Word: kelleyism
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Sinatra filed a $2 million lawsuit in 1983 against Kelley, author of the tattletale biography Jackie Oh!, even before she had begun writing this book. His claim was unceremoniously dropped after a year of blustering, but it is no wonder that he tried to discourage Kelley; his life does not bear outside examination. "There's a monster in him who wants to screw the world before it screws him," said a onetime girlfriend, Actress Jacqueline Park. Kelley's exhaustively researched account supports this assessment dead...
Humphrey Bogart, a Hollywood tough guy who did not need bodyguards, liked Sinatra and thought him "amusing because he's a skinny little bastard and his bones kind of rattle together." But the stories Kelley has assembled are too numerous and grubby to be passed off as the forgivable sins of an amusing scamp, or of a tough-but-decent slum kid who made good. During the 1968 filming of Lady in Cement, according to Producer's Assistant Michael Viner, a prostitute complained that Sinatra had asked her to stay for breakfast after an all-night party, and then used...
...goes the gossip, some new, some warmed over. Kelley's narrative is as lengthy as a chronicle of the Hundred Years' War, in part because even a selective list of Sinatra's sexual skirmishes seems endless. The author ticks off affairs with, among many others, Marilyn Maxwell, Ava Gardner (his second wife), Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, Elizabeth Taylor, Mia Farrow (his third), Natalie Wood and Lauren Bacall. But the most important woman in the singer's life, and Kelley's most substantial contribution to the inside story, may have been Sinatra's mother Dolly, an abortionist, ward politician...
Assuming that this biography of one of President Reagan's Medal of Freedom winners is accurate, is it also fair? Kelley takes pains to point out that Sinatra's callousness has often been balanced by a swaggering generosity. Ol' Blue Eyes may have charged the gaudy anniversary ring he gave to Ava to her account, being down on his luck at the time. He also played benefits tirelessly for worthy causes, raised millions for charity, and impulsively paid bills for down-and-out show business acquaintances, and sometimes for people whose hard-luck stories he happened to see in newspapers...
...changed the intonation of popular music, the velvety, plaintive baritone that was the most distinctive male singing voice between Bing Crosby's and Elvis Presley's. Sinatra's character is a thumb in the public eye, but his songs continue to work a lonely magic. And not so lonely. Kelley notes that Frank, like everyone else, used Sinatra LPs as fail-safe aids to seduction...