Strangers in the Night, page 23
I checked in and was shown to the recording studio. I hung my hat and made my way around the room, shaking hands, offering a smile, pouring on the charm. I was more grateful than they knew, and I would act the part, show them they weren’t wasting their time and money on me. The band, at least, looked to be top notch and I knew right then we were in business.
“Hi there, Frank,” one of the executives said. “Meet Nelson Riddle. He’ll be your arranger.”
Nelson had a head of thick dark hair, a widow’s peak, and pointy eyebrows, but his face was open and friendly, and in spite of myself, I liked the look of him, even if I didn’t trust him to do a good job yet.
“Great to meet you, Frank,” he said.
We shook hands and he gave me the sheet music. We talked about which notes I should emphasize and the tempo of the accompaniment, exchanged a few comments about the lyrics, and got to work.
I stepped up to the mic, earphones on, and after a few run-throughs, I was ready to give it a real go for recording. When Nelson signaled the band to start again, I closed my eyes to block out the people in the room and focus. When I finished, my eyes flicked open to see Nelson looking at me thoughtfully.
“Your voice has deepened since the last record I heard,” he said. “It’s a little brassier than I remember, too.”
“Well, I’m not twenty anymore,” I said, reaching for my water glass, suddenly nervous my voice wasn’t quite what they expected—or wanted. Was I losing my touch?
“No, this is a good thing,” he said reassuringly. “It lends itself better to the music. It means . . .” He paused, scratched at the light stubble on his face. “I’d like to start with the brass first thing on this one, and if you could open with some vibrato. While singing, think about the lyrics. You’re mad about a girl so you’re the happiest man in the world. You’ve got the world on a string. Let’s see it.”
“I don’t have to stretch for that one.” I smiled.
He didn’t smile back but nodded. The guy had a real serious air about him, but if anyone could appreciate intensity in a fellow, I could.
I gave him what he was asking for; the lyrics flowed from my tongue and mingled with the renewed sense of hope that had buoyed me over the last month. Afterward we recorded a couple of ballads, too.
“This is perfect. Really, Frank,” Nelson said. “Your delivery . . . it carries a wounded soulfulness to it. You’re fantastic at bringing the emotion.”
Well, alright. Looked like Riddle understood me. I’d give this man a chance, but if the recording sounded lousy, that was it. I would still call Axel no matter how much Riddle complimented me.
“Let’s listen to the playback,” I said, reaching for the pack of smokes in my jacket pocket.
“I’ve Got the World on a String” began to play and I glanced at Riddle, who was frowning in concentration. The next few songs played, sounding different from anything I’d done before. They had more of an emphasis on my own rhythm, the way I liked to enunciate every syllable. Nelson had conducted the band so the music could bend around my voice and elevate it in a different way from Axel’s arrangements. It sounded fresh, upbeat. It was utterly damn brilliant.
He replayed “I’ve Got the World on a String” and as it ended, a genuine smile stretched my lips. This man knew what the hell he was doing. More than that, it took a lot to impress me, and I was astounded at the way he’d conducted the orchestra.
“That went a lot better than I thought,” I said. “It was great!”
He returned my smile. “I think we’ve found ourselves a hit, Frank.”
I was pretty sure we’d found ourselves a partnership.
* * *
I left the studio, whistling, my hands in my pockets to keep myself from skipping down the road. Maybe we did have some hits on our hands, maybe not, but one thing was for sure, I was relieved to be developing a more mature sound with a group of great musicians. This music I could work with. There would be no more songs with dogs barking in the background and all that other nonsense I’d been forced to sing for CBS. Between From Here to Eternity and my work with Riddle, for the first time in ages, I felt the inklings of honest-to-God happiness. I couldn’t wait to tell Ava all about it. Since George booked me for an international tour, I’d be able to tell her in person, in England where she was filming Knights of the Round Table.
I still couldn’t fill a theater in the United States, but I hoped I could abroad. My manager insisted it was a good move, especially with promotion for a new film about to begin. I needed the cash anyway.
But my buoyant mood plummeted fast and hard on opening night of the tour. In a theater that seated thousands, only four hundred showed. As I looked out at the paltry showing, I could barely make it through the night.
“Shake it off, baby,” Ava said when we had gone back to the hotel that night. “It’ll be better elsewhere. Maybe the press didn’t hear about the show because there wasn’t enough advertising. It was a fast booking.”
“How am I supposed to shake it off?” I said, fuming after more embarrassments in Scandinavia and Milan. No one gave a damn who Frank Sinatra was there either. We were four drinks deep and it had been a spectacularly bad night. The crowd watched Ava, not me. They wanted her autograph, not mine. They went mad for her, taking photographs and chasing her on foot or by car. They cornered her at the clubs. I couldn’t take it much longer, and I wished George hadn’t booked the tour.
“It’s like taking a beating publicly, over and over,” I said. “It’s humiliating. No one even knows me in Europe.”
What I didn’t say was how humiliating it was to be thought of as Mr. Ava Gardner and not the other way around.
“That’s probably good,” she quipped. “It’ll keep your ego in check.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I thundered.
