Bogie & Bacall: The Surprising True Story of Hollywood's Greatest Love Affair

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall both had 'emotional affairs', but remained 'devoted to each other', author William J. Mann asserts in his new book Bogie & Bacall: The Surprising True Story of Hollywood's Greatest Love Affair. Humphrey  Bogart “was already a serious drinker by the age of 22,” and his drunkenness often resulted in public brawls. Married and divorced twice, his third marriage was foundering when he was cast opposite newcomer Bacall—producer Howard Hawks had just changed her name from Betty—in To Have and Have Not. Bacall, 18 at the time, recalled thinking that “he was a good actor, but I never palpitated over him like many a lady did… He was not the prince on the white horse that I had imagined.” Nevertheless, by the end of filming, they had become lovers, and in 1945, they married. The ambitious Bacall also craved her absent father’s love; despite undeniable success, she felt like an imposter, “unworthy of what she’d been given, while at the same time convinced that she deserved more.” Bacall and Bogart's marriage was never as simple as a silver screen idyll. A passage unpacks Bacall's fascination with the presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson, reading between the lines of her memoir to understand their relationship. In Bacall's own words, it's clear the two had, at the least, 'an emotional affair,' if not also a physical one. Another affair that Bogart was somewhat wary of was with Frank Sinatra. 

On the campaign train to Pennsylvania, while Bogart dozed, Bacall and Adlai Stevenson huddled in close conversation. "At every speech from the beginning—every platform, breakfast, lunch—Stevenson would catch my eye and wave and smile at me," Bacall wrote. "To my fantasizing mind he seemed so vulnerable." Such intimacy was bound to cause talk. Stevenson was the first major-party nominee to be divorced. "For glamour, the Democrats have beautiful Lauren Bacall," one newspaper observed. By the end of the campaign, Bacall was thoroughly smitten. Stevenson, she believed, "needed a wife, someone to share his life with." In her memoir, she was remarkably candid about her feelings. "I fantasized that I would be a long-distance partner, a good friend he could feel free to talk with about anything." What she wanted was to be "connected with a great man capable of bettering the world"—something her own husband wasn't apparently capable of. "It takes one person," Bacall wrote, "who has real passion to unleash one's own comparable passions." Having met Adlai Stevenson had changed Bacall's life. "I was never the same again," she said.

Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart are arguably Hollywood's greatest love story, but their relationship was nuanced and complicated. Bacall was 28 when she met Stevenson. She was just 20 when she'd married Bogie, who was 25 years her senior. Their legend would play down the personal cost of their age difference. When Bacall met Stevenson, she was in the prime of her life; Bogie had long since passed his. He was increasingly frail, years of heavy drinking and smoking taking their toll. Bacall had never been able to sow her oats the way Bogie had done in his own youth. So, she was doing that now, making her own decisions and establishing her own relationships, discovering that she liked being Miss Bacall at least as much as being Mrs. Bogart. On election night, Bogie had a virus and stayed back at the hotel. Bacall did not stick around to care for him. "Having come this far," she wrote, "I was not about to miss anything." At the governor's mansion, the expectant jubilation quickly turned into despair as Eisenhower won in a landslide. Bacall was overcome as she listened to Stevenson make his concession speech. "I sobbed my way back to our room," Bacall wrote, where she found Bogie more upset about running out of quarters for the pay TV set than he was about the election. 

"Until Adlai Stevenson, I was a perfectly happy woman with a husband whom I loved—a beautiful son and daughter—some success in my work—a beautiful home—money—not a care in the world." But Stevenson, she wrote, "shook me up completely." On the flight back to L.A., "I was far away from Bogie," Bacall admitted, "my thoughts on the man I had left behind." She was determined "not to have Stevenson vanish completely" from her life. Her husband was starting to object. "Miss Bacall supports wholeheartedly Governor Stevenson, up to the vomiting point," Bogie noted dryly to his friend and director John Huston. During the campaign, Bogie had shared an idea with his wife for a cartoon: Bogie and their two kids would be at their front door. Stephen would ask, "Daddy, where's Mommy?" and Bogie would reply forlornly, "With Adlai." Still, when Bogie was in Italy shooting Beat the Devil, Bacall flew to New York. At a party being given for Stevenson, she was "not at all sad to be the only Bogart present." After the soiree, the governor took Bacall on his arm and escorted her back to her hotel. In her telling of it, Bacall seems to have been hoping he would come upstairs with her. "I wanted to talk to him alone, to talk personally," she wrote. "Though I wasn't sure he would get that personal with me, the implication was that he would." If she made the offer, Stevenson declined. Had she been prepared to begin an extramarital affair with Stevenson that night? A close read of her memoir gives the impression she was. "He did like to flirt," she wrote about Stevenson, "and he did know I had a solid crush on him." 

