this period. To
me he was always a gentleman—pleasant, considerate and understanding, never
treating me as anyone other than an equal. Even in his low, low days he would
always manage a smile and a “thank you.” I could understand well why Miss G
loved him.
What hurt him immensely was his pride. He had been Frank Sinatra, top of
the heap, and now he was down to living off a woman. Of course, he could not
bear this. Frank couldn’t change his spots and devalue his status. Inevitably, it
was devalued. The clubs he played were insignificant—so insignificant that we
didn’t bother to go to them since that would only heighten his humiliation. I
remember he had three shirts only. He would come home at night, and I would
wash and iron them so he always had clean shirts to change into through every
performance.
On November 1, 1951, Frank finally got his divorce. News that he and
Miss G were now heading for the altar was released.
By this time, it seemed to me that the marriage was doomed even before
they got within walking distance of an altar. Left to themselves without media
attention, they might have had a chance—a slight chance—of reconciling their
incandescent love affair with the realities of their different lifestyles and
possibly making a go of it.
Marriage, I thought, would kill any chance stone dead. I couldn’t see how
in their turmoil of quarrels they’d even have time to get married, but they did.
Miss G and I decided since Bappie was going to be in attendance, fussing
around like an old hen, that there was no point in me making the quick return
trip to New York only to have Miss G and Frank fly off immediately on their
honeymoon. Nevertheless, we spent days and weeks arranging Miss G’s
expensive and beautiful trousseau.
The wedding should have been a quiet affair, if one could ever imagine
anything quiet between Miss G and Frank. It was scheduled first of all to take
place at the Philadelphia home of Isaac Levy, an old friend of Frank’s. Then the
press got word of that location, so Frank decided to double-cross them and slide
it to another venue—the home of another friend, Lester Sacks. Naturally, the
press got hold of that location too. Frank would never learn that the press was
part of the air he tried to breathe.
The party that assembled was small and select: Frank’s parents, Bappie as
Miss G’s attendant, plus a few of Frank’s show biz friends—Dick Jones, Alex
Stordahl and his wife June, Ben Barton and a few others. All was humming
along like a sewing machine. Then the needle broke.
“God Almighty,” recalled Miss G afterwards. “That evening before the
wedding, Bappie and I were sitting happily in our suite having a couple of
drinks when there was a knock on the door. Bappie went to see who it was.
Couldn’t be Frank–not allowed to see the bride–right? She brought back a letter
delivered to the hotel by hand with the request that it should only be handed to
me personally.” She took a breath before the next hit.
“I opened it, all happy and sweet, expecting it to be from a movie fan
wishing me well. It was from a prostitute. She made that clear in the first few
lines to get the dirt properly spread. There were some sexual facts about Frank
and her relationship with him I should know. They were sick, sick, sick! Some
of them were too close to the mark. How could she have known some of these
things? How could she have known anything? God! I almost threw up. I did
know one thing–in the face of this evidence, there was going to be no marriage
tomorrow. There was going to be no marriage ever!”
I could understand Miss G’s outrage. Looking back now, I could have told
them that at that particular moment no one was going to get Miss G to reason.
The shock was too intense. Of course, Bappie and the group threw up all the
reasons to proceed. It was too late to change now. All the arrangements had been
made. They would be the laughing stock of the world if they stood up a real
preacher man.
So the parade started. It was a situation a bit like the San Francisco uproar
years before with Howard Hughes. Bappie was the go-between, bearing threats,
accusations and bombshells from Miss G to Frank and the assembled cast and
returning with denials, excesses, rationalizations and pleas for common sense
from the group. Eventually common sense simmered Miss G down to a
reasonable heat. Of course, everyone agreed that the letter was a deliberate and
obscene attempt to ruin the wedding and their relationship. Some foul bastard
had concocted this false, blackmailing letter. No one bothered, at that moment,
to wonder which particular “bastard” it might be. At a later date, Miss G and I
worked out that it could only have been one crazed individual–Howard Hughes.
This was long before anyone realized that he was a morphine-addicted loony. As
I said earlier, Howard Hughes never gave up. This was only the beginning of a
long and hectic campaign that Howard would mount.
The wedding went ahead as planned. Miss G descended the wide staircase
on the arm of Manny Sack’s brother. She looked gorgeous in the Howard Greerdesigned cocktail dress of pale pink marquisette, buffed out with pink taffeta
and strapless. With a pearl necklace and diamond earrings, no bride had ever
looked more beautiful. Dick Jones was waiting at the piano to play the
“Wedding March.” He struck Mendelssohn’s magnificent opening chords and
nearly died of shock. The piano had not been tuned, and the sound was horrible.
