Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1959)

day, finally, there was this funny purrrrrr, and I jumped up and down and yelled, “I can play it! I can play it!” I locked myself in my room that afternoon and practiced for five hours until I learned how to blow “Put Another Nickel in, in the Nickelodeon” Studying the trumpet and keeping up with all my school work in St. Edmund’s School wasn’t easy. Mr. Rosenfeld, my trumpet teacher, who was with the Philadelphia Orchestra, kept encouraging me so I didn’t want to neglect it. And that was around the time I saw “Young Man With a Horn” with Kirk Douglas. Harry James played the trumpet, and he was out of this world. I saw that movie three times, and I made up my mind to b.e a musician. I played with a couple of local neighborhood bands — three or four piece combinations. And at home we’d all play together. We’re a musical family. My father plays the piano, and my sister can make mighty sweet music with an accordion, and my mom — well, she sings whenever she’s in the mood or she claps time to whatever we play. Last summer, when anybody visited our house, they’d have to listen to our rendition of “Volare!” Man did we go wild for it! Well, when I was almost eleven, I won a prize — a refrigerator on the Paul Whiteman show. I just couldn’t believe my trumpet playing could actually win anything. About a year later, I went on the Jackie Gleason show, and Jackie asked me to do a little tap dance. I didn’t mind that, but I began to grow more and more shy because everyone made such a fuss over me. But when I met Sandy, she gave me a boost. I was twelve or thirteen, and Sandy lived a couple of blocks away from me. Her girlfriend, Phyllis, came up to me one day after school and said, “Frankie, can I let you in on a secret?” “Sure,” I told her. “Promise not to tell?” “I promise.” “Sandy . . . she likes you!” Phyllis blurted and then she turned around and ran down the street without looking back. Now what was I to do? I liked Sandy, too. She had blue eyes and long brown hair and a slow smile. I don’t like flashy smiles, the kind that are so big the person’s teeth look like headlights. I started hanging around the street more often. I was too old for Giant Steps or GoStop. But I’d sit on the front porch steps and listen to a dance program on someone’s portable radio or else talk about records and rock ’n’ roll. Sandy was a part of the “talking” gang, and she had a way of making me feel comfortable if she asked a question. She never pointed a question directly at me. She’d say, “Hey, I wonder what Frankie thinks . . .” and she’d get me to speak up. We began seeing each other pretty often that way; and somehow — I don’t know how these things happen — word got around the gang that we were going steady. But we never dated, not even once. Not that I minded. She was so easy to get along with. One day I asked her if it bothered her that people were saying we were going together, and she said no. So I got up my courage and bought her a friendship ring to make the rumors true. We started going to the movies every Saturday afternoon, and sometimes I’d put my arm around her. All the other fellows did with their dates. Some of the fellows even kissed their girls. But I never kissed Sandy. We saw each other every day that P spring, even if it was for just a little while. We’d have Cokes or grape rickeys at Humphrey’s (now it’s called Chez Joey) or we’d eat a pizza at Tessie’s Pizza Parlor. In May her parents decided to spend the summer in Wildwood-by-the-sea; and by midsummer Sandy wrote her girlfriend Phyllis that she had found a new boyfriend. When Phyllis told me the news, I didn’t see any of the gang for two weeks. My mother scolded me for being so moody, but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want to talk to a soul. I holed up in my room most of the time, trying to study my music but I just couldn’t concentrate. My heart felt as if it was going to burst. All I had to do was just think of Sandy, and I’d hear my heartbeats getting louder and louder and louder. When Sandy returned from Wildwood, she came over to say hello. We were sitting on the front steps of my house. It was a hot. sunny afternoon in late August. She tried to tell me she still liked me, but I couldn’t believe her. I felt cheated. But she did look very cute with her suntan. She kept asking me what was wrong, why was I so quiet, and finally I blurted out, “Gee, Sandy, why don’t you level with a guy!” And I ran inside. I just didn’t want to talk with her anymore. I went to all the school hops that year in Vare Junior High in South Philly. I wanted to get over being shy, and I made myself dance with different girls. The girls would tell me it was a fellow’s personality that counted. If he was fun to be with, that’s what a girl cared about. So I tried to forget Sandy, and I started dating Annette Celia who went to St. Monica’s an all girl’s school. How did we meet? Well, St. Monica’s always let the students out earlier than Vare Junior High, and every time Annette passed our school on her way home, she’d look in the window of our English