Steeped in darkness, he believed in his gut. And that is where he found Angelo Maggio. In 1952, he read From Here To Eternity, James Jones's epic novel of pre-Pearl Harbor army life, and recognized a runt private who was nobody's patsy, who would sooner be beaten to death than ever give up. "I was Maggio," he would say. "No matter who said what, I would prove it, no matter how many tests I was asked to make, no matter what the money, I was going to become Maggio if it was the last thing I ever did." Columbia Pictures owned the rights, so he launched his campaign. He called studio chief and notorious bastard Harry Cohn, whom he knew well. "Harry," he said, "you've got something I want." Cohn replied, "What you want to play God?" Frank begged, but Cohn could not see him as Maggio: "Look, Frank, that's an actor's part. You're nothing but a f***ing hoofer." Frank was relentless, offered to work for nothing, sent Cohn a barrage of telegrams, signing each one "Maggio." He was in Africa with Ava [Gardner] when Cohn agreed to give him a screen test. Frank paid his own way back to Hollywood, improvised the bar scene where he threw the olives like dice, flew back to Africa, waited. Cohn caved. Frank, who had been making $150,000 per picture, would get $8,000 to play Maggio. Shooting began in Hawaii in the spring of 1953. The film's star, Burt Lancaster, watched Frank pour his elemental self into the role: "His fervor, his anger, his bitterness had something to do with the character of Maggio, but also with what he had gone through in the last number of years: a sense of defeat, and the whole world crashing in on him, his marriage to Ava going to pieces. . . . You knew this was a raging little man who was, at the same time, a good human being."