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One sunny day last summer a big C-54 Army litter ship bearing shot-up Yanks from Europe swooped gently down to Santa Maria Airport in the Azores. A few hours before, a C-47, heading East out of America, had sat down on the same landing strip. It carried a load of Hollywood stars bound for Italy to entertain the lucky all-in-one-piece GIs finishing off the victory job these wounded guys had put across. Anyone could recognize one of Hollywood’s funniest clowns, Phil Silvers, two of its dreamiest song-and dance cuties, Fay McKenzie and Betty Yeaton—and a skinny, bright-eyed, bony-faced guy, who sings a little now and then, named Frank Sinatra. In a few minutes, the invalided heroes were lined up in rows of stretchers on the concrete strip, grabbing fresh air, coffee and a cigarette to ease their miseries. And walking up and down the aisles to hand out a first welcome-home were the Hollywood star bunch, knocking themselves out to make it a good, old-fashioned, impromptu American clambake. For Phil Silvers that was easy. He had a gag for every occasion—a million of ’em stored up from years of collecting belly busters. In a few secs it was Old Home Week. Half those hero guys, flat on their backs, hadn’t met their home bound neighbors. Phil, Frank and the girls ran up and down the aisles getting the gang together. “Missouri—you from Missouri? Hey—where’s that other soldier with the St. Louis blues?”. . and Frankie would go running. Or “Miami, Florida? Why this doughfoot says that’s just a suburb of Los Angeles!” It was going great until Phil Silvers came to a burly rock-faced guy with a sheet over his legs. “Me?” he grated. “Say—I’m from Brooklyn.” “Nail him, Frankie!” yelled Phil. “Brooklyn, your own home town.” Frankie came running up. But he stopped dead in his tracks when the guy growled, “Don’t you come near me!” Frankie turned white. The soldier scowled darkly. Frank’s tongue jammed, but Phil Silvers jumped into the breach. “Aw—don’t mind Frankie,” he cracked. “He just wants you to move over so he can lie down. That bow tie’s got him weary—he—” “Don’t tell me about Sinatra,” broke in the soldier. “Listen, I used to hack in front of Lindy’s. I know de guy. He’s dynamite. Say—what about all the times dem crazy swoon fans wrecked my cab? How about dat, Frankie?” The Brooklyn joke was over. He broke into a whiskered grin. “’Member me, Frankie?” Frank bent over and a happy wave of relief smacked him like a welcome shower on a hot day. “Katzie!” he cried. “You big bum!” “Yeah, Katzie—dat’s me, Kid,” the soldier chuckled. “But, Frankie, when you come to Noo Yawk—please—stay away from me, pal—you’re poison! And listen—don’t tink ’cause I got a scratch on my leg, I ain’t gonna be back at de old stand.” There are a double dozen ways Frank Sinatra has improved with his overseas experience. He’s got more audience poise. He learned to send his voice out stronger when there wasn’t a mike. He learned to out-ad lib Fred Allen. He turned into such a comedian and laugh-louse under Phil Silvers’ guidance that Phil finally cracked crabbily, “Look, Frankie—you tell the jokes. Let me wear the bow tie and sing!” But the best thing of all—and what thrilled Frankie most—was the happy realization that at last he’d smashed to smithereens the old ghost of absent GI scorn. | |
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ripe tomato reception... The audience he aimed to tackle had been overseas for three and four years. When they left, Frank Sinatra was nobody special. But they’d heard about the squeal-deals and the swoon-sessions going on back in the States, while they were blasting Krauts out of the Apennines in the slow, rugged drive up the boot. They were not amused. Hollywood Victory Committee officials didn’t disillusion him, either. They were nervous. “There might be some unpleasantness,” they said. Maybe some hoots and boos. Maybe some things flying through the air—like ripe tomatoes. You never can tell what a bunch of hard-cooked GIs sitting around bored, waiting for a ride home, might do. The war was over; discipline was naturally a little relaxed. It was up to Frankie. He knew from talking to Bing that you couldn’t ham and egg to an overseas crowd. “Those guys are hep,” stated Bing when he got back from his last year’s Atlantic trip, “but when you hit ’em right—brother, they eat you up. What a gang!” gathering stars... That’s how come Frank asked Phil Silvers and Fay McKenzie, Betty Yeaton and the pianist, Saul Chaplin, to rally round. Phil’s a very funny man, seasoned by vaudeville and burlesque, who can make a rowdy audience eat out of his hand. He’s played dozens of service shows with all the big timers, including Bing Crosby. He knows every laugh routine ever invented and has come up with sock comedy for USO units ever since Uncle Sam started the draft. Fay McKenzie you could call the original Camp Show Kid and not be far off the beam. She started a year before Pearl Harbor and has as many camp stands on her record as a cat has fleas. Besides looking good enough to eat as apple pie, Fay’s a swell personality singer who has done all right for