THE LAST YEARS OF FRANK SINATRA
By Mahnuel Muñoz
EPISODE 15
“We have lived so much with the soundtrack of Sinatra’s music in the background that it is difficult to say where our real experiences end and those we have felt indirectly through Sinatra’s lyrics begin. Once we reach our thirties, we lose the ability to tell whether something has really happened to us or whether we felt it because of the way Sinatra sings it.
The memories inspired by Sinatra constitute a collective library of archival material from shared experiences.”
(Will Friedwald, “Sinatra! The Song Is You. A Singer’s Art”, 1995) Frank’s eightieth birthday is probably the saddest of his life. It can be said that the entire month of December is full of moments that test the artist’s weakened heart.
On Friday, December 1, the auction – promoted by Barbara – of 250 items that Frank had treasured for forty years in his beloved Palm Springs home takes place. In addition to numerous cigarette cases, boxes and ornaments made of noble materials and an extensive collection of paintings, including works by “Grandma” Moses, Joan Miró and Leroy Neyman, paintings by Frank himself, sculptures, two busts of Kennedy, a piano are being auctioned. Bosendorfer, watches, vintage radios, a golf cart and a 1976 Jaguar XJS Coupé that sells for $79,500. (1)
The sale yields an amount exceeding two million euros. Obviously, Frank is not attending the auction. He stays all day in a suite at the Waldorf Hotel, accompanied by the always faithful Tony Oppedisano. Barbara has indeed been present at Christie’s and arrives at the hotel excited by the large amount of money raised. Frank has nothing to celebrate. Each blow of the gavel has torn a piece of his life from him. Fortunately, the singer managed to save a few months earlier some pieces of special sentimental value, among them some gold-plated keys to the house in which he had lived when his children were still small. The phrase is engraved on them: “HAPPY FATHER’S DAY. “NANCY, TINA, FRANKIE.”
He has also kept the gold record they gave him for “My Way” and the pinky ring with his family crest that can be seen on his hand in countless photographs; He gives them both to Tony Oppedisano in gratitude for his loyalty.
Upon returning home from the auction, Barbara resumes plans for her husband’s birthday party. In the summer, when preparations began, the initial idea had been to have a family dinner in Los Angeles, and she agreed to that with the family. But in December George Schlatter, the producer of the 80th anniversary television special, proposes hosting the evening at the L’Orangerie restaurant, one of the most exclusive in Beverly Hills, and immediately the guest list grows to include Gregory Peck, Jack Lemmon , Kirk Douglas and their respective wives, as well as Tony Oppedisano and Eliot Weisman, Frank’s manager. But yet, Frank’s children, much to his indignation, are not invited. When he asks her wife for explanations, she defends herself by saying that “it’s not a birthday party, but a dinner with friends.”
Frank is furious and threatens not to go to the dinner, but he is too weak and sick to keep up with him. This fact opens an irreparable crack within the Sinatras. Tina will spend almost a year without speaking to her father. The matriarch, Nancy, tries to reason with her daughter: “Your father depends on you, children. “He may not be exactly the kind of father you want, but he needs you, and you need him.”
The next day, a family dinner is held at Nancy Junior’s house, attended by Frank’s children and granddaughters, as well as Nancy Barbato and Tony Oppedisano. Barbara, obviously, was not present.
On Christmas Day 1995, Dean Martin died due to respiratory failure caused by pulmonary emphysema that he had been suffering from for some years. He and Frank had spoken on the phone the day before to congratulate each other on the holidays and declare their affection for each other. Even though they didn’t see each other as much as before, they never stopped loving each other. Dean’s health had been steadily deteriorating since his son Dino died in a plane crash in 1987. Two days later, Frank prepares to attend the funeral but is overcome by sadness, and on behalf of the family Barbara and Nancy.
Meanwhile, in the city of Las Vegas the lights are dimmed in tribute to the artist who earned the nickname “King of Sophistication.” Dean’s death plunges Frank into a serious depression. In just a few years, some of the most important people in his life have abandoned him: Sammy, Ava, Jilly, and now “Drunk Dean,” as he sometimes called him.
“I have been asked on too many occasions to say a few words about friends who are gone.” -Frank wrote- “This is one of the most difficult. Dean was my brother, not by blood, but by choice. Our friendship has traveled many paths over the years, and there will always be a special place in my heart and soul for Dean. “He has been like the air I breathe, always present, always close to me.”
In one particularly somber moment, Frank told his friends over dinner: “I’m next. But I’m not scared. Why should I be? “All the damn bastards I’ve ever met are already in the other neighborhood.”
For Dean’s part, a few months before he died he told writer Randy Taraborreli: “When I’m gone, Frank and Joey Bishop will be the only ones left. Then I guess they’ll be next and we’ll all be together again and, damn, then we’re going to have a good time!” (2)
- 1.For art lovers, here is a list of the artists whose paintings hung on the walls of Sinatra’s home: Guy Wiggins, Max Kuehne, Frederick Childe Hassam, Everett Shinn, Leon Kroll, Ernest Lawson, Anna Mary Robertson “Grandma ” Moses, Milne Ramsey, Georges Rouault, Pierre Bonnard, Julius Adam, Romare Bearden, Henry Martin Gasser, Maurice Verrier, Joan Miro and Leroy Neiman.
- 2.Randy J. Taraborrelli is an American journalist and biographer who has to his credit books dedicated to Diana Ross, Marilyn Monroe, Michael Jackson, Madonna, the Kennedy and Hilton families, Beyoncé and of course Frank Sinatra; “Sinatra. Behind The Legend” (1997) is an essential title for anyone who wants to delve into the exciting life of the artist.
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