Monday, June 24, 2002
Her father’s daughter - THE COMMENTARY
By Joseph Planta
VANCOUVER -- Last summer I read a good part of Tina Sinatra’s memoir My Father’s Daughter. ABC had just done a miniseries on the life of Judy Garland, which was based on her daughter’s own book. It made me think of how we look at our celebrities, and how that view is coloured by the perspective of the offspring of the person in question.
I grew up idolising Frank Sinatra. In elementary school I was fascinated by his life -- the ups and downs -- and in awe of his ability to work a song. He had a way on interpreting a song that was unique and that was the envy of singers past and present. I read everything I could on Sinatra, probably wanting to be him at times. I bought his records and became a sort of expert on Sinatra. How many times did he marry? Cinch, he wed four times. The wives? Like the back of my hand: Nancy Barbato, Ava Gardner, Mia Farrow, and Barbara Marx.
Even before he died in 1998, Frank Sinatra was a legend. He was remembered for his music, but also for his films, charitable work and behaviour both on and off the stage. He was not merely a singer, no, he went beyond that vocation. He acted in many films, copping an Oscar for his turn in the classic, From Here To Eternity. Sinatra was synonymous with a way of life, that his reputation became a focal point of his career. His hard living, boozing and carousing with women, was as known as his renditions of “Come Fly With Me” or “New York, New York” or “My Way” I believe there are at least two books, merely on the style of Sinatra.
Being that I knew a fair bit of dirt on Sinatra, as a person and as a performer, I looked to Tina Sinatra’s tome for something I hadn’t yet known. I looked to My Father’s Daughter for something that Kitty Kelley must have missed in her own biography, His Way. (It’s a fat tome she wrote in the ‘80s, but pissed off Sinatra even though he hadn’t read it.) Always, it is fascinating to see our celebrities behind the scenes. Perhaps it helps us realise that they too are human, and not just ‘stars’.
In re-reading My Father’s Daughter last night, I read with interest the stuff Ms. Sinatra was willing to share. See, I grew up learning about Sinatra’s past whilst he was in his fading years. Reading what is Ms. Sinatra’s take on things in her father’s last years is most interesting.
The last real public appearance of Sinatra was during his televised 80th birthday bun toss. Before that, Sinatra had gone on the Grammy telecast to accept a Legend Award from U2’s Bono. Then, he was a dazed and rambled on. The network cut him off the air. It embarrassed those around him, and fuelled gossip that Sinatra wasn’t cutting it any longer. For some time prior to the 1994 Grammy show, he had been forgetting the words to his songs in concert. A week after the Grammy debacle, he collapsed on stage.
His appearances were few, and when he strode out on the stage of the Shrine Auditorium during his 80th, it was interesting to see the aged singer, silver haired (toupee of course) and a definite shadow of his former self. The show saw Sinatra watching singers like Patti Labelle, Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Hootie and the Blowfish sing to him. He himself didn’t perform, and it seemed (at the time at least) a decent tribute to a man who deserved it. Alas, in the Sinatra book, Tina goes into detail as to how he hated it, begging Tina to cancel it. However his wife Barbara pressures him to do it. Though they smile through it, she writes: “the show hung on Dad like a poorly fitted tux.”
Frank and Barbara Sinatra were the picture of a happy couple. Married the ‘70s (Ron and Nancy Reagan were best man and matron of honour) both seemed fiercely devoted to each other. However, Tina Sinatra paints her third stepmom with a whole lot of contempt and anger. She says it was all an illusion and that Sinatra himself questioned the marriage always. The former Barbara Marx was married to Zeppo Marx, a brother to the famous Marx brothers of comedy. She had been a Vegas showgirl prior to her marriage to Marx and upon meeting Sinatra, dumped him. Tina Sinatra notes that her stepmother raised a son, Bobby, whilst maintaining a career on the Vegas strip: “Picture the Demi Moore character in Striptease -- a fiercely maternal type making peanut butter sandwiches by day, donning her feathers and spike heels at night.”
The fourth Mrs. Sinatra isn’t loved by the children she marries into. Mia Farrow, Frank’s third wife remains close to the Sinatra children. Even Ava Gardner is afforded affection by the Sinatra kids, even though her love affair with Sinatra resulted in the break-up of his marriage to their own mother. No, in this book Barbara Sinatra is an ambitious woman after money and doing anything to make sure of it. (Even bugging the house.)
Tina Sinatra goes a length dismantling the picture of Frank and Barbara Sinatra being an ideal couple. Ms. Sinatra goes on about how Barbara Sinatra worked hard to inch the children away from their father. She also grew to isolate Sinatra from close friends like Dean Martin and probably his most closest of allies, Jilly Rizzo.
The most damning indictments on Barbara Sinatra are the ones that resulted following Sinatra’s death. First, Tina Sinatra smarts about the blatant way they were isolated from being with their father as he spent his last few minutes of life. Naturally, Tina Sinatra is upset blaming Barbara Sinatra’s own shrewd machination. Following her viewing of Seinfeld’s finale, Tina had gotten a phone call that her father had died in hospital. She couldn’t figure out why they weren’t informed sooner, so as to allow the children to join Sinatra en route to the hospital. Ms. Sinatra believes that there was significant time to have made it to the hospital to spend some fleeting moments with their father as he passed. She thinks that the failure to call her and her siblings (Nancy and Frank Jr.) was a deliberate attempt by Barbara Sinatra. “Barbara would be the devoted wife, and then the grieving widow, alone at her husband’s side.”
And then the most scathing shot at her stepmother was a recount of what happened at the funeral. Seems that the Cardinal officiating the mass had furnished brass crucifixes for the family and others to keep as mementoes. Tina Sinatra had wanted to give one to a close Sinatra associate she was sitting with. Barbara Sinatra had inquired loudly to whom the cross was for. As Tina explains, in the solemn church Barbara exclaims “No!” Right there, as she writes, less than a yard from her father’s casket. On top of that, she snatches the cross from Tina’s hand, which proceeds to bleed. The metal had pierced her palm to which she says, “I could only hope that Dad was watching.” To further assassinate her stepmom’s character, amongst the photographs in the middle of the book is a sunglassed Barbara Sinatra wiping her nose as she exits the church. She’s clutching three of those said crosses, and the caption below the picture simply reads: “Note the crucifixes.”
Yup, throughout the book she refers to Barbara Sinatra as ‘Barbara’ or ‘my father’s wife.’ Never is the term stepmom employed and I think for reason after reading this tome. Sinatra himself is put up on a pedestal by this book. He isn’t the victim of shrewd scrutiny or a hatchet job, as Joan Crawford or Bette Davis’ kids did to their parents. No, Sinatra is painted as a complex father who above his faults loved his kids. Perfectly Frank, as it were.
My Father’s Daughter was written by Tina Sinatra with Jeff Coplan. Published by Simon and Schuster, $38.50.
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Postscript: Soon after the book came out, word came out that whilst walking in their neighbourhood, Barbara Sinatra was roughed up by some thugs who robbed her. Tina Sinatra, went on Larry King’s show to deny any involvement. Other than that, there have been no mentions of Sinatra’s widow in the press. Nary a statement following the publication of this damning book. Seems Tina scored one on the bane of her father’s recent years. But more recently I did find this book on the remainder tables at the book store.
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An archive of Joseph Planta's previous columns can be found by clicking HERE .