She made all the obligatory qualifications: "It wasn't that I was dissatisfied with Bogie or loved him any less, but Stevenson could help a different, obviously dormant part of me to grow." In her fantasy, she could have it both ways: "Short of leaving husband and home—which I had no desire or intention of doing—I would see Stevenson when I could and keep the thread of my presence alive in his consciousness." While in New York, the pair arranged to meet again in California, where Stevenson was giving a speech. At the designated time and place, Bacall was right up front. "Stevenson caught my eye—or I caught his—or we caught each other's," she wrote. They planned a rendezvous in Palm Springs, where the governor was heading for some rest. With her "imagination going at full tilt," Bacall headed out to the desert, her children left with nursemaids. "I was included in all his activities which only fed my fantasy," she wrote. She accompanied Stevenson to dinners with friends. If a sexual relationship developed between the two, it was likely there, in the shadow of the San Jacinto Mountains and far away from watchful eyes. Bacall was eager to see Stevenson again, but Bogie, now home from Italy, declared, "Absolutely not!" 

Her husband's jealousy, Bacall wrote, "had come out before and would again. He held himself in check most of the time, but when it got to be too much, he let loose." She defied him and flew to Illinois, which was surely a sharp slap to Bogart's ego. Still, things didn't turn out the way Bacall wanted, either. Any hope for the sort of intimacy she had enjoyed with Stevenson in Palm Springs was dashed. Other people were always around. "All very proper," Bacall wrote. Buffie Ives was more hostile than ever, asking her "very pointedly" about her husband and children. "I was flattered that she might consider me a threat," Bacall wrote. But the threat had likely been overestimated. The next day, on her way to the airport, Bacall stopped by Stevenson's farm in Libertyville to say goodbye. She found Adlai entertaining one of his "devoted followers," whose name she claimed not to remember. Although they exchanged warm farewells, the Bacall-Stevenson romance had come to an end. Although she would continue to speak highly of Stevenson and would support him for president again, the intensity of their interactions was now in the past. Bacall got onto the plane and returned to her husband and children.

When Bogie got sick a few years later, Bacall was steadfast; she really did love him, even if she wasn't always emotionally faithful to him. There would be a similar infatuation with Frank Sinatra a couple of years after Stevenson, one that would linger past Bogie's death. But Bogart, too, had his own emotional infidelity, turning to his old flame Verita "Pete" Thompson, closer in age and temperament to him, as Bacall began pursuing independent amours. Yet none of this should undercut the love story of Bogie and Bacall. Absolute fidelity need not be a requirement for true love. They believed in and boosted each other. In the beginning, Bogie had nurtured a young woman inexperienced with fame and public life. At the end, Bacall slept beside her eighty-pound husband in his hospital bed. Hollywood tells stories that give us legends; the truth gives us human beings who have their own stories beyond the eyes of the world. After receiving his prognosis, Bogie’s stress and resentment made him self-destructive, drinking until dawn. At one point during this period, drunk as a skunk, he attempted to eat glass, going “too far with his peculiar humor,” the agent Irving “Swifty” Lazar said, and cutting his mouth severely. Bacall did her best to subdue him; she was still the only one who could.  

Bogie saw what was happening. His wife’s career was at a standstill. Their social life was nonexistent, except for when friends came to visit. He knew that Betty needed a break and that she missed the carefree antics of the Rat Pack. “Bogie would make me go to dinner,” she recalled. “Because he wasn’t up to it, he said, was no reason why I should stay home all the time.” Although he had come to depend on her for most everything, “realistically he felt I had to get out once in a while,” she wrote. Yet the fact remains that her return to society meant a return to Sinatra’s society, and that only deepened her attachment to the famous singer. Bogie had to know that would happen, but he encouraged his wife’s respite. Sinatra became Betty’s sounding board about Bogie’s care, his doctors’ advice, and whether she should return to work. “There’s no question that she became more fixated on Sinatra during Bogie’s illness,” said her publicist. “Sinatra was young and healthy and vibrant, such a change from oxygen machines.” 

For the most part, Betty and Frank avoided being seen in public, tending to socialize with others from the Rat Pack in their homes. They were, however, spotted together at the Art Aragon–Cisco Andrade prizefight. As with Stevenson, Betty developed an increasingly proprietary attitude regarding Sinatra. And also, as with the earlier relationship, it has never been fully clear how Frank returned Betty’s feelings. When Bacall ran into Sinatra at Romanoff’s not long after, Betty made a point of sitting in Sinatra’s lap, even as Bogie, on one of his rare outings, sat beside them. It’s very possible that Bogie’s distancing himself from Sinatra had as much to do with his mob connections as it did with his wife’s infatuation. Even if Sinatra’s relationship with the mob was more “mutual admiration than affiliation,” just the perception of impropriety would have been enough to keep Bogie away. But not Betty. A few nights later, she was back in the audience for Frank’s show, knowing that once he sang his last number, the floor would be hers. Natalie Schafer, with whom Bogie appeared in the TV adaptation of The Petrified Forest, remembered visiting him toward the end. “He turned to me one day when we were talking alone,” she told an interviewer, “and he said, ‘Keep your eye on Betty. Don’t let her get mixed up with those jerks out there.’” 