“Ever since you finished recording with Nelson Riddle, you’ve gone on and on about how great you are,” she said, her eyes glossy from too much gin. “You don’t have to remind me of it every day, Frank. I married you, remember?”
So I’d been reduced to Frank again. My head exploded. “Look who’s talking! You prance around like you’re the queen of Hollywood, waiting for people to fall at your feet!”
“Aren’t I, though?” she volleyed back at me. “Stop acting so jealous. We aren’t competing. I’m on your side, remember?”
I swore at her, abused her with rough language that I didn’t mean but couldn’t seem to keep myself from saying. She had that way about her, the needling that set me off when I was already on edge. And she was no saint herself—something I’d always loved about her but was beginning to like less, all of a sudden.
We slept in separate rooms that night, and the following day, we trudged onward to Naples, miserable and desperate for this wreck of a tour to end. Ava refused to go with me to the show after another row that afternoon, but we eventually agreed to meet at a club in the city when the show wrapped.
The theater was smaller than the others I’d been to recently, but I was relieved to see a crowd lined up down the street. They packed the place; people stood in the aisles, voices boomed from the rafters, and excitement electrified the air. It was Italy, welcoming one of their own, and I wouldn’t disappoint. I swelled with excitement. At last, I’d have a real crowd—and I’d give them a heck of a show.
I warmed up with the band and when it was time to go on, the curtain parted. We began the first song with flair. I was hot tonight—we all were, I could feel it. When the song concluded, the crowd cheered and I beamed. It had been too long since I’d felt this way, like my music mattered. Like I mattered.
The band shifted to a new melody, gearing up for the next song, but the crowd wouldn’t stop. They cheered and chanted, and as they grew louder and more insistent, I finally caught wind of what they were chanting.
“We want Ava! We want Ava!”
I felt my face go hot.
They were cheering alright, but they weren’t cheering for me and suddenly I felt like the biggest heel in the world. Once again, I was reduced to Mr. Ava Gardner. They didn’t care about my show. They wanted her.
I stomped off the stage and blustered and shouted behind the curtain until I nearly gave myself a heart attack.
“I’m sorry, man,” my trombonist said. “I heard they promised the crowd a stage appearance from Ava. They sold the tickets for a higher price and told people they’d see her.”
I closed my eyes. They’d sold on her name, not mine? What the hell was the owner getting at, selling my wife? I’d felt humiliated throughout the whole tour, but this was worse—this was a betrayal. I wanted to light the stage on fire and crawl into bed. I wanted to cancel the tour. Go home and leave Ava to shoot her picture on her own, where she could tend to her adoring fans and leave me the hell alone.
Eventually, though, the owner persuaded me to go back out there. I finished the show, but I skipped the club after and left Ava to fend for herself. She wouldn’t miss me. She’d be surrounded by her adoring fans and forget I existed anyway. And yet, we continued on the tour. I had an obligation to fulfill and I was in no position to turn down work. Besides, George would be pissed and I respected the man. He’d done me right. After that terrible night in Naples and plenty of arguments with Ava, we headed to Rome. I was prepping to go on that night when a call came through from my manager.
“George, I’m in hell,” I said, lighting a cigarette. “No one wants to see me. They want to see my wife. Not that I blame them, but Jesus, this is a waste of time.”
“I’ve seen some of the headlines,” George said. “It’s not looking good over there.”
“Tell me you’ve got something better than this and I’ll cancel the rest of the tour,” I said, sucking furiously on my cigarette. “There’s only a month left anyway. What will they care? The press keeps taking cheap shots at me. The owners can’t be making much when they can’t fill a theater.” I winced saying the words out loud.
“I’ve got something better for you. Cancel the tour.”
I exhaled in relief and covered my eyes with my hand. Jesus, I needed to hear that. “What is it?”
“Zinnemann wants to start publicity for From Here to Eternity, pronto. He said the early reviews are smashing charts. People are eating it up, and your name has been thrown around a lot.”
“God, man, that’s fantastic!” I paced, unable to remain calm. “Get me out of here. I’m ready for the real deal.”
“I’ll put you on the earliest flight home.”
“You’ve got it. Tomorrow.” I was grinning from ear to ear, thrilled at the prospect of blowing out of here to avoid limping through another two dozen shows.
I hung up and gave Ava the news.
“Oh, you’ll have to go?” she said, looking up from her magazine. “It sounds like it’s important work, baby,” she continued. “It’s probably for the best.”
I stared at her as she said it. Her hair was wrapped in a bandana, her nails were chipped, and she didn’t wear a lick of makeup. She’d barely made eye contact and worse still, didn’t give any indication that she gave a damn that we wouldn’t see each other for weeks, if not months. And that’s when I knew—something had changed between us.
I didn’t bother picking a fight with her and that was, perhaps, the most disturbing thing of all. I didn’t care to argue, I just wanted to go home. Home to a world that wanted me—at last—once again.
