Television and Cinema Verities # 26

“It was shot late at night, and we had an eighty man crew shooting on this hill.  On the other side of the same hill, Frank Sinatra and Peter Lawford were filming some war movie.  Anyway, we were going along fine when Frank Sinatra sent a messenger over to our side of the hill to tell us to keep it down.  Well, I gave the guy a message of my own: I said he should tell Sinatra to ‘go fuck himself.’  The messenger returned to his side of the hill, we resumed shooting on our side, and everybody thought everything was fine.  Then, suddenly, it got really quiet on our side of the hill.  I was behind the camera so I didn’t know what was going on, but when I turned around, Frank Sinatra was right there, standing just a few feet from me.  ‘Johnny,’ Sinatra said deadpan, ‘I got your message.’ There was silence for a second, then everybody laughed…and it was over.”

-       -  One Step Beyond director, John Newland, describes his encounter with Frank Sinatra while filming the episode “If You See Sally.”  From my book, An Analytical Guide to TV’s One Step Beyond (2001), pages 165-166.