Free Shirley Jones by Shirley Jones

of which encapsulated the essence of all my many conversations with Sari and my other friends who continued to warn me about Jack, that he was married and a philanderer, and that he would ultimately break my heart. I listened, but to paraphrase the song, Jack was my fella, I loved him, and there was nothing more for me to say.
    For the time being, however, Jack and I were destined to be apart. Carousel was scheduled to shoot in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, and he was all set to appear as Leonard Vole in Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution , in Bucks County Playhouse.
    During our three-month separation, he would call me every night, and all day long I would look forward to his call. Whenever he could, he came up to Maine to visit me. When, at last, we were reunited after Carousel wrapped, he gave me the wonderful news that he and Evelyn had gone to Mexico and obtained a divorce, and that he was now free to marry me. His Parisian promise had not been a lie, after all, and I was overjoyed.

    Before flying up to Boothbay Harbor, I spent eight weeks at Twentieth Century Fox, in Hollywood, rehearsing for Carousel with my costar, Frank Sinatra, and recording all the beautiful songs from the score, together.
    From the first, Frank, fresh from his triumph in From Here to Eternity , made it clear that he was so thrilled about starring in Carousel and kept telling me that Billy Bigelow was the best role for a male singer there is. So I didn’t have any qualms about accepting when one of his gofers approached me after rehearsals one day and asked me to stop by Frank’s dressing room.
    When I got there, the room was empty. I was about to leave when Frank shouted out from the bathroom, “I’ll be right out.” In a couple of minutes, he appeared, dressed only in slacks, bare-chested, with a towel slung around his neck. The prelude to a pass? Maybe.
    The prospect of Frank’s making a pass didn’t bother me because I was never afraid of men wanting to pressure me into going to bed with them. For me, the decision was always mine, and mine alone. In Frank’s case, that decision was a firm and resounding no!
    My passion for Jack was one reason for my immunity to Frank Sinatra’s fabled charms. But even if Jack hadn’t been in the picture, I would never have gone to bed with Frank. Sure, I admired his voice, but as a man, he had no magic whatsoever for me. He was so self-involved, and every single conversation centered only around him and no one else.
    He was also massively insecure. I remember going backstage after one of his concerts years later and telling him how brilliant he’d been.
    “Nah, that last note in my third song? I didn’t make it,” Frank said.
    “But, Frank, you were fine.”
    “Nah, Shirley, I’m gonna go home.” And he did.
    Anyway, at my meeting alone with Frank during the Carousel rehearsals, for a while he prowled around the dressing room in silence. He stared at me out of the corner of his legendary blue eyes. Striking as those eyes were, I felt decidedly uncomfortable under their stare.
    Finally, Frank said, “I think this is going to be a terrific picture, don’t you?”
    I nodded.
    “I think we ought to rehearse together as much as we can, and make the best movie we can.”
    I nodded again.
    Then Frank sat down on the couch next to me. “You’re a beautiful girl and a beautiful singer.”
    Here it comes, I thought to myself, because Frank had a reputation of going to bed with every leading lady he ever worked with.
    He leaned closer to me. “I really want to talk to you about this role, who we are, what the script really means,” he said earnestly.
    So Frank really did want to talk about Carousel and wasn’t going to make a move on me! I breathed a sigh of relief.
    As he knew that I had worked with Rodgers and Hammerstein on Oklahoma! and was under contract to them, he asked me all about them. He quizzed me on how they felt about Carousel , why it was their favorite of all their musicals,