A Memory Of Frank Sinatra In Miami
I have such fond memories of the filming of Sinatra's "A Hole In the Head". The way where he played the owner of a Miami Hotel (my hometown) and Jimmy played his brother and they sang "High Hopes".
The movie was shot over 40 days between Nov 10, 1958 – Jan 9, 1959…released June 17, 1959.
That was me those 40 days, 7 years old and sitting with my mother on the seawall (with the beach behind us)…. Frank Capra was shooting at the Cardozo Hotel (the same hotel currently owned by Gloria Estafan) and we were watching them film the movie because my mother was a huge Frank Sinatra fan.
My parents were running the coffee shop in the Cardozo Hotel -renamed the Garden Of Eden in the movie, until they closed the hotel down for the shoot. My parents then took over the coffee shop in the Netherlands two hotels down.
The Cardozo Hotel is on 13th and Ocean Drive and I pretty much spent my childhood running around every nook and cranny in both hotels.
My Mom was such a huge fan that she would go alone whenever Sinatra was appearing in Miami Beach and give the maitre d’ the tip to get a seat at the bar to see him perform, she just adored him.
I do remember asking her while we were sitting on the seawall watching one day "What is it you see in Frank?". Her response to a 7 year old was pretty damn amazing. Mom said that besides loving the way he sang, he was “no fucking good” and that is what made him exciting.
Whatever it might have been, even I loved listening to him sing and I totally understand what she was saying. I remember that finally as a young adult seeing him perform here in nyc. It was pretty amazing, it was at MSG, I was pretty in awe of it.
We had tons of his albums and they would be playing all the time.
In 1993 I was living in New York and I got a call from Miami and rushed home. My Mom was dying. She spent the last week in and out of consciousness and on that Wednesday in November she was alert and sitting up, I went out and bought two copies of Sinatra's just released "Duets". I put the ear buds in my Mom's ears and played the album for her and at one point I took them out of her ears to tell her something and my Mom snapped at me, "What are you doing? Put them back in. It's Frank."
So here’s to you Ole Blue Eyes….HAPPY BIRTHDAY, from Mommy and me.
