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When a hot-tempered Frank Sinatra wanted to break it off with a beautiful woman, he would order loyal valet Tony Consiglio, a high-school buddy from Hoboken, to do the dirty work.
Though it would be nasty, Consiglio admits in his posthumous book “Sinatra and Me: The Very Good Years” that he had no choice.
During their 50 years together, if something went wrong for Sinatra, Ol’ Blue Eyes would say to Consiglio, “You have a problem.”
One night at the Claridge in Atlantic City, Frank was with a gorgeous young actress, Consiglio writes. But when the talk turned to politics, she rubbed Sinatra the wrong way.
The lady retired to her room to change into something more comfortable. Sinatra told Tony to deliver dinner — a plate of spareribs — to the woman with a special instruction.
“I went to her room and knocked on the door. She opened the door wearing a beautiful light chiffon dressing gown over a transparent white negligee. She looked beautiful and ready for a long night. I told her that I was sorry to bother her, and that Frank had insisted that I deliver the spareribs.
“When she reached out for the plate I hit her in the face with the ribs, sauce and all. I apologized again and went back to the suite.
“Frank asked, ‘Did you do what I told you?’ I nodded yes.”
Consiglio, who died in 2008, remained with Sinatra for 50 years, from their boyhood days of the 1930s to the crooner’s heyday of the ’30s and ’40s, to his waning years in the 1970s.
“Frank never had to ask where his tuxedo was or why his shoes were not polished. He knew that when I was around, all that he had to do was remember the words to his songs. I took care of the rest, and I enjoyed it.”
The rib incident wasn’t the only time the slavishly devoted Consiglio had to clean up the crooner’s nasty breakups.
After his divorce from Ava Gardner, Sinatra fell in love with classical ballerina Juliet Prowse and wanted to marry her with the caveat that she would give up show business. She said no.
A few days later, Consiglio dutifully turned up at her suite in the St. Moritz Hotel with a big box.
He watched her open the gift from Sinatra. It was a stunning $12,000 full-length white mink coat.
Consiglio recalled, “Alongside the coat was a note: ‘This is your swan song. Frank.’ That was all it said.”
After one particular drag-out fight with his then wife, Hollywood beauty Gardner in the Hampshire Hotel in New York City, Sinatra turned to Consiglio.
“Tony, you have a problem. Ava threw her wedding ring out the window, and she feels bad.’
They were 14 stories up. While Sinatra and Gardner had make-up sex, Consiglio searched the sidewalk with a flashlight for hours. He finally found it by a fire hydrant. All Frank said was “Great.”
Consiglio, was known as “The Clam” for keeping his lips zipped. He was always on call, and he always had in his pocket $10,000 to $20,000 of Sinatra’s cash to cater to his every whim.
Loyalty had no limits if you were a pal or part of the inner circle, but Sinatra liked to keep a very tight leash. One time at the Sands Hotel, Consiglio was spotted watching Nick the Greek, a well known gambler, shoot craps. But Sinatra didn’t want him around The Greek and ordered him back to his room, even though he wasn’t working.
Consiglio, tail between his legs, obeyed.
“Within a half an hour, a tall blonde knocked on my door. ‘I’m here to keep you company and make sure you don’t go back to the craps table,’ ” she said.
Consiglio didn’t leave his room for three days.