my situation with his. But something about Mr. S was so vulnerable, so real, at least at that stage of his life, that it wasn’t long before I let him know how much my own situation allowed me to relate to his. He could have easily said, George, don’t you go dumping your real world onto mine, but he didn’t. I struck a chord in him that made him open up about the deep frustrations he was feeling, loving his family, loving Ava Gardner, and loving his career all at the same time—none of them were giving him an easy time of it.
But at the beginning of my job with him, the thing he would most talk about with me was work. That was almost always in the forefront of his mind. In what would become a continual aspect of my working for Sinatra, we’d sit and play cards late into the night, and he’d drink “Jack” (Daniel’s) and obsess about his career. He was on the comeback trail, though he didn’t feel he was home free again by any means. As far as he was concerned, his career was still up in the air. Although Eternity was doing big box office, Oscar nominations had not been tallied, and Mr. S still did not have his next film job. He thought he had, but he had been screwed, which had made him as insecure as ever, teetering on the brink of celluloid oblivion.
The first (of many) people I would see Frank Sinatra hate was the man who went on to be considered one of the grandest of all Hollywood producers, Sam Spiegel. One day I arrived to see the living room half destroyed. Two lamps had been knocked over, broken glass was covering the floor. At first I thought there had been a burglary,until I began cleaning up and found the remnants of several drafts of a script entitled On the Waterfront by Budd Schulberg, who I knew had written the nastiest novel about Hollywood sleazebags, What Makes Sammy Run? I found Mr. S in bed nursing several bad paper cuts on his hands, which he got ripping up the script. He apologized for flipping out and told me he had just lost the role of a lifetime and that he had been fucked over by the worst real Sammy Glick in the business, Sammy Spiegel. I said, hey, you just had the role of a lifetime in From Here to Eternity, and he said, very dejectedly, this one’s a role for two lifetimes. Then he went into a tirade against Sam Spiegel that lasted for the next couple of weeks.
Sam Spiegel was the Mike Romanoff of producers, a European con man and ex-jailbird who went on to fool all of the people all of the time. He was the total caricature of the fat cat movie mogul, gold chains, big cigar, pinky rings, “Frankie baby” this and “Frankie baby” that. He was always surrouded with beautiful women, whom he graciously dispatched to his friends, or whomever he wanted to sell something to. He seemed like a joke. Yet he was the real deal. He had made, and would continue to make, some of the greatest classic movies, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia.
One of the many people Spiegel fooled was Mr. Doubting Thomas himself, Frank Sinatra. Spiegel had promised Sinatra the part of the tormented, poetic hoodlum Terry Malloy in his upcoming production of On the Waterfront. Spiegel had hyped Sinatra to kingdom come, promising that Maggio might get him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, but that Malloy was guaranteed to garner him the Best Actor statuette, ensuring Sinatra’s career literally from here to eternity. Spiegel had brought home the Oscar bacon for Sinatra’s idol Bogart in The African Queen. Now Sinatra was trusting Spiegel to do it for him. Sinatra naturally wanted to believe Spiegel, who assured him time and again what a great, natural, earthy, and real thespian he was,how he was the symbol of the working man, the voice of the people, and that there was no other actor in the world who could do justice to this part of parts. The film was going to be shot in Hoboken. “For Chrissakes,” Spiegel said, “you are Hoboken!”
But, as it turned out, there were too many people in
But at the beginning of my job with him, the thing he would most talk about with me was work. That was almost always in the forefront of his mind. In what would become a continual aspect of my working for Sinatra, we’d sit and play cards late into the night, and he’d drink “Jack” (Daniel’s) and obsess about his career. He was on the comeback trail, though he didn’t feel he was home free again by any means. As far as he was concerned, his career was still up in the air. Although Eternity was doing big box office, Oscar nominations had not been tallied, and Mr. S still did not have his next film job. He thought he had, but he had been screwed, which had made him as insecure as ever, teetering on the brink of celluloid oblivion.
The first (of many) people I would see Frank Sinatra hate was the man who went on to be considered one of the grandest of all Hollywood producers, Sam Spiegel. One day I arrived to see the living room half destroyed. Two lamps had been knocked over, broken glass was covering the floor. At first I thought there had been a burglary,until I began cleaning up and found the remnants of several drafts of a script entitled On the Waterfront by Budd Schulberg, who I knew had written the nastiest novel about Hollywood sleazebags, What Makes Sammy Run? I found Mr. S in bed nursing several bad paper cuts on his hands, which he got ripping up the script. He apologized for flipping out and told me he had just lost the role of a lifetime and that he had been fucked over by the worst real Sammy Glick in the business, Sammy Spiegel. I said, hey, you just had the role of a lifetime in From Here to Eternity, and he said, very dejectedly, this one’s a role for two lifetimes. Then he went into a tirade against Sam Spiegel that lasted for the next couple of weeks.
Sam Spiegel was the Mike Romanoff of producers, a European con man and ex-jailbird who went on to fool all of the people all of the time. He was the total caricature of the fat cat movie mogul, gold chains, big cigar, pinky rings, “Frankie baby” this and “Frankie baby” that. He was always surrouded with beautiful women, whom he graciously dispatched to his friends, or whomever he wanted to sell something to. He seemed like a joke. Yet he was the real deal. He had made, and would continue to make, some of the greatest classic movies, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia.
One of the many people Spiegel fooled was Mr. Doubting Thomas himself, Frank Sinatra. Spiegel had promised Sinatra the part of the tormented, poetic hoodlum Terry Malloy in his upcoming production of On the Waterfront. Spiegel had hyped Sinatra to kingdom come, promising that Maggio might get him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, but that Malloy was guaranteed to garner him the Best Actor statuette, ensuring Sinatra’s career literally from here to eternity. Spiegel had brought home the Oscar bacon for Sinatra’s idol Bogart in The African Queen. Now Sinatra was trusting Spiegel to do it for him. Sinatra naturally wanted to believe Spiegel, who assured him time and again what a great, natural, earthy, and real thespian he was,how he was the symbol of the working man, the voice of the people, and that there was no other actor in the world who could do justice to this part of parts. The film was going to be shot in Hoboken. “For Chrissakes,” Spiegel said, “you are Hoboken!”
But, as it turned out, there were too many people in
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