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| by Frank Sinatra • Some character started a rumor that Perry Como and I were feuding. All I’d like to know is how can I feud with Como when I’m an honorary president of one of his fan clubs? I even wade through the club’s bulletins on the guy each month. It’s called Keeping Up With Como. I know every move he makes. When he goes to the dentist, how many benefits he played last month, his recipe for spaghetti. I even look at the Como snapshots they attach. Furthermore, he’s honorary president of one of my fan clubs. Now that’s something I’ll bet no one suspected. A mutual admiration society! And that's something you can say about almost all of the singing guys. There’s a sort of |
by Perry Como • Feud? Sure, Frank and I have a feud on. A hair-splitting argument. I want to give him a real hair cut. For years I’ve wanted to cut Frank’s hair, but not his throat. The other day when we both turned up in our mutual pictures on the MGM lot, Words and Music, for me, The Kissing Bandit for Frank (you’re welcome to the plug, Frank), I thought I had him! There was the barber shop conveniently on the lot. We even got inside, latched onto a barber chair and the tools. And what happened? Frank gave me a hair cut! He had just had a crew cut. Very frustrating for a hobby barber. You can’t show your talents off on hair that short! Well, that’s as far as I can figure out our alleged feud. |
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| harmony, a fraternity in the music business. We sit down and discuss things openly, tell each other what we’re doing, ask each other how this climate or that affects the other’s throat—things like that. I was such a fan of Bing Crosby’s, in fact, that he practically decided my life. When I was just a cub sports reporter on the Jersey Observer, I took Nancy (Mrs. Sinatra) to a neighborhood movie to hear Bing sing. After seeing the film, I became convinced that I wanted to sing more than anything else in the world. And that’s when I set my sights on a singing career for sure. Perry and I have more than singing in common. We’re both Italians, have Italian wives, started out with bands and, worst of all, we were criminals together once. Yep, we signed a bouncing check together. This is the way it happened. Toots Shor, the popular restaurant owner in New York, who is a close friend of mine, always kidded Perry and me about how the Italians were taking over the singing field. One night Perry wanted to pay his check there only to find he had exactly 34 cents. So he asked Toots to cash a check. With happy malice aforethought, Toots saw me there and said he’d cash it if I’d vouch for it. With a big flourish of pen, I counter-signed it. A few days later it came back, much to Perry’s and my chagrin. Perry had made a mistake somewhere in the writing of it. Although hasty repairs were made, Toots still likes to brag about how he had us both in hock. I think the feud story started when Perry came out to do his new picture on the MGM lot and they gave him a cocktail party. One of the columnists mentioned my absence. I was invited, but couldn’t make it because I was down at my home in Palm Springs, 130 miles away. I was entertaining down there and couldn’t very well walk off from my guests to drive 130 miles to another party. Perry understood it perfectly. I heard Perry sing long before I met him. I used to pick up the radio broadcasts from Chicago when he was there with Ted Weems, and even then I knew he had something. He’s the most consistently good performer in the business. Singers have their ups and downs, but that Como goes on an even keel in his work and never lets down. He has a clean and unaffected style you’ve got to admire. I like the way he likes the kids too. Evidence of that is in his recent adoption of a baby sister for his own little boy. To hear Perry rave about the new little Miss Como shows his interest is from the heart. You know, I’d like to do a picture with Perry if the right story came along. Mmmm ... now if there was a story about two singers who had a feud.. . and say, maybe that’s an idea! |
On the contrary, we’ve come to the aid of the party for each other several times. When my father died, Frank stepped in and did my radio show for me. Furthermore, I didn’t ask him—he offered to do it. That’s the kind of guy he is. When Frank was at the Paramount Theater in New York last year on one of his personal appearances, he became ill and couldn’t make the first show one day. So I hopped down with my piano player and filled in for him. That show almost scared me down to Frankie’s weight. After all, the kids had paid to see Frankie. They’d brought their lunches and were prepared to spend the day with him. Then another singer, unannounced, steps in. You could get yourself wrapped around a few hard boiled eggs and liverwurst sandwiches that way. But when a fellow singer is sick, you remember that old Golden Rule and get in there and punch for him. You know, the pit at the Paramount is a rising one, so I came up before those kids with my arms over my head, hands over my eyes, protecting myself. If I’d had time I’d have borrowed a catcher’s mask from the Dodgers. Well, it struck them just right instead of me, and when I explained Frank’s illness, they were a good natured bunch and we got along fine. No eggs, no liverwurst. In fact, it went so well I talked Frank into letting me pinch hit for all five shows so he could really get his health back. When Frank first got the ball rolling on his fabulous career, I had just quit singing with Ted Weems and had come to New York to go on my own. I went down to the Roxy Theater and watched him “send” that audience and decided the time was all Frankie’s and not ready for me. I hadn’t been in the music business ten years for nothing. It was no time for another singer to start flapping his wings. I took on a little $60-a-week sustaining job on CBS and wouldn’t even try the big time. You can’t start a vogue when another one is raging. Well, Frankie’s vogue grew into a solid thing. He was no passing phenomenon—he is an American institution! So later, when I went all out to make the grade solo, it wasn’t a competition. Frankie wasn’t climbing too. He was already a top man. Frankly, I admired his work at first, but now I admire more than that. It’s the man himself. He had something inside. It wasn’t just a voice, or tones that bend a few notes. He was a guy who had had a tough time, had learned things the hard way and grew inside because of them. Those things have made Frank what he is today. I admire his work with the kids, his efforts to promote better inter-racial understanding. As children, both Frank and I saw the terrible effects of minority persecution and that’s why we both stress tolerance and understanding when we talk to our young fans. It doesn’t stand to reason that we’d be intolerant of each other, now, does it? Except those hair cuts! |
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