No one noticed, or if they did their faces did not show it. An altar had been set
up, and Judge Sloane, standing behind it, beamed. Everyone knew their cues,
and it was a lovely ceremony.
Once hitched, the bride and groom made a dash through the photographers
lining up outside and made it to their limousine, which took them to a private
plane waiting to fly them down to Miami on the first leg of their honeymoon.
Miss G rang me from the Green Heron Hotel, happy and laughing, “You’ll
never believe this Rene, but Frank hasn’t taken a swing at a single photographer,
and they’ve almost left us alone down here. You know what, and you’ll never
believe this, we dashed off in such a hurry that I left the trousseau suitcase
behind.”
I screamed, “Miss G, after all our work, after all that money! What are you
going to do?”
“Don’t worry honey. I’ve been walking along the beach in Frank’s jacket. I
left wearing the Christian Dior outfit–you know, the brown dress with the
matching mink stole. Was Frank’s wedding present. We’re off to Cuba now.
The luggage will catch up with us eventually.”
They spent three happy nights in Havana cruising and boozing along that
wonderful main Avenida that cuts through the heart of the city. In those Batista
years, with happy American tourists filling the place, outdoor orchestras and
jazz bands played on either side of the street. With tables packed, the noise
incredible, and consumption of margaritas and rum-and-cokes practically
endless, it was hard not to have a good time. They didn’t even have time to have
a quarrel. For them everything had changed. And for me–for the time being–
everything was going to change also.
They flew from Havana back to New York, then on to L.A. for their
California wedding reception in Pacific Palisades. Frank was determined to
make a big splash and engaged a pleasant black lady to take over, who
apparently had been in charge of all Barbara Hutton’s socialite parties.
She was very pleasant and certainly knew what she was doing. All I had to
do was show her where all the materials were. It was a good party. Pacific
Palisades was a big house made for parties, and from then on there were quite a
few of them, with Miss G as the hostess who could, if necessary, drink any of
the guests under the table. We were also being helped at this time by a middleaged black couple. They were very sweet people who had been around us for a
long time and were anxious to get jobs.
It was now that I began to realize that with a married couple living on the
premises who could handle all the household affairs and look after Miss G and
Frank as well, that I was really a bit redundant. This became clearer every day.
I knew that Miss G was a bit embarrassed about the situation, so I helped
her out. I said, “Miss G, maybe I should go back to St. Louis for a few weeks’
holiday and see my folks again. You can always get on the phone if I’m really
needed.” Miss G looked me straight in the eye and knew exactly what I was
doing. At this point it was the only sensible thing to do.
We both knew that the chances of her marriage succeeding were not even
fifty-fifty. This was a never-spoken, deep-down thought that slid between us.
The marriage had to be given a chance–a huge chance, a great boost. Who
knew? It might suddenly take off and ricochet among the stars.
I said goodbye to Miss G and Frank and said the usual silly things. “Have a
great time. I’m just taking a few weeks off. I’ll see you again soon.” Miss G
gave me a great hug that said more than words could. I packed my bag, and Miss
G took me to the station. I looked out of the window and didn’t see much that
was going on out there. I thought, “Oh God, how can I live without her laughter
and her chatter and Frank and their rows and the drama and the uproar?” Then I
swallowed very hard and looked out at the scenery again and thought, “Well,
maybe it won’t be all that long.”
Back home in St. Louis my parents welcomed me as the successful
daughter. You know, the one who works for The Miss Ava Gardner. My mother
and Miss G really got on like a house on fire. They’d met and hugged, and Miss
G, I swear to God, thought she was as much her mother as she was mine. It was
my mother who Miss G would ring up and talk to about my health and where I
was and what I was doing. My mother was the same. “Now Rene,” she’d say,
“you be certain that you look after that girl.” I’d groan and say, “Mama….”
Then I wouldn’t say anything. I suppose I got them both stuck in my heart.
I was hoping I wasn’t kidding myself about the phone calls, but I was
pleased when the first one came from Miss G not long after I arrived in St.
Louis. Naturally, I had to get my mother unglued from the receiver before I
could get a word in edgewise, but then we chatted together.
I said I was enjoying meeting my old friends and spending all my money
and seeing all the old familiar places, which weren’t quite as pretty as those
along the Pacific coast. Miss G said she was starting
The Snows of Kilimanjaro