herself around her home town of Hollywood and in radio and movies, too. Like Phil, she’s show business from away back; her dad ran a tent show and made early flicker silents and her brother-in-law is Billy Gilbert, the sneeze-king comic old timer. Frankie sang across the aisle at CBS all one season from Fay on the Groucho Marx show. He’d never met her but he knew about the soldier sweetenin’ Fay fairly oozed. He added Betty Yeaton, an acrobatic cutie who can bend herself like a pretzel but with a shape that should never be wasted on a beer biscuit. Saul Chaplin, the accompanist, is musical director at CBS, so he was not exactly confined to Chopsticks. They met in New York and previewed the show at Camp Kilmer, over in Jersey. Right before show time, Frank came up to Phil with a brainstorm. “Look, Phil,” he said. “Let’s beat those guys to the punch. None of this ‘And here he comes now—the great King of Swoon, Frankie Sinatra!’ Nuts to that. Here’s the ticket: Louse me up. Make me a silly jerk with every joke. Murder me!” Phil’s eyes rolled. “Frankie, my boy,” he grinned. “It’s a pleasure. And how did you read my mind, Muscles?” That night at the Camp Kilmer preview, Phil gave Frank the business, on a noble experiment. No guinea pig ever got needled more thoroughly. Every time Frankie peeped out of the wings he got slapped down. Frankie’d walk out wistfully and hang around waiting to be introduced. “Go away, Boy, you bother me,” snapped Phil. He’d point to the other wing and give a glamor send-off to Fay and Betty and when Frank eased out again, headed forlornly for the mike, Phil would merely look over his shoulder and crack, “Look, son—there must be a mistake—the Blood Bank’s down the street.” The whole show took it up. Phil worked the old burlesque routine on pretty Fay. You know, the one where he bets a half-dollar he can kiss her without touching her. Then he gives her a big smack and she says “Yes, but you lose. You touched me!” “H-rn-rn-rn-rn,” he sighs, “so I did.” and drops the half dollar in her palm for the bargain buss. But this preview night, when Frank muscled in on the gag, it was just another insult for Sinatra swoon appeal. Because when Frankie bussed Fay, handed her his four-bits and walked away, she yelled, “Hey, Mister Sinatra—wait a minute—come back.” Frankie grinned and strutted back as if he were the greatest lover since Barrymore. “Here,” said Fay, “is a quarter change!” That’s the way they rode and ribbed Sinatra all through the show. It lasted two hours, and it was an hour and thirty minutes before Frankie ever got to stand in the spotlight and warble one note! A pleasant surprise hit Frankie right under the heart in Newfoundland. Frankie didn’t expect to do much there. He’d been tipped off the GIs took a pretty dim view of most everything. As usual, Frankie played the Sad Sack fall guy, but when he got into his songs, the show-starved soldiers wouldn’t let him stop. Pretty soon he ran out of every encore number. “Okay, fellows,” Frankie offered. “Yell out your requests.” The first title they chorused was, “Nancy With the Laughing Face.” Frank looked at Phil accusingly. Phil looked at Frank the same way. Both of them swallowed hard, but especially Frank. How did these guys way up in Newfoundland know about that? Who’d primed them to ask? Frankie was puzzled, but he sang it, then he sang it again. It was the evening’s biggest hit. But when the show was over, both Frank and Phil chorused, “How come?” Because “Nancy With the Laughing Face” was a private, a personal Sinatra song. Phil had written it one day when his pal Jimmy Van Heusen (who writes most of Crosby’s melodies) was noodling away at the piano. He rippled over a tune and Phil, who never writes songs, suddenly burst out, “Jimmy, I’ll give you a lyric for that one!” Evening before, he’d had dinner with Frank and his wife, Nancy, out in the Valley, and the way Nancy Sinatra’s eyes always twinkled and her lips smiled stuck with him. Jimmy said, “Okay,” and in a few minutes Phil worked out the words. On Nancy’s birthday Frankie sang it over the air on his show as a special sentimental tribute to the gal he loves—and that was all. And now here up in bleakest Newfoundland that, of all songs, was the people’s choice. bow ties and décolleté... One thing Frankie insisted on was being himself in his Dogface Debut. So he lugged along a complete, super-typical Frankie Sinatra wardrobe—a sport coat that would blind a racehorse, shoulders padded out like the Brooklyn Bridge. He had collar points that tickled his tummy and some of those black bow ties Nancy makes for him which are strictly from Latin Quarter. In spite of GI barbers, he even managed to keep his floppy haircut. Phil operated in civvies, too, and his turned-up gag hat. Fay McKenzie had nothing but the slinkiest dream formals cut down to the eye treat limit, and in purples, yellows, reds; “exciting” colors. It was swell to spell back-home glamor and take the curse off olive drab. But it was also a problem. Frankie’s gang travelled in C-47s all the way. That meant they had to squeeze everything into tiny suitcases for the weight limit and live out of toilet kits. Of