Bruce Willis’ forgotten collaboration with Frank Sinatra: “I got to hang around the set”
There was a very strange moment in the late 1970s and early ‘80s when Frank Sinatra was still very much a part of the cultural zeitgeist despite having reached the peak of his fame in the 1940s and ‘50s. To be clear, this is a highly aspirational state of affairs, and goodness knows Ol’ Blue Eyes had the talent to back it up. But there is something a little vertiginous in the realisation that it was Sinatra – not Clint Eastwood – who was supposed to play ‘Dirty’ Harry Callahan in the Dirty Harry movies, in the same way that it’s a little bizarre to remember that the ‘My Way Singer’ was married to a very young Mia Farrow in the late ‘60s.
Part of this whole blending of old and new Hollywood within the one extremely adaptable man was a series of decidedly modern movies that starred Sinatra but featured more contemporary stars. After winning an Oscar in 1954 for the Pearl Harbour romance From Here to Eternity, he just kept going.
He appeared alongside Raquel Welch in the X-rated thriller Lady in Cement in 1968 and played himself in the Burt Reynolds vehicle Cannonball Run II in 1984. He was the glue that bound older and younger generations, whether they liked it or not.
The most notable of all these movies, at least in retrospect, was the 1980 crime thriller The First Deadly Sin. It isn’t notable for being good, because it absolutely isn’t. It’s notable for its cast list. Sinatra stars as soon-to-be-retired police inspector Edward Delaney, who is hunting a serial killer in the streets of New York while trying to care for his ill wife, played by Faye Dunaway. Dunaway was already an established star at that point and had earned an Oscar three years before for Network.
Way down in the credits list, however, is Bruce Willis, a then-unknown 25-year-old who was playing the pivotal role of ‘Man Entering Diner as Delaney Leaves.’ Despite his blink-and-you’ll-miss-it role, Willis was thrilled to discover that Sinatra was warm and friendly with even the most insignificant actors. “I got to hang around the set, and they were shooting nights, and Frank Sinatra would come out,” the future Die Hard star recalled, adding, “We were shooting in a bar, so we’d just get him talking, and all of the young actors just try to ask… him questions and just get him telling us stories.”
Sinatra shared an anecdote about making From Here to Eternity, remembering that Ernest Borgnine encouraged him to whack him in the head with a barstool as hard as he could to get their on-screen fight underway. Not surprisingly, Willis and his fellow young hopefuls hung on Sinatra’s every word and came away from the experience with their own anecdotes.
At the time, Willis hadn’t even gotten started as an actor. In fact, The First Deadly Sin was his first-ever on-screen appearance. It would take another five years for him to land the lead role on the detective sitcom Moonlighting, and the whole concept of action stardom was but a distant dream. He wasn’t even credited for his appearance in the movie, but as far as first experiences on film sets go, hanging out with Frank Sinatra is pretty tough to beat.
