Exclusives: Ronan Farrow isn’t Frank Sinatra’s son. And Brett Ratner isn’t dating Mariah Carey. I confirmed both of these things last night at the very swanky after party for HBO’s two part Sinatra documentary airing this Sunday and Monday.
The party at the Porterhouse restaurant in the Time Warner center was sit down dinner for the A list including Tina Sinatra, Frank’s daughter, director Brett Ratner, the doc’s director Alex Gibney and its famed producer Frank Marshall, actors Chris Noth and John Turturro and media elite like Regis and Joy Philbin, Lawrence O’Donnell, Jeff Zucker, Ashley Banfield, Monica Crowley, Sinatra expert Jonathan Schwartz, and so on. Little Steven van Zandt and wife Maureen brought a special guest, too, who blew me away: Dave Clark, of the fabled Dave Clark Five. Dave Clark! I pounded out “Bits and Pieces” on the table for him and he pretended not to mind!
Anyway, I digress: Tina Sinatra laughed when I asked if Mia Farrow’s son Ronan (with Woody Allen) was her brother. Mia let that slip in November 2013 and the rumor caught fire. “Couldn’t be,” Tina told me. “Frank had a vasectomy before that. I don’t know whose son Ronan is.” Mia Farrow had been invited to the dinner but was a no-show. Tina added that Ronan looks “just like Mia’s late brother.”
Tina, by the way, is stunning and knows her business, the Frank Sinatra business. Her mother (and Nancy and Frank Jr’s), Nancy Sr. is 98 years young! Has she seen the movie, called “All or Nothing at All”? Tina told me: “She’ll see it when it airs Sunday and Monday night.” She added: “She has all her marbles.”
We saw Part 1 last night before dinner. There is a lot of exclusive footage and photos, never before seen, in this extremely well crafted film. A lot of it revolves around an unreleased video of what Sinatra called in 1971 his “final concert.” Sinatra fans are going to cherish all this material, so well woven into the story of Frank’s life up through his marriage to Ava Gardner and his Oscar for “From Here to Eternity.” We see Part 2 today.
This is Sinatra’s 100th centennial– the big celebration will come in December. In between now and then we have this not to be missed film, plus a CD later this month of 100 greatest Sinatra songs. There’s a book coming out this fall, and a concert is being planned for the anniversary as well.
Meantime, director-film financier Brett Ratner and I had a laugh about his “dating” Mariah Carey that was reported all over the tabloids. Lots of pictures came from a short vacation they took together with Mariah’s kids and a lot of other people. Brett and Mariah are old, old friends. I do believe they were egging on the paparazzi to make Mariah’s ex, Nick Cannon, a little crazy. Anyway, Brett assured me they each have a Vision of Love, and it’s not with each other.
PS Sinatra did not like the press. He and Liz Smith had a famous 20 year feud. There are also stories of him spitting on reporters, and shutting them out. He never wrote a book, which is too bad. But he did do a couple of long video interviews, and they’re interspersed here. In fact, Frank almost narrates his own documentary. Kudos to Gina Gershon, who voices Ava Gardner, reading from the late gorgeous movie star’s autobiography.
