RING A DING DING, INDEED

I’m still officially out to lunch (writing, y'know) but this is too good and psycho to pass up.  A book has just been published, titled Frank Sinatra and Me: the Very Good Years by one Tony Consiglio, who was Sinatra’s old pal from the ‘hood.  That's the two of them above. Since Sinatra died in 1998 and Consiglio died in 2008, the book can’t exactly be thought of as hot news but there is some good stuff in there.

The “best” story features some anonymous “broad” who was “dating” Sinatra and expressed political views that differed from his.  She went off to her hotel room to change into something more comfortable, and Sinatra ordered Consiglio to go up to the room, and when she opened the door hit her in the face with a plate of spareribs, which he duly did, and then apologized profusely.

What a couple of pantywaists.  I guess you could understand why Consiglio did it: if you said no to Sinatra you might fear ending up in the choppy waters off of Hoboken.  It’s Sinatra who comes off as the complete tool.  He couldn’t even handle his own food fights.  Of course I might not have said this quite so glibly pre-1998.

At least Ava Gardner got back at him.  Here’s Lauren Bacall in her memoir By Myself.  “The day before I was to leave for London, Frank Sinatra called to ask if I’d mind carrying a coconut cake to Ava Gardner, who was in the film with Bogie  … On the morning of my departure from New York the cake was delivered to me in a large white box - unpackable, of course, so I took off with the coconut cake permanently attached to my hand to keep it from getting crushed. I stayed a night in London, and then Bogie was at the Rome airport to greet me. He took me and my cake box to the Excelsior Hotel and I asked him to tell Ava Gardner I had brought it. He told her - she did nothing about it - so two days later I decided to take it to her before it rotted. I didn’t know her and felt awkward about it -  who knows what happened between a man and a woman when it goes sour? I took the damn cake to the studio and knocked on her dressing room door. After I had identified myself, the door opened. I felt like an idiot standing there with the bloody box - there were assorted people in the room and I was introduced to none of them. I said ‘I brought this cake for you - Frank sent it to me in New York, he thought you’d like it.’  She couldn’t have cared less.”  Hurrah for Ava!

The picture above shows Gardner and Sinatra in, as they say, happier times with a quite different cake.  The picture below, just conceivably, shows Lauren Bacall holding said cakebox.