I stayed close to Mahoney as we entered the vast and clamorous television studio where hundreds of people were gathered in conversation around the elevated platform on which some seated musicians were warming up; and overlooking the bandstand was the glass-enclosed control booth in which the director and his assistants were testing their cameras and sound equipment in the hope that Frank Sinatra would battle through his cold today and offer a worthy performance.
After passing the bandstand, we continued walking until we reached the rehearsal room in the far corner of the studio. Mahoney paused to speak to some people who stood outside the door, introducing me to none of them. Three of them were well-dressed men in dark suits approaching middle age, and there was also a gray-haired woman wearing a floral-print dress who carried a small suitcase. I later learned her name was Helen Turpin, and that her full-time job was quietly following Sinatra around wherever he performed while bearing a suitcase filled with his hairpieces. As his toupee toter, she earned $400 a week.