Just who he considered “those jerks” to be is unknown. He clearly didn’t mean his friends, Niven, Romanoff, or people such as the Durochers and Goetzes. But there were those out there whom he worried about. The Sands was full of them. Despite his serenade of Betty, Sinatra’s date for the week was reported to be Kim Novak, and Earl Wilson reported that he was on the phone regularly with “his beautiful protégé” Peggy Connelly. Wilson revealed that Frank had phoned all his friends back east to go see Connelly’s debut at the Blue Angel nightclub. “Results: biggest opening there ever,” Wilson wrote. Connelly was seven years younger than Bacall; Novak was nine years younger. The doctors suggested that injections of nitrogen mustard might help with the pain, but they clearly saw it as a palliative, or possibly as an attempt to keep Bogie’s hopes up. But the nitrogen only made him dizzier and more nauseous. At least once, he fainted when he stood up from bed. To get around the house, he now had to literally lean on Betty. He apologized for being a burden on her. She wouldn’t hear of it. “I love you to lean on me,” she told him. Bogie said nothing about dying. So Betty kept up the game. After all, he had told her. “If you’re okay, then I am. If you’re upset, then I am.” She choked back her emotions and put on a cheerful face. friend. It’s to be hoped that at the end of his life, some of the old demons were at last chased away and Bogie finally understood what it felt like to be loved. 

After Bogie's death, Betty seemed to find her proximity to the dangerous elements of Sinatra’s life exciting. She’d been current as Bogart’s wife for twelve years, but now she was adrift, looking for a way to stay on top. And no one was more current than Frank Sinatra. It’s also true that he was very solicitous toward her at a time when Betty needed some tender loving care. Frank took her for drives down to Palm Springs, showed up at Bellagio Road with flowers in hand, invited her to join him at the Villa Capri. He was sexy, dynamic, vital. He made Betty feel alive after the long ordeal of Bogie’s illness and death. Betty admitted that she found Frank “wildly attractive, electrifying” and indulged herself with a belief that “behind that swinging façade” lay “a lonely, restless man, one who wants a wife and a home.” “A favorite subject of speculation in romance-conscious Hollywood today is whether Frank Sinatra will marry Lauren Bacall, widow of his good friend, Humphrey Bogart,” reported the Associated Press. Both parties denied that there were wedding bells in their future, but that didn’t stop the talk. But then, all at once, he asked her to marry him. According to Betty, Frank said he was finally facing up to his feelings for her. Betty had imagined such a moment many times, and now that it was happening, all her doubts retreated from her mind and she immediately said yes. They called Swifty Lazar to join them in a celebration at the Imperial Gardens, a Japanese restaurant on the Sunset Strip. “I was giddy with joy,” Betty remembered, “felt like laughing every time I opened my mouth. My life would go on. The children would have a father. I would have a husband. We’d have a home again.” At first, Lazar was convinced that they were putting him on, but he finally raised a glass to toast them. 

According to Betty’s account, they brainstormed about where they would hold the ceremony. When a fan came up to their table and asked for their autographs, Sinatra told Betty to put down her new name. She wrote, “Betty Sinatra.” Still, they agreed to wait awhile before making the announcement. Not long after that, while Frank was performing in Miami, Betty accompanied Lazar to the theater, where they ran into Louella Parsons. At least, this was the story as Betty would tell it. When she spotted Betty, the columnist pounced, asking the usual question about when she and Sinatra would tie the knot. Betty suggested, a bit brazenly, that Parsons ask Frank. Before she could spill any more beans, she wrote in her memoir, she made a beeline for the ladies’ room. When she emerged, she saw Lazar and Parsons deep in hushed conversation but thought nothing of it. That was, until the next morning, when she spotted a headline in the Los Angeles Examiner: LAUREN ANSWERS YES TO SINATRA’S PROPOSAL. It wasn’t just an item in Parsons’s column; it was a full-fledged news story, syndicated across the country. Betty recalled, but he didn’t seem overly upset. Bacall had many reasons for insisting, first to Sinatra during that phone call and later in her memoir, that she had not divulged the secret to Parsons. But Parsons told a different version of the story. According to the columnist, she didn’t run into Bacall at the theater but rather at an after-party thrown by Zsa Zsa Gabor, whose sister Eva was starring with Noël Coward in a production of his play Present Laughter at the Huntington Hartford Theatre. In her memoir, Betty wrote that the show had been Emlyn Williams’s tribute to Charles Dickens. However, newspapers confirm that it was the Coward show, playing at the Huntington Hartford the night before Parsons published her scoop.

