Ring-a-ding-ding or dooby-dooby-doo, love him or hate him, Frank Sinatra was an entertainment complex to be reckoned with–singer, actor, bully, pussyhound. In his affectionately bitchy book, Mr. S: My Life With Frank Sinatra (new in paperback from HarperEntertainment, $14.94), George Jacobs, Sinatra’s valet from 1953 to 1968, serves up all the dish you love to eat–on a silver platter. He was there, really there, for Ava, Marilyn, and Mia, for the Rat Pack, the movies, the Kennedys, the Mafia, the muff-diving–and remembers everything in a seamless, page-turning stream of deliciousness.
He couldn’t sit still, and he couldn’t be alone. Thus he always needed a girl, and she didn’t have to be famous. First he’d go for his leading lady. If she wasn’t free, he’d try some famous ex, like Lana Turner, whom he’d dated in the forties, for old times. Then he’d work his way down the food chain, starting with the starlets, then the hookers, and, if all else failed, he’d call Peggy Lee, who lived down the block.