Frank Sinatra Nearly Drowned and Gave the Man Who Saved Him a New Career
In 1964, Frank Sinatra nearly died while filming on location in Hawaii. Luckily, his co-star Brad Dexter reacted quickly and pulled him out of the water. As a result, Sinatra made him the vice president of Sinatra Enterprises. Though the two men were practically inseparable, they ultimately had a falling out over Sinatra’s third marriage.
Frank Sinatra nearly drowned while filming ‘None but the Brave’
Sinatra and Ruth Koch, wife of screenwriter Howard Koch, were swimming in Hawaii when on location for the film None but the Brave. They got caught in a riptide, and both began to struggle. Dexter ran out of the house to help them.
“Then I realized that [Sinatra] was unconscious, and so was Ruth,” Dexter said in the unauthorized biography His Way by Kitty Kelley. “I had to fight continuously to hold them up and out of the crashing waves, praying that someone on the beach would summon help soon. I kept slapping them, pulling them out of the water, hoisting them up for air, but they were two dead weights.”
Eventually, lifeguards reached the group and brought Sinatra and Koch back to shore on their boards. When Dexter got out of the water, both were still unconscious.
“I stretched Frank out on the sand and gave him artificial respiration,” he explained. “Once he started vomiting the water out of his lungs, I turned him over to the lifeguards. Jilly Rizzo ran up to me and shouted, ‘You’re a hero, Brad. You’re a hero. Without you, Frank would be dead.’”
He gave his co-star a job after this incident
Dexter received a Red Cross medal for his rescue efforts, and he also got a job as the vice-president of Sinatra Enterprises from the grateful singer. According to Gay Talese’s 1966 article, “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” Dexter and Sinatra were nearly always together.
“He occupies a plush office near Sinatra’s executive suite,” Talese wrote, per Creative Nonfiction. “He is endlessly searching for literary properties that might be converted into new starring roles for Sinatra.”
Despite this, Dexter felt that Sinatra was somewhat embarrassed to have been rescued by him. The singer did not like feeling indebted to people, as evidenced by his reaction to Dexter shortly after the incident. He had been speaking on the phone with his daughter when Dexter walked into the room.
“He looked up at me when I entered the room and I observed that he was still in a state of shock,” Dexter said. “His eyes were bloodshot, and he had the expression of a felled ox. When our eyes locked, it seemed that he didn’t know what to say. He was embarrassed. He hung up the telephone and said, ‘My family thanks you.’ It was such a strange remark, almost as if I had put him in the uncomfortable position of having to thank me for saving his life.”
Frank Sinatra and Brad Dexter had a falling out
Though Sinatra and Dexter went on to work on the film The Naked Runner with Dexter as the producer and Sinatra as the lead, their relationship ended. While shooting in 1966, Sinatra announced that he was going to marry Mia Farrow. Dexter discouraged him from doing so. Per the LA Times, Sinatra never returned to the movie set. When Dexter finished the film and returned home, he learned that he had been fired from his position at Sinatra Enterprises. Still, Dexter shifted into more producer roles from then on.