That seems to lend more credence to the columnist’s version. According to Parsons, there was no encounter at the theater, no mad dash to the ladies’ room. Instead, she said, she had posed the question at Zsa Zsa’s party, to which Betty had responded, “Why don’t you telephone Frank in Florida?” That much, at least, conforms with Bacall’s account, but Parsons went on to assert that the actress “finally admitted that Sinatra had asked her to marry him.” The columnist quickly followed up, “And you’ll say yes?” To which Betty answered, “Of course.” For all her reputation for skullduggery, Parsons was usually scrupulous about confirming stories, at least the ones she presented as fact and not just as rumors. She was clearly confident about this story, which was why the Examiner ran it as news. Parsons backed up her scoop with other sources: she’d gotten a tip from someone who’d overheard the talk of marriage at the Imperial Gardens, possibly the fan for whom Betty had signed her “new name.” Parsons also got Lazar to confirm the story. “It’s true. They’ll marry,” he said. Betty would claim that Lazar had made the statement on his own. But Parsons was clear that it was only after Bacall had already confirmed it. In the days after Parsons’s report, the story took off like wildfire, with most headlines along the lines of BACALL ADMITS SHE WILL MARRY SINATRA. It’s likely that the accretion of reports caused Sinatra to lose his cool and blame Betty. After a few days of silence, he called and asked, “Why did you do it?” She pleaded innocence, insisting that it had all been Lazar’s fault. Rightly or wrongly, Frank didn’t believe her. The roller coaster finally came to a complete stop. —"Bogie & Bacall: The Surprising True Story of Hollywood's Greatest Love Affair" (2023) by William J. Mann

"Sinatra and Me: In the Wee Small Hours"

“Everybody wanted to know Frank Sinatra; almost nobody really did. Tony Oppedisano really did…. Utterly clear-eyed yet truly loving, Sinatra and Me is a matchless portrait of a flawed, brilliant man―and of a great friendship. A gem of a book.” ―James Kaplan, bestselling author of Frank: The Voice and Sinatra: The Chairman

“What a great book!  Tony O. does here what many have tried to do without quite succeeding: he’s made Frank Sinatra accessible… Certainly, this is one of the very best of the Sinatra books and, I daresay, maybe the only one the man himself would actually read!” ―J. Randy Taraborrelli, New York Times bestselling author of Sinatra: Behind the Legend

For months in 1947, Lee Mortimer had been circulating rumors that Frank had ties to the Mob. When the two men accidentally encountered each other in the entrance of Ciro’s restaurant a month before Mortimer visited the FBI, Mortimer murmured “Dago” as he passed Frank. For Italians in the forties, dago was the equivalent of the “n-word” for African-Americans. Italians might call one another “dago” affectionately, as Frank and Dean Martin did. But coming from a non-Italian, the word was a reason for fisticuffs. Frank decked Mortimer with a left hook and paid the resulting fine with no regrets. In May 1947, New York Daily Mirror reporter Lee Mortimer sat down for a chat with FBI agent Clyde Tolson, J. Edgar Hoover’s right-hand man and reported life partner. Mortimer was about to publish another piece on Sinatra and wanted help from the FBI in collecting dirt on Frank. The newsman handed Tolson a picture of Frank with a man whom Mortimer thought looked like a gangster and said he’d also heard a rumor that Frank’s godfather, underboss Willie Moretti, had originally backed Sinatra’s career. Mortimer then mentioned hearing allegations of a “sex arrest” of Sinatra in 1938. This was just the kind of stuff Hoover was looking for. The FBI was only too happy to give Mortimer what he wanted. The deal was done to the satisfaction of all parties, and Mr. Hoover could be assured of Mr. Mortimer’s understanding the terms. So continued the long, sordid history of the cooperation between our federal government and muckraking journalism, carefully recorded in an FBI file titled “Francis Albert Sinatra.” 

The allegations made the careers of dozens of journalists and, in their endless spin-offs, created a legend that destroyed the reputation of an American citizen. From the day Lee Mortimer published his first article on Sinatra and the Mafia, until Frank died fifty years later, the top secret FBI file was supposed to be the smoking gun proving Frank’s role in the Mob. Lurid biographies made vague references to it whenever they wanted to smear Frank. When the file was finally released a few months after Frank’s death, showing no evidence of Mob ties had ever been found, it made no difference. Nobody wanted to read a dull thirteen-hundred-page file debunking stories the public was already in love with. The FBI “sources” often turned out to be the gossip columnists themselves, but the press didn’t exactly rush forward to clear Frank’s name when the file was published. Frank loved to joke that the initials FBI stood for “Forever Bothering Italians.” No kidding. Nancy Sr. had a cousin who became a soldier for a Mob guy named Willie Moretti, who was chosen by Marty Sinatra as Frank’s godfather at his baptism. Neither Nancy nor Frank got involved in Willie’s “business.” Years later, though, when the press found out that Frank was Willie’s godson, they pounced on it. 

