‘A Time of Tears and a Time of Laughter’

Pallbearers, including Don Rickles and Steve Lawrence, carried Frank Sinatra’s gardenia-covered casket into Good Shepherd Church in Beverly Hills on Tuesday night for a vigil attended by several generations of Hollywood stars among the hundreds of mourners.

“It was a very moving service,” said Father Gregory Coiro, a spokesman for the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles. “There was a time of tears and a time of laughter . . . especially at the end, when Frank Sinatra’s daughter and granddaughter eulogized him and related some anecdotes, which evoked laughter from the congregation.”

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, who met earlier with Sinatra’s wife, Barbara, presided at the service.

The vigil, which was private, started at 7:30 p.m. and lasted about an hour.

Hundreds of Sinatra fans lined up outside the church to pay homage to the man--and to do a bit of celebrity watching. Beverly Hills police closed off the sidewalk that ringed the church to keep rubberneckers at a distance.

Across the street, fans and photographers staked out spots in an elevated parking structure to get a better view. Francis McGowan of Pasadena trained her binoculars on the celebrities streaming into the church before the service.

“This is the last time we get to see him,” said McGowan sadly.

Tom Dreeson, a comic who toured with Sinatra for 13 years, surveyed all the police, reporters and onlookers and said with a grin: “If Frank Sinatra were here right now, he’d say, ‘Get this thing over with.’ ”

Sinatra’s friends and relatives began arriving about 6:30 p.m. in limos, Rolls-Royces and other luxury cars. Fifteen blue-jacketed parking attendants stood at the side of the church as one sleek black automobile after another stopped.

The mourners included Kirk Douglas, Gregory Peck, Robert Wagner, Jill St. John, Anthony Quinn, Wayne Newton, Liza Minnelli, Mia Farrow, Milton Berle, Tom Selleck, Bob Newhart, Ed McMahon and Angie Dickinson.

Coiro said there were prayers and scripture readings at the vigil, as well as a homily by Mahony. Eulogies were given by Tony Bennett--a fellow singer highly regarded by Sinatra--Sinatra’s daughter, Nancy, and his granddaughter, Amanda Lambert.

“Tony Bennett said that Frank Sinatra studied the human condition,” Coiro said, “and that’s what he put into his music.”

Coiro said Mahony spoke of how Sinatra “didn’t have a perfect life. He struggled. But he had vision, and that’s what came across in his music. And that was the encouragement that people could use to overcome their own struggles.”

At the service, memorial cards were passed out--with an old photograph of Sinatra, smiling and holding a puppy, on one side and the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi on the other.

Choirs from St. Cyril of Jerusalem parish in Encino and St. Paul the Apostle parish in Westwood participated in the service.

Mahony will celebrate a private funeral Mass at Good Shepherd today. Bennett is expected to sing at the service.

Sinatra’s casket will be placed in a burial vault at Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, where his mother, Natalie “Dolly” Sinatra, and his father, Anthony Martin Sinatra, are buried.