all the capsule tourists, however, Frankie was easily the neatest and most efficient. At Caserta, Fay McKenzie arrived for the show without a thing to wear. All her glamor gowns looked like they’d been slept in by a flock of sheep. She hauled out the red job that had accordion pleats, but in the wrong places. She sang the blues in front of Frankie. “What you need,” he said, “is Sinatra’s Snappy Service.” He grabbed the dress, slipped it on a hanger and dangled it behind Fay’s shower. Then he turned on the hot water full blast. “Oh Frankie,” she wailed, “now I’m really ruined!” But the guy just chuckled. In a few minutes he lifted the dress out, as smooth as silk and tidy. “The steam does it,” said Frankie. “I wish I had a dime for all the suits I’ve pressed that way.” At Foggia the Red Cross asked Frank if he’d care to meet a litter ship due to arrive that night. Frank remembered the plane at the Azores and the thrill of getting a grateful look from guys who had stopped the lead. “Sure,” he said. “It comes in at four o’clock in the morning,” they told him. sweet and low... Frank worried all night about that first litter plane p.a. It wasn’t like the one in the Azores in the daylight with the stretchers out in the sun. He didn’t mind a bit crawling out of his sack before dawn, but he didn’t know exactly how to entertain a bunch of sleepy, wounded soldiers. Four a.m. is no time to croon jump tunes. He’d be inside the C-54. He’d have no accompaniment. But they’d expect something besides “Hello.” He didn’t know until he got there, with Fay and Phil and the bunch. It was half light then and somehow all the soldiers stretched out and tucked in reminded Frankie of kids—like his own kids and himself when he was a kid—being put to bed. Without thinking he crooned softly the words of Brahm’s beautiful lullaby. “Go to sleep... and good night...” He sang it soft and low in the Sinatra voice that the public doesn’t often hear but which is mighty easy on the ears. Half the patients didn’t know who was singing. In their half sleep a lot of them dozed off again. Frankie, Fay and Phil spoke softly to the ones awake and then tiptoed out. From then on he never failed to meet a litter plane that came in. And he always sang Brahms. He sang patients in camp hospitals to sleep with it, too. Somehow, it was just the ticket. The funny thing about Frankie’s night-and-day schedule abroad was that it actually put meat on his bones, which is some kind of a small miracle if you know Sinatra. The only explanation is that he’s been starving himself all these years since he got famous, eating if and when he felt like it. But when you’re traveling under Army orders, you eat when they say, or else. Even on the notorious diet of Spam, Vienna sausage, powdered eggs and “beat-up bread and meat,” Sinatra swelled up five pounds worth. A scene that touched Frank very much was the sight of little Italian kids begging for food. Sinatra’s a sucker for kids anyway, of any race, color or country. When he saw the pinch-faced Italian moppets crying “caramella” and raking the gutters, he couldn’t take it. All the gang—Frankie, Phil, Fay, Betty, Saul—had army ration books entitling them to PX supplies of this and that—cigarettes, candy, gum, etc.—the hard-to-get items. “Look,” said Frankie. “let’s pool our points and load up on candy for these kids. How about it?” That was a brilliant idea that went into force pronto. What blood Frankie has (Crosby will raise doubts, of course, that there is any) is Italian and on his first trip to the home of his ancestors Frankie was intrigued by the Italian people—also vice versa. Frankie speaks only a few catch words in Italian. And after a certain experience with a gondolier in Venice, he stuck to English as she is spoke in America. They had rattled down in an army command car to Venice, with a play date over on Lido where an army camp awaited. The sleeper jump—as often happened—was at night. They arrived in Venice at 3:30, tired, bedraggled and dying to bed down. But something had snafued and nobody was there to meet and ferry them across. Not even the Navy “duck” that usually rocked them over the waves. But it was Lido or bust and finally Frankie called on the few Italian words he knew to fast-talk a gondolier into paddling them across. He thought he did all right, because the bird with the wicked black moustachios and gold rings in his ears said, “Si, Si,” and led them down to a decrepit canal canoe. They piled in with all their traps and the thing almost swamped, but Frankie was still pretty proud of his linguistic feat. He kept slinging pig Latin at the gondolier who kept saying, “Si, Si” and hiking them over the water. But in his enthusiasm he caught a crab with his paddle and drenched Frankie and Fay with a spray of Venetian canal water, which is not exactly sweet attar of flowers. They were all tired and sore and even Frankie got put out. “I wish that jerk would watch what he’s doing,” he said out loud. Whereupon the gondolier turned around and scowled, “If I’m a jerk—you’re a bigger jerk!” he retorted. Turned out he had had to guess what Frankie was trying to tell him in Italian, but American