I had hoped that the new "tell all" book by wife Barbara Sinatra (pictured above & on left) would at least reveal whether Frankie did, indeed, ever give a man the ol' Hucklebuck down at the end of the bar.Friend Juggy Gayles once claimed that neither Sinatra nor Lapinsky "never had nothin' to do with the Bucklebuck [sic]," but somehow I don't put much stock in the crazy ramblings of a seemingly senile old man (audio clip at bottom). The book is silent on the entire subject matter area, regrettably.
Likewise, while the book does discuss how Sinatra had a great eye for "stone" (jewelry), it reveals little about whether he was your man if you needed to middle a rock somewhere, or whether the classic crooner could even tell the difference between a realsville stone and a fugazi.
There's also little discussion of Sinatra's alleged ties to the Italian mafia. Basically, Barb just pulls a big "forgetaboutit," saying only that Sinatra hated how the media was always talking about him and the mob. He hated that damn "press," says Barbara.
But those shortcomings aside, the new book -- entitled "Lady Blue Eyes: My Life with Frank Sinatra" -- does provide some entertaining new stories and personal facts about the man from Hoboken. And not all of them so flattering...
The Clean & Neat Freak: It's Funny To Everyone But Me
Despite the rumors about Frank's connections to organized crime, there was never anything dirty about this piece of work -- literally. He really "hated feeling dirty." And then some.
Widow Barbara says that her old man would "obsessively" take twelve showers a day! Now, if you figure around 16 waking hours in an average day, that comes out to about one romp in the bathhouse ever hour and a half! (Talk about being watered down -- no wonder he needed a bigger Rug than Bill Self on his first Red Carpet!)
The apparent goal of all those damn showers? To smell like lavender -- what else!?! "He always smelled of lavender," says Barbara.
Sinatra's cleanliness even led him to create a moniker for himself that told the whole story. Babs says "he signed his love notes to her, Charlie Neat."
The Luscious-Lunged Lout
Barbara says that Mr. Neat could also be a little messy. A regular Poppy Gets Sloppy bully. For example, when he wasn't berating and screaming at some Washington Post gossip columnist (and "for good measure stuffing two dollar bills in the woman's glass"), he might be seen tossing a man into a phone booth and clocking him one right in the kisser just "before sliding the door shut."
And Sinatra's "definite Jeckyll and Hyde personality" was only exacerbated when they started pouring the sauce down his snout. Barbara recalled "numerous evenings when he was overdrinking with his buddies, making scenes from New York to Hong Kong." Oftentimes when he went out drinking, he would just "disappear," she said.
One of his favorite drunken stunts was reportedly to rip phones out the wall and heave them into any nearby window. (No word whether he ever knocked over an entire phone booth in a fit of rage, like De Niro's "Jimmy the Gent" caricature on Goodfellas -- truth be told, I still prefer Keifer's Old Man Don as that character in The Big Heist.)
But Barbara says that Sinatra did have a "dangerous charm" about him. That's one way of putting it. Like the time she says he "hurled a brass clock into a wall during a game of charades." (Which I can only imagine: "I was a horse! Whatsamatta wid you?!")
Barbara also says that Francis Albert loved his first cousin, Jack Daniels, but that if Francis started taking a nip out the gin, then you needed to run the other direction. "I didn't want to be around him if he drank gin," says Babs. She'd even run away, literally:
"Gin, I think, made him mean. [If I saw] a gin bottle on the bar, I'd turn right around and go back in the room and lock the door because I didn't want to deal with that," she said.
The Romantic: It Was ALWAYS a Very Good Night (Errr, Year)
The book says Sinatra really knew how to treat a broad. Barbara described him as often "attentive and polite." He would also "pick out amazing jewelry, including a famous Cartier necklace."
He'd also sometimes fly his wife off to Paris for dinner. Barbara was a real sucker for all the expensive hotels and fancy cars, calling it "all some candy jar." (Sounds like a lyric from one of her old man's songs).
But despite some of those better attributes, Barbara still says "he wasn't the most romantic" hot-head in the connected-guy belfry. After all, a "prenup delivered to her on the morning of their wedding" tends to give a girl that particular perspective. (She did put her John Hancock on the dotted line, BTW).
Nor does cheating tend to provide such a perspective -- an activity on which the "notorious womanizer" Frankie should have written his own book before heading downstairs to join up with Juggy in the corner of the bar.
But Barbara's book is disappointingly silent on that whole topic, saying only that she took a neighbor's advice to "look the other way." (How many fellas would give their left fava bean for a dame like that!?!)
But Barbara's book is disappointingly silent on that whole topic, saying only that she took a neighbor's advice to "look the other way." (How many fellas would give their left fava bean for a dame like that!?!)
The Generosity: Start Spreadin' the C-Notes!
Sinatra was also known for his "state of the art tipping." No cheapskate here. And again, he comes across like some real-life "Jimmy the Gent" and/or a five-minute Steadicam shot through the bowels of The Copacabana. Says Barb:
"He'd walk into a restaurant with a stack of one hundred bills and say, 'make sure to take care of all the busboys, not the waiters, the busboys . . . and everyone in the kitchen."
The Pet Peeves: Mama Will Bark
Even though Sinatra liked to go around smelling like lavender, Barbara says the hypocrite hated "women who wore too much perfume."
And despite his own crazy party antics, Sinatra also didn't care for lushes "who couldn't hold their liquor" -- reportedly not a problem that Barbara ever had.
Sinatra scores the hypocrite hat-trick when it comes to his further disdain for women smoking, which he considered "unfeminine." As a result, Barbara was forced to give up her cigarettes. As for the old man...
The Quirks: Life Is So Peculiar
What did Sinatra have in common with hardcore wrestling legend The Sandman? Unfiltered Camel smokes, that's what. But while Sandman was known to chainsmoke those coffin nails on his way to the ring, somehow I doubt that Sinatra ever fired up a butt during the middle of "My Way." Regardless.
And in addition to be "extremely neat," Barbara also describes her husband as "a great cook, a voracious reader and crossword puzzle ace."
Finally, Barbara says that her old man could be a a very frugal dude who really loved his grilled cheese sandwiches (he was found dead with a half-eaten one beside him). Given that I once invented a very close variety known as the Slimeball Sandwich, I wonder if Ol' Blue Eyes would have taken to my creation?
I figure the next time I'm in California, maybe I head down to the graveyard, lay one of my sandwiches right there at Sinatra's grave, and see what ultimately pushes up out of it. If it's a stinkweed, then I'll definitely know that Frankie's giving me the ol' Hucklebuck.
http://www.9news.com/rss/story.aspx?storyid=200792
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1392767/Obsessive-Frank-Sinatra-took-12-showers-day-smelled-lavender-reveals-widow.html
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/lady-blue-eyes-life-frank-sinatra-excerpt/story?id=13563176
http://www.collegenews.com/index.php?/article/barbara_sinatra_12674/
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