George Jacobs, Memoirist and Valet for Sinatra, Dies at 86
George Jacobs, a former valet whose memoir revealed his longtime employer, Frank Sinatra, to be both a hero and a villain, died on Dec. 28 in Palm Springs, Calif. He was 86.
His son Snake Jagger confirmed the death.
Published in 2003, Mr. Jacobs’s book, “Mr. S: My Life With Frank Sinatra” (written with William Stadiem), chronicles the 15 years, from 1953 to 1968, that he served as Sinatra’s live-in valet at his homes in Bel Air and Palm Springs, Calif. — with a roster of duties that, he wrote, included cooking Italian meals for Sinatra’s underworld associates; securing the nighttime services of women in a storied profession; and, in the wee small hours of the morning (Sinatra liked to do his actual sleeping solo), settling their bills before sending them on their way.
“Mr. S,” which was excerpted in Playboy, drew worldwide notice. The gossip columnist Liz Smith wrote approvingly that the memoir “has at least five quotable and shocking remarks about the famous on every page,” adding, “With a few exceptions, most of it seems utterly true.”
Asked about Mr. Jacobs not long after the volume’s publication, Frank Sinatra Jr. said: “I haven’t seen him in 40 years. And, after that thing that he’s doing right now — he’s assassinating the character of my father and all those people — I hope it’s another 40 years before I see him.”
Mr. Jacobs’s book described, among much else, an amorous naked clinch between Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich and the insatiable appetite for Hollywood gossip of John F. Kennedy, then a United States senator. (“I would ask him about Castro or Khrushchev, but he wanted to know if Janet Leigh was cheating on Tony Curtis.”)
Most revelations centered on Sinatra, who died in 1998 at 82. There were the luminous women he chased: Grace Kelly, Lauren Bacall, Marilyn Monroe, Natalie Wood. (He caught many of them.) There was the specially constructed underwear he wore in public, which kept what Mr. Jacobs describes as his considerable natural endowment discreetly suppressed.
Sinatra, Mr. Jacobs wrote, could be abusive. But despite his using an occasional racial slur to refer to Mr. Jacobs, who was black, and despite his once having hurled a spaghetti marinara dinner at him because he had failed to cook it al dente, Sinatra is portrayed with sympathy — a tragic figure who continued to pine for his second wife, Ava Gardner, long after their divorce.
Mr. Jacobs’s tenure ended when he was seen dancing in a Los Angeles nightclub with Sinatra’s third wife, Mia Farrow, whom Sinatra was divorcing. After an item about the episode appeared in Rona Barrett’s gossip column, Mr. Jacobs returned to Sinatra’s Bel Air compound to find the locks changed and a lawyer’s letter telling him he was fired.
George Emanuel Jacobs Jr. was born in New Orleans on April 29, 1927. After serving as a Navy cook, he settled in Los Angeles, where he landed extra roles in a few Tarzan films. He later worked as a valet for the Hollywood agent Swifty Lazar before being poached by Sinatra; after leaving Sinatra’s employ, he worked for Steve McQueen, George Hamilton and Bill Cosby.
Mr. Jacobs was married and divorced three times. Besides his son Mr. Jagger, his survivors include three other sons, George Jacobs Jr., Sean Jacobs and John Dodd; two daughters, Jennie Joyner and Raychel Jacobs; and a number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Three other children, Guy, Brenda and Rene Jacobs, died before him.
In later years Mr. Jacobs worked as a carpenter. But he retained his affection for his valet days to the end of his life, residing in a Palm Springs apartment awash in photos of Sinatra and his circle, and offering interviewers his business card, inscribed “The Last of the Rat Pack.”
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