“Young Sinatra’s Career Financed by Mobster.” Tipped off by the press, the FBI later added a note in Frank’s surveillance file that the Mob (again in the person of Willie Moretti) was “forcing” Frank to leave Ava Gardner and go back to Nancy. Sam Giancana, who took over as the boss of Chicago in the years after Capone, was one of the owners of a club called the Black Orchid. Frank played there. All the big guys played there, including Don Rickles, Danny Thomas, and Bing Crosby. Since their last names didn’t end with a vowel, however, no one cared. Frank used to get frustrated and say to me, “The joints weren’t exactly owned by Cardinal Spellman! I didn’t know any bishops, cardinals, or monsignors who owned nightclubs. Otherwise, I would have ended up rubbing elbows with them!” Clubs were highly attractive to Mob guys. They provided an environment that fit the mobster’s day-to-day lifestyle, where they never knew if there was going to be a tomorrow. Frank made a parody out of it and used to say to me, “Live each day as though it’s your last, and one day you’ll be right.” He also used to joke, “Anyone who’s dumb enough to take a nap in the trunk of a Cadillac deserves to be shot in the head”!

Everything changed when Lee Mortimer wrote an article about Frank’s trip to Havana in 1946. Frank had been performing at the Fontainebleau nightclub in Miami, the premier place to work at the time, owned by the usual Mob connections. Wiseguy Joe Fischetti came down from Chicago regularly to check on the business. Joe was an easygoing guy, and he and Frank would hang out and share a drink after the show when Frank was performing there. One night, Frank was complaining to Joe that he needed a vacation, and he was thinking about going to Cuba for a break. He’d heard that the Havana nightlife was hot, and so were the women. Mortimer and another Hearst writer, Westbrook Pegler, wrote a whole series of articles about Frank’s activities as a so-called Mob courier. Because journalists copy from each other, the stories spread like wildfire. No protests or threats of legal action on Frank’s part fazed the press. Frank was angry and increasingly desperate to stop the stories from spreading further. What happened next is something only I know. I’d never heard the tale until Frank told it to me in vivid detail. It’s the story of the day Frank Sinatra met newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, the inspiration for the iconic film Citizen Kane (1941). 

The whole experience was like something out of a movie. The meeting with Hearst came about because of Nancy Sr. Nancy was good friends with gossip columnist Louella Parsons. Parsons, in turn, was old friends with silent-film star Marion Davies. Marion Davies was the live-in mistress of William Randolph Hearst, whose newspaper empire was the biggest in the world. Mortimer and Pegler were both Hearst writers. Louella contacted Marion Davies for Nancy Sr., and a one-on-one private sit-down between Frank and Hearst was arranged. The face-to-face was to take place at Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California, under the strictest secrecy. Frank, Nancy Sr., and Louella Parsons drove north to San Simeon together for the meeting. For anyone who has ever seen it, the first sight of Hearst Castle, an art deco masterpiece, is spectacular. This was Frank’s first sighting. He told me he was awestruck by the sheer beauty of the place, astonished by its size. When he, Nancy, and Louella parked and got out of the car, the front door they approached looked like the entrance to a fortress. They rang the bell and they were very surprised when Marion Davies herself opened the front door to welcome them. In the towering entrance hall, Miss Davies spoke briefly with Nancy Sr. and Louella, then guided Frank down the hall to the library. Frank was very nervous as he waited for Hearst that afternoon, mentally rehearsing what he was going to say. After a few minutes, the big door to the library opened, and Hearst was pushed into the room in a wheelchair. 

Physically, he looked frail, but his face revealed a mind and will that were still strong. His attendant parked him across the table from Frank and then left the room. Without preliminaries, Hearst said to Frank, “What do you have to say to me?” Frank pleaded his case with all the passion he possessed. He told Hearst that Mortimer and other Hearst journalists were creating an elaborate lie about him. He said that he wasn’t a Communist or anti-American or affiliated with the Mob. Hearst promised to help Frank. Frank sat there for a while pondering what had just happened, until Marion Davies came in to guide him back to Nancy. For a few months, Hearst’s ultimatum was respected. The result was a brief moratorium on Frank in the Hearst press. But not long afterward, Hearst left San Simeon to seek medical care for what would be his final illness. His sons took over the running of the papers, and editorial policies shifted. Frank’s reprieve was a short one. Frank used to say about the press, “All day long, they lie in the sun. And after the sun goes down, they lie some more.” Even if William R. Hearst had lived longer, you can’t unring a bell. The damage to Frank’s reputation was done. Once Mortimer opened that door, the word was out that the feds wanted dirt on Sinatra. Unnamed informants flocked to the FBI. Informants volunteered information on Frank in hopes of avoiding prosecution themselves. J. Edgar Hoover lapped it up. Journalists continued to meet with FBI agents. In 1957, journalist Bill Davidson asked the FBI for derogatory information on Frank that he could use in what became a three-part series he was writing for Look magazine. IRS asked Frank Sinatra: Have you ever had any business dealings with Mr. Giancana? Frank's reply: None. 