class and wave. She waved every day until finally I got enough courage and I waved back. My owl-faced English teacher yelled at me, but I didn’t care. I wanted Annette to know I noticed her. One day the girl who sat behind me gave me Annette’s picture. She said she was a friend of Annette’s, and Annette had asked her to give me the snapshot. I liked Annette’s looks. She was exotic with tumbly dark hair and high cheekbones. She was slim as a whistle, and I liked that, too. I don’t like it if girls let themselves go and lose their figures. I know it’s not easy to say no when I see a plate of spaghetti or a piece of chocolate cake. But I’ve learned. If you want a normal weight, you have to say no. Annette’s girlfriend, the one who gave me the picture, finally introduced us, and we dated. We got along at first, but after a while she became bossy and I began feeling shy. And there was something else that bothered me. . . . She was on a new kick, some silly starvation diet, and she got too skinny. No fellow likes a girl to look as if she’s missed a month’s meals. When Annette came over to the house one night to talk with Sis, I told her how I felt. We were in the kitchen having a snack. Mom made hero sandwiches (you take a loaf of Italian bread, slice it in half and fill it full of cheese, ham, salami, tomatoes, and cut it up into two or three sections), and we sat around the table, eating and talking about opera. I was telling them I don’t always understand what an opera means, but there’s so much “feeling” in them . . . that’s why I love them, especially anything by Puccini. Soon we got to talking about Frank Sinatra who I think’s the greatest, especially his “Only the Lonely” album. He sings from his heart. I had just finished my first recording of “Cupid” around that time, and I told Annette and Mom and Sis how awful I thought my recording was. Annette told me to come off it, to quit knocking myself. And I said, “You know something? I wish you’d stop dieting and eat some of this hero sandwich. You’re skinnier than a toothpick!” Boy, did she get mad! She got up and started to chase me around the kitchen. Finally she grabbed a flyswatter and slapped me with it. But, just the same, telling her did the trick. She got my message and went off that stupid diet. And she never acted bossy again. Sure, she was mad at me for a couple of days, but then we made up and went together. One thing about Annette: She understood my silences. When we’d sit and listen to records, she was never cross or angry with me for not talking. And if I wanted to play the progressive jazz of Gerry Mulligan and Shorty Rogers, she was willing to listen even if it wasn’t quite up her alley. We had a good time doing simple things — like going over to her house to dance. The bop, stroll and calypso are my favorites. Once when she mussed my hair, I told her to never do that again. That’s one thing I hate. And she never did. Although she threatened to ... ! We’d go swimming when the weather was good; and the two of us flipped for Marlon Brando, Tony Curtis and Susan Hayward movies! Both of us were bugeyed over “The Man With the Golden Arm” with Frank Sinatra, and that’s when I decided Frankie was my favorite actor as well as singer. We loved the Looney Tunes and Donald Duck cartoons; and one day, after the movies, I found a stray collie dog I took home with me. Annette named him Stumpy, and he followed us everywhere. Now I have another collie, almost a year old, and I call her De De after my first hit record, “De De Dinah.” Then, one night that summer, she told me the news that almost broke my heart. “We’re going to move,” she said. Her father had a new job in Atlantic City. Before I knew it, it was goodbye-time, and I was seeing her off on the bus. We said we’d keep in touch, but the way things turned out, we couldn’t. I started to make personal appearances everywhere, and then I heard Annette had another boyfriend — someone with carrot red hair! Always my luck, I thought. Soon as a girl moves away, she finds another guy! So I’ve been running here and running there ever since, singing at rock ’n’ roll places just about every week, hopping planes to California for TV appearances, visiting Dick Clark on his American Bandstand and on his Saturday show. And I’ve had my eyes peeled for a girl that’s going to give me another boost, someone who’s going to help me climb another step on my shy-guy ladder. I say it’s the girls who help a guy the most. Girls give a guy a chance; they don’t rush things. Lately I’ve been seeing Angela Curcio, who’s got bright blue eyes and light brown hair like Stephen Foster’s Jeanie. I met her on a picnic a few summers ago, and we’ve been good friends — that’s all. But mostly when I have time to myself I go driving in my new, bright-red sports car. I drive along the sidestreets of South Philly and sometimes I think about the girls who gave me confidence, the girls who liked me for what I was — a shy guy from a plain Italian family in Pennsylvania. And all I can say is — gee, how can a guy ever get along without girls, huh? The End DIG FRANKIE ON CHANCELLOR RECORDS.