Movie director Elia Kazan (On the Waterfront) wanted to talk to Raquel Welch about being in his next movie. She invited him to go to a Frank Sinatra dinner show and talk there. “Oh, I hate that S.O.B,” Kazan said. But she talked him into going.
During dinner Kazan said, “Who the hell does Sinatra think he is, demanding to do only one take in a movie? Telling some director, ‘That’s it, one take, I’m done’.”
“I just worked with him in Lady in Cement,” Raquel said. “And his first take is usually remarkable.”
Kazan kept going on about how Sinatra ‘thought he was a big shot’ and a ‘tough guy’. Raquel couldn’t convince him otherwise.
Raquel tells it:
“So then Sinatra comes out, the spotlight hits him, he grabs the mike, and starts singing. Halfway through the first song Kazan says to me, ‘My God, this S.O.B. is the greatest actor I’ve ever seen in my life. He’s completely naked up there. I take back everything I’ve said. He’s a genius.’”
When I was starting my doctorate at West Virginia University, there was a Masters degree student from LA that I had only a brief acquaintance with. He said that one time he was at some Hollywood event and the crowd was so thick that he was crushed up against Raquel Welch for a while. Said they had a pleasant chat until the crowding thinned and he was able to leave that heavenly body behind. ;-)
Ron