Neither the IRS nor the FBI believed him. The government’s suspicions became a problem whenever Frank wanted to invest in something. Being business savvy, Frank had always dreamed of owning his own club. Las Vegas, where he headlined starting in the fifties, seemed the obvious place. The Flamingo was a lucrative possibility, but Frank told me he didn’t want to be at the Flamingo because that had been out-and-out owned by mobster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel. When Frank started appearing at the Sands, that seemed more like the kind of place he’d like to be involved with. So many writers talk about Frank’s fascination with the Mob, but in reality, it was the other way around. The Mob, like the rest of the world, was fascinated by Frank. He possessed incredible charisma. Everyone wanted to bask in it, including mobsters. The Mob guys especially admired Frank because they recognized that he’d pulled himself up by his bootstraps—with his charm, sometimes with his fists, but most of the time with his voice and innate talent. He did it on his own—his way—not with Mafia money.

Frank and Marilyn were close, and he idolized her. She was beautiful and funny and charismatic and radiated sexuality. She was also as fragile as a troubled child, always looking for a man to take care of her and make her feel safe. Frank knew her for years, and they’d had a romance of sorts. Contrary to widespread belief, however, Frank never slept with her. He told me he badly wanted to, that he was terribly attracted to her, but he always stopped short. Marilyn was more than willing, but Frank felt she was too troubled, too fragile, for him to sleep with. He just couldn’t get rid of the feeling that sex with her would be taking advantage of her. They were close, though, and Frank was her confidante right up to the end of her life. The weekend before her death, Marilyn came up to Cal-Neva Lodge to stay in one of the bungalows and figure out the next step in her life. Privately, she was there to spend time with Joe DiMaggio. Joe had never gotten over Marilyn, and in her usual fashion, she looked to a man, a father figure, to fix her life for her. She decided Joe was the refuge she needed. Marilyn spent most of the weekend holed up in private with Joe.

She decided to make a press announcement the following week, saying they were officially back together. Once the press conference was announced, however, the rumor started that she was going to publicly rat out the Kennedys and Sam Giancana. In reality, Marilyn had no intention of going public with what she knew. Frank said she’d never have spilled her guts to the press about the Kennedys. Frank told me it was Marilyn’s death that was the final nail in the coffin between him and Peter Lawford. When everything spiraled down with Marilyn, Lawford did nothing to help her. As Frank saw it, Peter could take care of himself, but Marilyn couldn’t. Frank thought Lawford should have protected her. Within days of her death, Frank’s friend and attorney Mickey Rudin, who was told of Marilyn’s death six hours before the police were, told Frank that Marilyn had been murdered. The same rumor was circulating among Sam Giancana’s men, some of whom claimed involvement. Frank found it unbearable that such a damaged, vulnerable, helpless human being had lost her life because some powerful men feared what she might say. The assassination of Jack Kennedy a year later compounded Frank’s sense of grief and loss. He never got over losing either to premature and unnatural deaths.

Thirty years after JFK’s death, on November 22, 1993, Frank and I stopped over in Palm Springs for a brief hiatus in a heavily booked two-month tour. We got in at one a.m., drove to the compound, and slept for a few hours. That night, as usual, Frank and I watched the eleven o’clock news on the Palm Springs CBS affiliate. The reporter was doing a piece on the 30th anniversary of John Kennedy’s assassination. Frank started talking to me, reminiscing about Jack Kennedy. Gradually, the conversation drifted to Marilyn Monroe. In the hours before dawn, in the vast silence of the desert, Frank talked to me about his friends Marilyn Monroe and John Kennedy. His words rose and fell in a soft rhythm I can only describe as a lament. Three decades later, his pain and anger at their passing still haunted him. 

Frank once told me he’d never met a man who could give another man advice about women. “I’m supposed to have a PhD on the subject, but I’ve flunked out more often than not. I’m very fond of women; I admire them. But, like all men, I don’t understand them.” He enjoyed women, but he also had a lot of respect for the fairer sex, something he learned from his mother. Frank loved the ritual of courtship and seduction. He liked to pamper a woman, buy her gifts, make her feel like a queen. Frank knew what he wanted sexually, and he seemed to know what they wanted, too. But he’d rarely jump into bed upon first meeting someone. He was never a Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am kind of guy. He was surprisingly protective of a woman’s reputation. He’d drive a woman home after a date and see her to the door. Women never had to do the walk of shame with Frank. Some of Frank’s love affairs started as friendships and went from there. Many of his romances ended as lifetime friendships, including with the women he married and eventually divorced. As I’ve said, Marilyn Monroe was a woman Frank considered off-limits for ethical reasons. 

