"Hear what, Jerry? What can you hear?"

"I can hear Howard Cosell. He's ringside, his hand over his ear, announcing it as you come down the aisle, climb through the ropes and into the ring: "Ladies and gentlemen, live from Madison Square Garden. Jerry Weintraub presents 'Sinatra, the Main Event.'

"And here's the best part," I told Frank. "No rehearsals."

"No rehearsals."

"No rehearsals. You just get there on the night of the show, and sing your songs, and do your thing, as fresh and spontaneous as can be-like a heavyweight title fight. Frank Sinatra Live!"

"The Main Event" was one of the great concert events of the age, Sinatra, in a ring in the center of his town, singing the story of his life, and this is how it began, on the roof of Caesars, Sinatra depressed and brooding, Weintraub talking and talking.

When we got to New York, Sinatra checked into a suite in the Waldorf Astoria and I went to the Garden to set this thing up. Live? In every house in America, in every nation on earth? What was I thinking? The project had grown quickly-too quickly. It started as a concert broadcast on TV, but there was now a record and a film. And we had five days to pull it off. Just like that, I had three hundred people working for me. By the second day, I was feeling pressure. By the fourth, I was in a mild panic. By the fifth, I was out of my mind. What had started as a ploy to snap Frank out of his depression had turned into a major deal-handled wrong, it could turn into a major embarrassment.

At such times, I become obsessed with details. That's where God is, so that's where I go, with my notebook and phone numbers and head full of ideas. The people, the angles, the chairs-I wanted to get everything exactly right. I hired Roone Arledge, who was then head of ABC Sports and ABC News, to produce the broadcast. I hired Don Ohlmeyer, who ended up being president of NBC, and Dick Ebersol, who later ran NBC Sports, and still does.

We built the boxing ring, arranged the seats, rehearsed the camera moves, intros, and exits, everything choreographed to a fraction of a second. Commercials were a major issue. We were supposed to break six times in the hour, and needed a system whereby Frank would know when to close out a song and when to start back in. Also, which songs would work the best as hooks, and which would work the best as lead-ins to new segments. Simply put, I needed Frank at the Garden for a rehearsal. But when I called his room at the Waldorf, there was no answer, nor a return call, day after day. Finally, on the morning of the show, a secretary answered.

"This is Jerry Weintraub," I told her. "I've got to talk to Frank."

"I'm sorry," she said. "Mr. Sinatra is not available."

"What the hell are you talking about?" I said. "We have a show tonight! At 8:00 P.M., we go live around the world."

"I'm sorry," she said "but he's indisposed."

Click.

I kept calling, but he never got on the phone.

At 2:00 P.M. a note arrived from Sinatra. It was his set list, the songs he planned to sing. It was ridiculous, absurd. I could not believe what was on there. "Crocodile Rock," "Disco Inferno."

To hell with this! I jump in a cab and head over to the Waldorf.

I went through the lobby, up the elevator, knocked on the door. I was in a panic. Clearly, Sinatra was not. He was, in fact, sitting in his bathrobe, smoking a cigarette as he read the newspaper. I went over, holding the set list.

"What is this?" I asked.

"What's what?" he said.

"These songs."

He laughed. His hair was pushed back and every part of him glittered. His funk had clearly lifted. "Forget the list," he said. "I wanted to see you, and figured that list would get you here quicker than a phone call."

"Okay, great," I said, "why did you want to see me?"

"Because you've been calling every eight minutes. What do you need, Jerry?"

"Well, I'll tell you," I said. "We have a live show in five hours, Frank. I need you to come to the Garden."

"No, Jerry, you said no rehearsal, remember? Live?"

"Yeah, I remember, but this thing has grown."

"Don't worry, Jerry."

Sinatra obviously had a plan in mind, but he was not sharing it with me.

"Well, I am worried," I said. "Can't we just do a quick run-through?"

"No, Jerry, no rehearsal. That's what you said. I will be there when the show starts. That's when you need me. Not before."

At 7:30 P.M., his limo pulled into Madison Square Garden. The streets were filled with scalpers and fans-and that special electricity only Frank could generate. He had arrived with a police escort, sirens, flashing lights. He climbed out, straightened his tux, tossed away a cigarette, took my arm, and asked, "How you doing, kid?"

"Not great," I said.

"We'll fix that in a minute," he told me. "First, remember to tell your wife, Jane, to get in the car when I start singing 'My Way.' I want to go by Patsy's and pick up some pizzas for the plane."

So that was what he was thinking about-not the show, not the commercial breaks, not the slender thread that was holding me above the flames of oblivion, but the pizzas he would eat on the way back to Palm Springs.

As we were walking to the dressing room, his entourage trailing behind us, he said, "Okay, Jerry. What's the problem?"

"We're going to commercial six times in this hour," I told him, "and this is a live show, and you don't know when to break."

"Jerry, is there a kid around here with a red jacket?" he asked.

"I'm sure we can get one," I said. "Why?"

"Have a kid in a red coat stand up ringside with a sign that says 'five minutes,' " he said. "When I see him, I will start 'My Way.' "

"Okay," I said, "but what are you going to do during the six commercial breaks?"

He said, "I'm going to sing, Jerry. That's what I am going to do. When you go to commercial, I will be singing and when you come back, I will still be singing. That's live."

He taught me about spontaneity that night-this, too, helped me as a film producer. Live, let it happen. There's never a better take than the first: Sinatra knew that in his bones.

If you watch a tape of the "Main Event," you see me and Sinatra walk out of the dressing room and down the aisle side by side. He is Muhammad Ali and I am Cus D'Amato, the trainer, the cut man, the voice in the ear, saying, "You are the champ! It's yours! Now get in there and murder the bum!" I was, in fact, as white as a sheet, shuffling as if to my own funeral. You hear Cosell going though his routine: "… Here, coming through the same tunnel that so many champions have walked before, the great man, Frank Sinatra, who has the phrasing, who has the control, who knows what losing means, who made the great comeback, and now stands still, eternally, on top of the entertainment world…" Just before we went out, when the music started Sinatra leaned over me-well, I was a lot taller than Frank, so he looked up, but it felt like he was leaning over me, you know? And he asked, "How you doing now? Better?"

"No," I said, "not better."

"What the hell's the matter with you?" he said.

"Frank"-or Francis, that's what I said-"this is going live around the world, we have not rehearsed and have no markers or breaks. It could be the end of my career."

He pinched my cheek and said, "Listen, kid. You got me into this, and I'm going to get you out."

And he went through the ropes, and the music started, and it was all Frank from there. He was a genius. He held the crowd in his hand. "The Lady Is a Tramp," "Angel Eyes," "My Kind of Town," they poured out of him like Norse sagas. When he sang "Autumn in New York," it was as if he were leaning on a bar, spilling his guts out to a late-night, Hopperesque bartender.

Who thought this could work, intimacy in an arena filled with thousands and thousands of people, but he pulled it off. He turned the Garden into a shadowy, three-in-the-morning, Second Avenue saloon. You could have heard a pin drop.