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Despite Bishop's mostly patient efforts, the nuances of it all--the fine line, say, between friendship and deference where Sinatra was concerned--still lie beyond my grasp. Why, I ask, were people so afraid of him? "They weren't afraid of Frank Sinatra. They were afraid of honesty. The one thing that he demanded above all else was honesty." All the same, and even though Bishop had "carte blanche" with Sinatra (as he tells me more than once), "I always dealt with him with humor." That would include up to the last time the two men spoke, about a year ago. "I told him, 'Frank, you've got to get well because I haven't worked since you got sick.'"
"I'll give you an example about Frank Sinatra," Bishop continues. "We were at the Fountainbleu Hotel. One night a young lady was standing on my balcony. These are her exact words: 'I paid the bellhop to let me in. If I don't meet Frank Sinatra tonight, I'm going to jump.' I said, 'Honey, just give me a chance.' I ran over to his suite. Joe DiMaggio and somebody else were playing cards. At the time, Frank was going with Juliet Prowse, and they were already in bed. So I said to Joe and the other guy, 'I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but there's a broad who's going to jump off my balcony if she doesn't meet Sinatra.' They didn't want to wake him up, but in the meantime he heard me." The upshot was that Sinatra--Sinatra!--got out of bed, went over to Bishop's suite with an autographed picture and some flowers, and invited the girl and her parents to be his guests at the next night's show.
"Now who's going to believe that?" Bishop wonders. "But I give you some bulls__ story about a fight, and you'll believe that in a minute." He's right. I was half-expecting the anecdote to end with Sinatra calling the girl a hooker and tossing her over the rail himself (let's say there's a pool below). Is my version better? Bishop sighs. "I don't understand why honesty doesn't prevail."