sinatra and wheaties--5/16/25
Today's selection-- from Confidential Confidential by Samantha Barbas. Started by Robert Harrison and published from 1952 to 1978, Confidential magazine led the way in Hollywood scandal and gossip journalism, including these salacious tidbits on superstars Gary Cooper, Bob Hope, and Frank Sinatra:
“What appeared in Confidential was dictated largely by its sources. Confidential had become a cash cow for a host of fringe elements in Hollywood who sold the magazine tips when they were short on funds.
“Fred Otash remained one of Confidential's top tipsters, and he fed Harrison stories about his clients and lovers, including actresses Marie McDonald and Anita Ekberg. There were three Confidential stories on Ekberg,a busty blonde from Sweden who was under contract to the Universal studio. Otash dated her for a few months, then gave Confidential the details
of their liaisons and assigned his men to tail her and take pictures of her with her lovers.
“‘Gary Cooper's Lost Weekend with Anita Ekberg’ appeared in the January 1956 issue. The article was written from the point of view of a private eye who trailed Ekberg and Cooper, a notorious playboy. ‘Anybody could have collected the lowdown ... [someone] had only to take up an observation post across the street from Anita's house, 2129½ South Beverly Glen Boulevard Beverly Hills, on the afternoon of last August 6th…Did anyone do such a thing?’ asked Confidential. ‘Yes indeed.’
“The detective started at Ekberg's apartment, where Cooper picked her up in his Mercedes-Benz. They drove toward Malibu, stopped to pick up some groceries, then went to a bungalow on the Pacific Coast Highway. At 2:25 AM, Confidential reported, the floodlights outside the house flicked off.
“To tell the truth, it was so quiet the whole morning long of Sunday, August 7th that in spite of the fact that Gary's car was still in the garage, he received a mysterious phone call between about two and four in the afternoon. Cooper answered the phone—the number is GLenwood 7-2475, in case you're interested—and drawled his globally famous ‘Yup?’ into the mouthpiece.
“That's all the caller wanted to know. There was a soft click on the other end of the line and the world's best-known cowboy could only wonder what it meant. Now he knows. He also knows, as of this moment, that there were peeping eyes when he walked out of the house in bathing trunks, shortly after four that lazy Sunday after noon, and stood—like General Custer—on a bluff overlooking the Pacific …Maybe they do and maybe they don't recall a character scrambling around on the stones well in back of them.
“Through the long summer afternoon, ‘Coop’ and the so firm, so fully-packed Ekberg paddled in the surf, smooched in the sand, and otherwise enjoyed their unofficial vacation As the sun went down they returned to their house, got rid of all that sand, and then drove off to an intimate little beach restaurant for dinner. It took them until 2:30 AM to return to the ... house.
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| Photo illustration from Confidential Magazine. |
“Cooper was outraged but wouldn't sue. ‘It's a nope from Mr. Yup on whether he's joining Hollywood's million-dollar lawsuit rush against Confidential,’ Erskine Johnson reported.
“Barbara Payton was another prolific Confidential source. A B-actress with a serious alcohol problem and, by 1956, an almost nonexistent career, Payton sold HRI tips. ‘Caught—Guy Madison in Barbara Payton's Boudoir’ described her affair with actor Guy Madison while she was engaged to Franchot Tone, Joan Crawford's ex-husband.
“Payton had once been the lover of wealthy Texas oilman Bob Neal, and also Bob Hope. ‘Have Tux, Will Travel—and That's What Bob Hope Did with That Blonde’ described Payton's affair with Hope seven years earlier. ‘It all goes back to a sunny afternoon in 1949, when our oh-so-fully packed Payton was visiting in Dallas, Texas and happened to run into a millionaire pal, Bob Neal, in the lobby of the popular Baker Hotel.’ Neal ‘invited Barbara to a party Hope was giving that night in his own suite at the same hotel. That's the last Neal ever saw of Payton. Barbara came for cocktails and stayed for capers—with Hope. Just like that! They hadn't known each other six hours before they knew each other as well as boy and girl ever can.’
“Hope nearly had a heart attack when the article came out. Press agents suggested it might be a good opportunity for him to spend time with his wife and family. Hope was livid, but his lawyers dissuaded him from bringing a lawsuit. That Certain Feeling was released around the same time, and Paramount executives didn't want to attract more attention to the Confidential story.
“‘Hope's fundamental attitude towards the affair was ... mixed,’ writes his biographer. ‘It had showcased him, however vulgarly, as the Ladykiller Supreme he always longed to come across as.’ Hope knew his popularity would suffer little from a magazine held in low repute, and he realized that Confidential could have come up with worse. His wife, Dolores, was outraged. They almost divorced. Hope turned his wrath on Payton, ‘putting out the word she was a no-good slut who couldn't be trusted.’
“An unnamed call girl was the source of ‘Here's Why Frank Sinatra Is the Tarzan of the Boudoir,’ which attributed Sinatra's sexual prowess to a hearty breakfast cereal. The article, which ran in the spring of 1956, was written in the format of ‘An Open Letter to Wheaties.’
“It may seem brash coming from an outsider, but you've been making a whale of a mistake in the way you plug Wheaties, boys. You've been sitting on a gold mine, fellows, as you'll discover when you've finished reading this story. Then, if you're smart, you'll toddle around to Frank Sinatra's house and get that kid's endorsement on the dotted line.
“Frank Sinatra, you say. What's he champ of? Plenty, men. Just ask the babes who know him.
He's had the nation's front-rank playboys dizzy for years trying to discover his secret. Ava Gardner, Lana Turner, Gloria Vanderbilt, Anita Ekberg-how does that skinny little guy do it? ...
Wheaties! That's the magic, gentlemen. Where other Casanovas wilt under the pressure of a torrid romance, Frankie boy just pours himself a big bowl of crispy, crackly Wheaties and comes back rarin' to go.
“Sinatra found himself head over heels in love with a ‘curvy, dreamy eyed little pigeon,’ wrote Confidential. He took her out for dinner and ‘dallying,’ but the woman was unimpressed. ‘She rated him adequate at that old pajama game but nothing worth bulletins.’ She changed her mind, though, when Sinatra invited her to spend the weekend with him at his country home in Palm Springs. ‘The babe hopped at the opportunity—and got practically no sleep at all for the next two days. Why? Frankie was on Wheaties.’
“At the fashionable Dunes restaurant, Sinatra just ‘picked and pecked’ at his food. ‘Back at the house, though, he tore into the kitchen, wolfed down a big bowl of those nourishing flakes, and then led her to the boudoir.’ While the woman tried to catch her breath, ‘Frankie excused himself and padded back into the kitchen for a refill of that “Breakfast of Champs.” The girl was still wondering what was going on when he came charging back into the playroom hummin “I’m in the Mood for Love,” and proceeded to prove it.’
“When Frankie made his fourth visit to the Wheaties bin the gal began to cross her fingers. Something, she was sure, was going to explode. Her worries were groundless, though. They cut another caper and she finally nuzzled her weary head into the pillow for some shut-eye until—she heard a noise. Believe us, General Mills, it was Frankie shuffling into his slippers again. Out to the kitchen he went. Back in her little nook, the unbelieving babe could plainly hear the crunch, crunch, crunch of a man—eating Wheaties.
“Al Govoni arranged a supermarket promotion in Los Angeles with Wheaties and Confidential stacked side by side. According to Govoni's son Steve, Harrison said the Wheaties story was the best he ever ran—’and I don't know how many times I heard my father, leaning back with cigar and Dewar's, proudly recall that Sinatra had called him personally from Australia to chew him out.’
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