he had the world on a string

     We used to hear about Frank Sinatra, besides being a good singer and actor, and stage performer in Las Vegas, that he had occasionally roughed up photojournalists, and was connected to the Mafia.

     I remember hearing these sensationalistic tidbits when I was high-school and college-age, & it was information I was not seeking by any means, it just filtered into my consciousness somehow, as gossip is wont to do.

     This stuff would get in my head and I would have no response, or any idea what to do with it.  ("Ummh -- what?  I -- I don't -- know --...")

-------------------------- Recently watching videos on You Tube ("graduate school") I was learning about Ava Gardner.  She was an actress of uncommon physical beauty, who worked in movies starting in the 1940s, Hollywood's golden age.

     She was married three times, the third husband was Mr. Sinatra ("Chairman of the Board"; "Ol' Blue Eyes"...).  By all accounts, they had a lot of drama between them, fought a lot, and went their separate ways after two years of marriage, for the good of all concerned.

     Each of them always said after that, however, that the other was "the love of their life" and they remained on friendly, supportive terms and communicated periodically.

     In the video I watched, it said Ms. Gardner acted in a 1964 movie called The Bible, which starred George C. Scott.  She and Mr. Scott were seeing each other romantically, but when he got drunk he would hit her -- at one point she was afraid she was going to be killed by him. -- Her assistant, Mearene Jordan, speaks on camera:  she says that Ava "would keep going back to him; she said she loved him and felt sorry for him."

     Ms. Jordan says, George C. Scott had "talked Ava into going down to Connecticut" -- Ava had been gone for over a day, and she (the assistant) was frantic.  "So I called Frank," she says.  And he said, 'Reenie, don't worry, I will take care of it.'

     "And two and a half hours later, Ava walked in the door."  You can hear the relief and gratitude in the assistant's voice, all those years later, as she tells that part of the story.

     "Two and a half hours later, she walked in the door. 

Somebody went down and got her."


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That's the end of that episode in the Ava Gardner story, but it wasn't the end for me.  After going to do some things, and letting You Tube play on as I worked, the question haunted me:  "Whom did Frank Sinatra -- call ?"

?

?


???...

-30-