Another widely publicized example is Natalie Wood. Books about Frank nearly always state that Frank had an affair with Natalie Wood when she was a fifteen-year-old starlet, and he was nearly forty. It sounds sleazy, and it would be if it were true, but it isn’t. Frank was involved with Natalie when she was older, in between her two marriages to Robert Wagner, but never when she was a young teen. I talked about the allegation recently with my friend Robert Wagner, who was appalled by the story. He told me in pretty colorful language that it was absolutely untrue. He and Natalie had been close friends with Frank and discussed him many times. R. J. felt certain that she’d had a romantic relationship with Frank later in her life, but never as a teen. Frank told me once, “When Ava was relaxed, she could have a mouth like a truck driver. She drank as well as I did or better.”

Frank and Ava’s relationship was like fire and ice, either burning hot or ice cold. When their relationship was hot, it worked for a while, but when it cooled off, it was freezing, and Frank would be miserable. Their arguments were legendary. Frank said they were too much alike in all the wrong ways. She was a ball of fire with a red-hot temper like his. At the end of the day, Frank was afraid of what might happen if he said no to his fourth wife Barbara Marx. When he did say no to something she desperately wanted, she’d pull out the most effective tool in her arsenal, withdrawing her company. She wouldn’t talk to him or even see him for days at a time. It was Frank’s worst nightmare. When he was a kid, he was terrified every time his parents left him alone all night, frightened they’d never come back. He’d grown up fearing Dolly’s disapproval. As an adult, he had trouble coping with any strong-willed woman he loved. The thought that Barbara might leave him was more than he could face. My own relationship with Barbara Sinatra was complex. It wasn’t always an easy one, but I had real affection for her. I used to call her every year to wish her a happy birthday. When she’d pick up the phone in Palm Springs, I wouldn’t even say hello. I’d just start to sing “Happy Birthday.” Twice she thought it was Steve Lawrence singing, and I was very flattered. Even after Frank was gone, Barbara and I remained friends. —"Sinatra and Me: In the Wee Small Hours" (2021) by Tony Oppedisano

Actually, Frank and Marilyn had been lovers, on and off, throughout 1961. This was commonly known within her circle of friends, and Marilyn herself mentioned it in a letter to her psychiatrist, Dr. Ralph Greenson. The relationship ended when Frank became engaged to Juliet Prowse, but they remained on good terms until Marilyn’s death. Other sources – including Jilly Rizzo – have suggested that Frank wanted to marry Marilyn, but after three divorces, she wasn’t ready for another commitment. While she remained close to Joe DiMaggio, Marilyn said publicly that they were not a couple (“there is nothing to reconcile.”) Some friends of DiMaggio hoped they would remarry, but none among Marilyn’s circle believed she would. Furthermore, the ever-possessive Joe had abruptly ended his long friendship with Frank when he began dating Marilyn. Therefore, Frank would have had no part in Marilyn’s ongoing relationship with Joe. Frank was a vocal supporter of John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign, but their friendship cooled after Kennedy took office. Whatever encounters Marilyn may have had with the Kennedy brothers, it’s highly unlikely that she would have confided in Sinatra. Milton Rudin, who was Marilyn’s lawyer as well as Frank’s, never claimed that Marilyn was murdered in his interviews on the subject, but he was well aware of her emotional problems and addiction to sleeping pills. It’s possible that Sinatra, like many others, was swayed by the conspiracy theories about Marilyn’s death and the Kennedys that appeared in the 1970s. But at the time of her death, this was not a widely-held view, except by a small handful of far-right cranks with a rabidly anti-Kennedy agenda. Unfortunately, lurid gossip about Marilyn Monroe’s demise has become something of a cottage industry in this era of ‘fake news’, and a very profitable one for those who propagate it. Source: https://themarilynreport.com

Cheerfulness, Marilyn Monroe & Frank Sinatra

Like with most of the men in her life, Marilyn Monroe had a complicated relationship with Ol’ Blue Eyes, Frank Sinatra. Following their divorces from Joe DiMaggio and Ava Gardner, Marilyn and Sinatra found consolation together and commiserated over their shared troubles with insomnia, loneliness and insecurity. “He has always been very kind to me,” Marilyn told gossip columnist Louella Parsons, when asked about their affair. Indeed, some say that Frank became so intent on saving Marilyn from her demons that he asked her to marry him. 

“Her beauty and her vulnerability made her seem like a soft little pussycat that needed to be protected,” actress Ruta Lee exclusively told Closer Weekly—in the magazine’s latest issue, on newsstands now—at the Edwards-Lowell Gallery and the Andrew Weiss Gallery Present Marilyn Monroe: 17 Years in the Making opening night. Marilyn and Frank began seeing each other casually in the late 1950s—her maid Lena Pepitone says the star even moved into Frank’s L.A. home briefly to recover after her split from Joe—but their romance really heated up in 1961. “They spent a lot of nights together,” said Jimmy Whiting, a Sinatra friend. “They took bubble baths together.” Out of deference to her ex-husband, Frank tried to keep the relationship a secret. “He didn’t want Joe to get pissed off,” Jim White explained.

