FRANK & TONY
""Frank Sinatra and Tony Curtis were close, lifelong friends. They knew each other since the 1940s when Sinatra was playing the Paramount. In 1958 they were in the movie Kings Go Forth together. Curtis is often mentioned as part of The Clan/Rat Pack in the 1950s and 1960s. Tina Sinatra remembered that when her father was old and sick, she once found Tony Curtis cradling her father in his arms.
Sinatra called Curtis “Bernie” (pronounced “Boinie”), because his real name was Bernard Schwartz.
Here are some of the things that Tony Curtis said about Frank Sinatra, in interviews and in his memoir.
“When I met him, I realized he was very nice with everyone around him. He wasn’t so obnoxious. That was the rumor about Frank, that you didn’t know what he had in mind.”
“I became an honorary member of Frank's Rat Pack; I never went on stage with Frank, Dean, Sammy, Joey Bishop, or Peter Lawford, but anytime they had a get-together, I was invited. Whenever those guys got up to any kind of mischief, I was there. They treated me like a kid brother, which brought out the best in everyone.”
“I knew a lot about Frank. We were really close. He liked me a lot, and that meant a lot to me. To be a friend of Frank's was a great help in those early days. I didn't abuse it or take advantage of it. I would just make myself available when he would call or want to go out to dinner.”
“When he was not angry, there was a calm humanness about him. He would always stick up for his buddies. He was always available. He would stick up for you even if the guy was a big guy.”
“Frank wasn't a womanizer - he was womanized! What a great position to be in! You know, those were carefree, intelligent, and very stimulating days and nights!”
“Women would flock around him. Then the husbands or the boyfriends found themselves ill at ease. I couldn’t understand it, you know? Frank wasn’t gonna take ‘em anywhere. He’d just hang-out there.”
“He's one of the biggest prudes I've ever met…he's an old-fashioned man. I've never heard him use a vulgar word in front of a woman!”
“Frank Sinatra was like the sun, with a lot of people revolving around him.”
“Notice I don’t bring up the Mafia. He in himself was his own godfather. He ran his own family and his friends like that. Untouchable.”
“Frank exhibited the traits I admired most in a person, namely his unfailing self-confidence.”
“I would make model airplanes, the kind you make with balsa wood. I’d make it with glue and the things that would make it work. He was so pleased because he told me, ‘I was never able to get that body in the plane right’. So, he’d throw his stuff away. But, there I was making the bodies and he’d say will I add to it? Then, we’d paper it. We did the wings. We put a rubber band in it, and a propeller. We’d go out in his garage, in back, and I’d wind it up and let it go. The f***er would ram into a wall, and there it was all broken again. We did this two or three times. Sometimes we had more success than others. But, I loved him for that.”
Tony Curtis wrote about one time at the Sands when he was very drunk and Frank and Dean threw him into the swimming pool fully dressed.
Tony Curtis: “I climbed out of the pool… freshened up, and went back down to the casino. I was still a little dizzy, but at least I was keeping my eyes open. When Frank saw me he said, 'Where have you been?'
'Somebody threw me in the pool,' I said. 'I had to go upstairs and change.' Frank said, 'Who in the world would do that?' I told him I thought he might have had something to do with it, but he denied it,and I couldn't be sure I had remembered it right.”
Tony Curtis wrote that during the filming of Sweet Smell of Success, he was “the recipient of one of Frank's legendary acts of thoughtfulness.” He was learning to play the flute for the movie and would often go over to Sinatra's house to practice.
Tony Curtis: “I'd come over to Frank's house and practice playing my flute for him. Frank was impressed that I was learning this new skill for my part in the movie, and he noticed that I was playing a cheap flute I'd picked up. So without telling me, he went out one day and bought me a magnificent flute, a priceless gift that I cherish to this day.”
In an interview, he talked about the flute too and called it “one of my sacred possessions from The Man.”
Frank Sinatra once said Tony Curtis was his favorite actor “because he beat the odds.”
Their mutual friend Sidney Poitier said of Tony Curtis, “When you're with Tony Curtis, you're with somebody very alive. He was - and is - one of the most 'up' people I have ever known.”