Chapter 32
Ava
I’d never been so glad to see Francis go, and that was saying something. He was miserable and when he was miserable, everyone around him had to suffer, too. Thankfully things at home seemed to be changing for the better for him. A few weeks later, I flew back to the States to attend the premiere of From Here to Eternity in August, and to our relief, the film was a sensation. Everyone crowed about Francis’s acting as well as that of the other stars, Donna Reed, Deborah Kerr, Burt Lancaster, and Montgomery Clift. I had to admit—and I told him as much—that it was truly one of the best films I’d ever seen, never mind one of the best films of the year, and we both had high hopes it would turn everything around for him. I was proud of him and proud of being his wife.
After a few weeks, I headed back to Europe to shoot another picture. Francis and I spoke on the telephone when we could, but I could feel the distance growing between us as the days turned to weeks. When the movie wrapped, I planned to stay in London the few extra weeks needed to avoid the wage tax. Though I’d be home in a matter of weeks, Francis wasn’t having it.
“I’m back, baby, I’m back!” he shouted into the telephone from Palm Springs. He’d clearly drunk his weight in Jack Daniel’s and it sounded as if he wasn’t the only one celebrating. Voices and crashing noises sounded in the background. Frank’s entourage of admirers who followed him everywhere had multiplied in the last few months, and he loved every minute of being the puppet master and the man about town.
“Everyone loves me!” he exclaimed and then laughed loudly at something someone said.
I was happy for him, but I’d received a dozen of these sorts of calls from him already, and I was getting tired of hearing him stroke his own ego every time we got on the phone.
“You’re drunk!” I shouted back.
“Whoa, Angel, no need to shout,” he said, his voice now sounding far away, as if he’d pulled the telephone away from his mouth. “When are you coming home? I miss you. My success isn’t as much fun without you. Besides, women are throwing themselves at me again. Don’t you want to come put a stop to it?”
“What do you need me for if you have all of them?” I said. But I wanted to punch him right in the gob, as my new English friends would say.
“Come on,” he said. “You know you’re my girl. Come home, won’t you? Meet me in New York. I’m flying out tomorrow morning for a run at the Riviera club.”
“You know I can’t give up my tax break,” I replied, irritable. “I’d lose over a hundred thousand dollars.”
“That’s a drop in the bucket for you lately. Please, I need you here. We need this time together,” he pressed. “Are you really going to choose your career over our marriage again?”
“That isn’t fair and you know it,” I snapped.
“I know,” he said, his voice growing softer. “Come home, and I’ll treat you like a queen. I’ll pick you up at the airport.”
“Oh, alright,” I replied, suddenly so tired of it all. Tired of the constant struggle to keep our relationship together, tired enough, in fact, that I did as he asked. I booked a flight and flew to New York—and lost every cent I was going to save by staying in Europe a few more weeks.
When I landed, Frank was nowhere to be found.
Exhausted and bitter, I flew into a rage. That bastard had begged me—acted as if he couldn’t go on without me—and didn’t have the common decency to make good on his promise to be waiting for me. I’d made a huge sacrifice and he didn’t give a damn. I thought of returning to California the next day, without seeing him at all because screw him, but the truth was, I wanted to give him a piece of my mind.
When he called, I let the telephone ring until I finally took it off the hook. Hours later, after a long nap and a hot shower, I replaced the telephone on the receiver. It immediately rang.
“Hello,” I said, ready to lay into Frank.
“Ava, it’s Dolly.” My mother-in-law. “Why don’t you come over for dinner, honey? I heard you’re in town.”
“Your son lured me here, and he didn’t even greet me. How did you put up with his insubordination, Dolly?”
She laughed. “I didn’t. Just like you, honey. Come on over and I’ll make you a nice meal. You can see the new house. We’ve moved over to Weehawken.”
As it turned out, Frank had called his mother and pleaded with her to talk me down. I knew she was playing matchmaker and I could blow her off—and tell him to stick it—but I was too tired to resist, and I loved Dolly just that much.
As I expected, Frank was there when I arrived. His expression was contrite, but his blue eyes were as bright as ever. He wore a new suit and had a new air about him; things were changing for him. He seemed happier—and he certainly hadn’t suffered without me.
After a nice visit with Dolly and Marty, a home-cooked meal and a couple of bottles of wine, Frank and I made up and I followed him to his show that night.
“I’m really sorry, Angel,” he said, kissing my hand in the car on the ride to the club. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“You’d better be,” I said, but I was smiling.
At the club, people lined the block, begging to be let in to the exclusive show. I smiled as I passed and several people recognized me, calling my name—but this time, they called his name, too. I was proud of Francis. He’d really found his way back after such a disastrous fall.
Inside moments later, the lights dimmed and the band began, and my infuriating, adorable husband stepped into the spotlight. He electrified the crowd with “I’ve Got the World on a String,” and I basked in his happiness, his assuredness as he stalked across the stage, one arm outstretched. He was a hell of a performer no matter what had happened between us and no matter how insensitive or difficult he could be. I could forgive a lot when I listened to him sing.
When the band started a tender number, he met my eyes. They shined with raw emotion. Our love filled up the room and I couldn’t resist him—didn’t want to. This was precisely why we put up with each other.
As I blew him a kiss, he smiled at me from beneath the bright spotlight on the stage. I returned his smile and gave him the smallest flirty wave.
