Frank: The Voice Read Online Free PDF

the tiny apartment as, amid cooking smells and a barking television, the tanned and bewiggedsuperstar and his retinue enter. Sinatra surprisingly timid at first, Dorothy’s sweetness and Jilly’s gruff bonhomie covering the initial awkward silences. Frank then presents the elderly couple with an elaborate fruit basket and an envelope containing five $100 bills. Much more is to come, he promises. Finally, all material gestures having been exhausted, Sinatra and Garrick embrace, and both men weep. Sinatra tells his godfather he has never gotten in touch because he was scared.
    But now Dolly Sinatra is in the grave, and it’s safe.

3

    Even then he could wear a hat. Frankie had a charge account at Geismar’s, a Hoboken department store, and a wardrobe so fabulous that he acquired a new nickname: “Slacksey O’Brien.” Circa 1929. (photo credit 3.1)
    O n the sheer strength of her chutzpah, young Dolly moved her little family ever farther from Guinea Town and toward the plusher districts closer to the Hudson. In December 1931, as former business executives stood on breadlines and sold apples, the Sinatras (and ever-present Uncle Vincent) relocated again, this time to an honest-to-God four-story house at 841 Garden Street (a very nice address), replete with central heating, several bathrooms, a gold birdbathat the entrance, a mahogany dining-room set, a baby grand piano, and—like something out of
Dinner at Eight—
a chaise longue and gold and white French telephone (number: HOboken 3–0985) in the master bedroom.
    True, Dolly would need to scrape every nickel and dime, not to mention take in boarders, to pay the substantial mortgage (the house cost over $13,000, a bloody fortune in those days), but that was part of her master plan. She had already lifted the Sinatras out of the lower middle class. And she announced as much in the society pages of the
Jersey Observer:
“[A] New Year’s Eve party was given at the home of Mr. and Mrs. M. Sinatra of upper Garden Street in honor of their son, Frank. Dancing was enjoyed. Vocal selections were given by Miss Marie Roemer and Miss Mary Scott, accompanied by Frank Sinatra.” 1
    Upper
Garden Street.
    Accompanied by
Frank Sinatra.
    It isn’t so hard to imagine that the musical portion of the festivities had initially been planned for the two young ladies alone, and that headstrong Frankie had shoehorned himself in, to Marty’s displeasure and Dolly’s ambivalent approval. That she commemorated his participation afterward doubtless had more to do with wanting to wring every possible drop of family glory out of the event than with a sudden acceptance of his boyish dream. He was still a dropout and a ne’er-do-well, drawing free room and board under the expensive roof of 841 Garden Street.
    Since there was a depression on and no loafing was countenanced in Dolly’s house, he was put to work. His mother got him jobs and he took them—briefly, and with maximum reluctance. He caught hot rivets at the Tietjen and Lang shipyards in Hoboken, swinging terrified (he was afraid of heights) on a harness over a four-story shaft. That lasted three days. He unloaded crates of books at a Manhattan publisher’s office until the futility of it all got to him—and he wound up back on the Hoboken docks. This time, at least, tedium replaced terror. Here was a foretaste of a dropout’s future: In United Fruit’s freighterholds, on the night shift and in the dead of winter, Frank removed parts of condenser units, cleaned and replaced them. Over and over again. For anyone who’s ever done physical labor for hourly pay, Sisyphus is no myth. Did he gaze across the river at the brilliant towers, lit from beneath in Art Deco fashion, dreaming of the justice that would be his when he was rich and powerful? Did he hear Bing’s golden voice in his head as he unscrewed and re-screwed the condenser tubes?
    Of course he did. He was frequently seen, in those days, not only smoking a pipe like his idol