was his meat. He’d lived half his life in New York City! Wherever Frank went, a lot of the audience on the fringes were Italians. They didn’t know what to make of him. They’d heard about America’s great singer, Frank Sinatra, but when he gave out with Hit Parade tunes they just looked baffled. Great singing to them meant opera. Even his Holiness, the Pope, was a little confused on this score. One of the big highlights of Frank’s trip and one of the greatest events of his life, was his audience with the head of his church, the Catholic faith. The Pope had heard of Sinatra, all right, but that was about all. “You are a tenor, my son?” he asked. “No, Your Holiness,” corrected Frankie, “I’m a baritone.” “A baritone. What operas do you sing?” he asked. “I don’t sing operas, Your Holiness,” Frankie explained. “You see, I never studied singing.” His Holiness smiled. “I see”—and the conversation changed to other topics. But afterwards, Frankie ruefully mentioned his embarrassment to the gang. “What could I tell him?” he asked, “that I sang 'Old Man River' and 'Candy?'” crosby plugger... All of Frankie’s troupe, Fay, Phil, Saul and Betty went with Frankie to the Vatican and met the Pope, too. Phil hauled out three rosaries he had purchased. He asked His Holiness if he would bless them. “I’d like to take them back to Bing Crosby’s sons,” he explained. The Pope smiled and blessed the beads. He knew about Bing Crosby, too. But afterwards, Frank needled Phil. “A fine thing,” he complained. “I take you to meet the Pope, and you plug Crosby.” But he had a rosary blessed for little Nancy, too. It’s one of his proudest possessions and a souvenir of his most reverent moment. Frankie never sang any operas in Italy. He wouldn’t know where to start on an opera. But he did play lots of opera houses, the big, gilded, rococo jobs they have all over Italy. They needed sizable halls to handle the soldier audiences Sinatra drew. Sometimes they ran into an open air stadium that took care of the crowds, like the Forno Italia in Rome that Mussolini built for his Olympic athletes and then used to train the Fascist youth for war. Next to our national anthem, the song that gave Frankie the biggest thrill to sing before those patriots who’d proved it, was “The House I Live In,” an inspiring anthem about the great country we live in on the order of “Ballad For Americans.” But maybe the biggest tingle he got down his spine on the whole junket was hearing thousands of GIs give their battle cry. Looking around for local color at one camp stop, Phil Silvers uncovered the fact that a certain battling Yank division that had blazed its way up the boot, owned a rugged yell loosed every time it stormed into battle. Right into the guns the leaders yelled “Powder River!”—and the whole fighting outfit yelled back, “Let ’Er Buck!” let ’er buck!... That was a fearsome yell for plenty of krauts, but dear to the hearts of that division, so one night, playing before them, Frankie and Phil yelled out “Powder River!” at the start of their show, and ten thousand heroes gave them a thrill they’ll never forget when they roared back as one, “LET ’ER BUCK!” It’s moments like that that stick with a guy. Frank Sinatra packed a lot of them back with him—some funny, some sad, and some that reached right down to the ticker. Like singing to an outfit of Japanese Nisei who’d hung up a glorious record fighting in a tough spot for their own country at war with their own race. There was the running fun, too, and camaraderie of sharing good luck and bad, laughs and gripes, with a crew all plugging on the same job. Of holding breaths when the motor conked out on that take-off from Oran and the landing scare at foggy Foggia when a crash ambulance waited on the field. Of kidding air-scared Phil Silvers by whispering, “Don’t look now, but our pilot’s drunk,” and draping him with all the “Mae West” life preservers in the ship. And then there was the nice kind of feeling it gave when Betty and Fay went out in romantic Florence with handsome Navy officers, but came home early saying—“Oh, nobody’s as much fun as you and Phil, Frankie.” But nothing to compare with the tingle you got—and kept—when you discovered the guys who might be against you were with you—and the way they showed it, faking a good-natured swoon before they shook your hand, shyly asking for an autograph, or slipping you a message to give a back-home sweetheart, mother, or pal. When finally, their C-54 swooped down on LaGuardia Field with its load of weary troupers and joyful home-bound Army nurses, their pilot told them goodbye. And maybe just a bit symbolically, he made a gesture, the thing that a guy does when he thinks another is okay. The pilot took off his silver wings and handed them to Frank. “Here,” he said, “take these home to your little girl.” But Phil Silvers couldn’t resist gagging about the way it all ended. “The real reason Sinatra went to Europe,” he said, “was to show the starving Italians that we’re starving over here, too.” Then he played his topper. “If you don’t believe the sad state of Frankie’s health,” said Phil, “just look. It took 20 nurses to bring the poor guy home!” | |