That August, Frank and Marilyn hosted friends on the singer’s yacht, but it wasn’t smooth sailing. “[Marilyn] was giving him a hard time…taking a lot of drugs and drinking,” and insider revealed in Sinatra: Behind the Legend by J. Randy Taraborrelli. “Marilyn was real dependent on Frank,” explained Jim White. “She used to say, ‘If I have any problem, there’s only one person I know can help: Frankie.'” Though Sinatra loved her, in February 1962, he announced his engagement to dancer Juliet Prowse—surprising even his closest friends. Not surprisingly, Frank’s new romance ended in just six weeks. That August, Frank invited Marilyn to Cal-Neva Lodge in Lake Tahoe. 

“When Frank saw Marilyn, he was alarmed at how depressed she seemed,” Joe Langford, a security guard, recalled. Frank had special meals sent to Marilyn’s room and worried about her well-being. “I think he proposed to her,” manager Milt Ebbins said. “He loved her and he would have done anything to save her.” But Marilyn couldn’t be saved and died one week later of an apparent drug overdose. “Frank was totally in shock for weeks,” said his valet George Jacobs. It grew worse when he arrived at Westwood Memorial Park and discovered that Joe DiMaggio had barred him from her funeral. “I loved her too,” a distraught Frank told a pal. “No one can say I didn’t love her too.” Source: www.closerweekly.com

Americans weren't cheery people in the beginning, argues Communication and cultural studies scholar Christina Kotchemidova. She writes that in the early eighteenth century, Americans, like Europeans, were more interested in melancholy. Many novels and plays aimed to evoke sadness. Both Catholic and Protestant traditions saw suffering as a means to virtue, and people who had been wronged were more likely to express sorrow than anger. Public crying was socially acceptable. But as the economy modernized, Americans became more individualistic and focused on controlling their own destinies. Sadness, an essentially passive emotion, fell out of favor. Around the time of the American Revolution, the emerging middle class began embracing emotional control as a key to success. In this view, being cheerful, even in the face of bad luck, allowed merchants to retain a necessary rational approach to their business. 

Starting in the early twentieth century, companies implemented personality testing and psychological experiments designed to promote emotional control and interpersonal harmony. “Foremen and managers typically came from middle class homes where they had been brought up in a family culture of cheerfulness,” Kotchemidova writes. “Victorian women’s culture was bearing fruit. Meanwhile, a growing consumer culture called for salesmen who were able to ingratiate themselves with potential customers. How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie’s massively successful 1936 self-help guide, codified the need for pleasant behavior in the business world. The twentieth century also brought a general reduction of emotional intensity. Strong romantic love, fear, and anger all began to look like violations of rationality and self-restraint. 

Cheerfulness, on the other hand, was a mild emotion that meshed perfectly with good social and economic performance. U.S. companies are certainly not unique in demanding that workers comport themselves in ways that increase collegiality and, it follows, productivity. But Kotchemidova argues that, compared with Europe, the nation’s lack of a formal social hierarchy means that Americans are more anxious about their social status, leading to “a constant need to lubricate social relations” with continual smiles and pleasantries, which unsettles some visitors. Source: daily.jstor.org

The Chairman: New biography of Frank Sinatra

Frank Sinatra's flaming obsession with Ava Gardner never waned, but there were other headline-making women in his life — most notably Marilyn Monroe, Mia Farrow and Barbara Marx.

A new, in-depth biography, “Sinatra: The Chairman,” provides an intimate glimpse into Ol’ Blue Eyes’ relationships with each of these significant others. James Kaplan’s first door-stopping tome, “Frank: The Voice,” brought the singer up to the glorious moment in 1954 when he won the Oscar for “From Here to Eternity.” It was the comeback of all comebacks.

Back on top of the heap, Sinatra was busy with the ladies. In 1961, he finally got around to Marilyn Monroe. The two had brushed against each other through the years, but now it seemed something serious was afoot. Or, seriously sexual, at least. Shortly after Monroe’s divorce from Joe DiMaggio, Sinatra and the Yankee Clipper got drunk and ended up breaking down a door, five henchmen in tow, expecting to find Marilyn Monroe in bed with another man. Eight years later, in 1962, DiMaggio had Sinatra turned away from Monroe’s funeral. They had become rivals of sorts, each believing he was the man to save the goddess in her final downward spiral.

During Sinatra’s dalliance with Monroe, there are conflicting reports as to who wanted it more. Kaplan sides with Milt Ebbins, a talent manager, who claimed, “There was no doubt that Frank was in love with Marilyn.” Sinatra even considered marrying Monroe to save her from herself. Kaplan quotes sources that told an earlier biographer, Randy Taraborelli, that Sinatra believed being his wife would protect her from the vultures.

“Yeah, Frank wanted to marry the broad,” Jilly Rizzo, Sinatra’s chief henchman, said. “He asked her and she said no.” Source: www.nydailynews.com