Frankly speaking, I miss the mystery woman

Rob Long writes tantalisingly about a glamourous 1960s star. But who is she?

Frank Sinatra in 1970. Rob Long writes about a mysterious actress who was part of the Sinatra's legendary Rat Pack circle (AP Photo)

I won’t tell you her name – though I suppose if you do some intrepid Googling, you’ll be able to figure it out – but I’ll give you the basic facts: in the 1960s she was a glamorous and alluring movie star, a constant companion to Frank Sinatra and the rest of his “Rat Pack” of singers and actors and all-around rascals.

In the 1970s she was the star of a high-rated television cop show – a little older but still a ravishing Hollywood beauty.

In the subsequent decades she appeared in a few high-profile movies, but by the time I was walking up to her front door, a few years ago, she hadn’t worked on screen for a long time.

None of that mattered to me, of course. At the time I was producing a popular television comedy and we needed an older female guest star – someone with a little bit of style and notoriety – to play the role of a gangster’s girlfriend. It was a one-episode gig and we all thought it would be fun, not to mention a potential ratings windfall, to get someone really famous for the part.

But movie stars of a certain age and era require a different set of protocols. For someone of her standing and prestige, it wouldn’t do to simply send the script to her agent with a little note attached, expecting him to forward it along to her.

No, for Old School Hollywood, what it meant was that the executive producer of the show – that was me – had to drive to her house, in the leafy and expensive hills of Bel Air, knock on her door, carry the script with me, and offer to sit down with her, have a cup of tea, make some charming small talk, listen to some of her stories from the old days of show business, and then in a smooth and effortless way get her to agree to do the role.

And it all had to be wrapped up that day, because we were shooting that episode in a week, and we were trying to cast the role and get the star to the studio the next day for rehearsals.

Some producers are good at that kind of thing. Some producers, in fact, believe that this is the definition of “producing”.

When television viewers or cinema-goers watch the credits roll by on screen, it’s pretty obvious what specific task the “writer” or “casting director” or “set designer” was responsible for. But the work product of the “producer” or “executive producer” is a mystery. (It’s actually a mystery to most of us who work in Hollywood, too, but that’s another issue.)

“You wanna know what a producer is?” a big time producer once asked me. “A producer is anyone who gets you to do something you don’t really want to do for a little less money than you think you should get.” Which is not a bad definition, in general, for any kind of successful person.

So I rang her doorbell, script in hand, and I waited. The door opened a sliver, and the distinctive, smoky voice of the world-famous Rat Pack glamour-girl movie star came from behind: “Is that you?”

Of course, the only answer to that question is, “Yes,” but I also added, “It’s Rob. From the show? I brought the script and I thought we could...”

Her hand reached out through the small slice of darkness. She clearly was not about to invite me in.

“Just hand me the script. I’m sure it’s great. I’ll be there tomorrow, right? It’s tomorrow morning?”

“Yes, but don’t you...”

“I’ll be there!” And with that, the door shut.

The next morning, she was there. She looked ravishing and had all the movie star dazzle we expected. At a break in rehearsals she came up to me.

“I’m sorry I was so abrupt yesterday,” she said. “But you see, you caught me before I had my make-up done and my hair ready. I looked terrible and I didn’t want you to see me and think: ‘Oh, she’s too old for this, she doesn’t look the way she used to, we can’t use her.’”

“What? No! I’m sure you looked great!”

She laughed. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said in the tone of movie star of a certain age who knows what she’s talking about.

Then the rehearsal break was over and it was time for the actors to go back to work, and she and I laughed and agreed that I had been nervous about trying to coax such a huge star to do my television show, and that she was nervous about trying to convince such a (then) young producer that she was still attractive and alluring, and that after the show we’d finally sit down and have that cup of tea, which we did, and which remains one of the finest memories of my life in show business.

Rob Long is a writer and producer based in Hollywood

On Twitter: @rcbl