Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra (
;
December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer, actor,
director, and film producer.
Beginning his musical career in the
swing era as a boy singer with
Harry James and
Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra found success as a solo artist from the early to mid-1940s after being signed by
Columbia Records in 1943.
The idol of the "
bobby soxers", he released his first album,
The Voice of Frank Sinatra, in 1946.
His professional career had stalled by the early 1950s, but it was reborn in 1953 after he won the
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in
From Here to Eternity.
He signed with
Capitol Records in 1953 and released several critically lauded albums (such as
In the Wee Small Hours,
Songs for Swingin' Lovers!,
Come Fly with Me,
Only the Lonely and
Nice 'n' Easy).
Sinatra left Capitol to start his own record label,
Reprise Records, in 1961, finding success with albums such as
Ring-a-Ding-Ding!,
Sinatra at the Sands and
Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim.
He toured internationally, was a founding member of the
Rat Pack and fraternized with celebrities and statesmen, including
John F. Kennedy.
In 1965, Sinatra recorded the retrospective
September of My Years, starred in the
Emmy-winning television special
Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music, and scored hits with "
Strangers in the Night" and "
My Way".
In 1967, he recorded one of his most famous collaborations with
Tom Jobim, the album
Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim, which was nominated for the
Grammy Award for Album of the Year.
It was followed by 1968's collaboration with
Duke Ellington.
With sales of his music dwindling and after appearing in several poorly
received films, Sinatra retired for the first time in 1971.
Two years
later, however, he came out of retirement and from 1973 recorded several
albums, scoring a Top 40 hit with "
(Theme From) New York, New York" in 1980.
Using his
Las Vegas shows as a home base, he toured both within the United States and internationally until a short time before his death in 1998.
Sinatra also forged a highly successful career as a film actor.
After winning the
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1953, he also garnered a nomination for
Best Actor for
The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), and critical acclaim for his performance in
The Manchurian Candidate (1962).
He also starred in such musicals as
On the Town (1949),
Guys and Dolls (1955),
High Society (1956), and
Pal Joey (1957).
Sinatra is one of the
best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 150 million records worldwide.
[3]
He was honored at the
Kennedy Center Honors in 1983, was awarded the
Presidential Medal of Freedom by
Ronald Reagan in 1985, and the
Congressional Gold Medal in 1997.
Sinatra was also the recipient of eleven
Grammy Awards, including the
Grammy Trustees Award,
Grammy Legend Award and the
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
One of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century, Sinatra's popularity was later matched only by
Elvis Presley,
the Beatles,
[4] and
Michael Jackson.
[5]
American music critic
Robert Christgau called him "the greatest singer of the 20th century".
[6]
| Frank Sinatra |
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Sinatra in 1957
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Early life
Family background and early years
Francis Albert Sinatra was born on December 12, 1915, in an upstairs tenement at Monroe Street in
Hoboken,
New Jersey, the only child of Italian immigrants Natalina "Dolly" Garaventa and
Antonino Martino "Marty" Sinatra.
The couple had married on February 14, 1914, in a civil ceremony in
Jersey City, New Jersey.
At birth Sinatra weighed 13.5 pounds (6.1 kg) and had to be
delivered with the aid of
forceps, which caused severe scarring to his left cheek, neck, and ear, and perforated his ear drum, damage which remained for life.
His mother, Dolly, an "extrovert blonde" barely five feet tall, was the daughter of a
lithographer.
She was born in
Genoa in northern Italy, and was brought to the United States when she was two month old.
Sinatra's father, a small, blue-eyed, ruddy-complexioned man, came from
Catania in
Sicily.
He was a
bantamweight boxer who fought under the name Marty O'Brien, but retiring from boxing in 1926 after having broken both wrists.
He found work on the docks as a
boilermaker, but was soon laid off due to problems with
asthma.
He later served with the Hoboken Fire Department for 24 years, working his way up to Captain.
Sinatra was raised
Roman Catholic,
[18][19] but due to his injuries at birth, his baptism was delayed for several months.
Dolly was influential in the neighborhood and in local
Democratic Party circles.
She became a ward committee leader,
the first immigrant woman to hold that position in her local third
ward, and reliably delivered up to 600 votes for Democratic candidates.
According to Sinatra biographer
Kitty Kelley, Dolly was a foul-mouthed woman of "such gall that men had to recognize her as their equal".
She had legitimate employment as an Italian-English interpreter for the local court, and as a midwife,
but Kelley claims Dolly also ran an illegal abortion operation that
provided services to Italian Catholic girls, given that pregnancy out of
wedlock at the time would lead to their family disowning them.
Kelly
stated that Dolly became so well-known for her services that doctors
referred their patients to her, and she would travel as far afield as
Jersey City and
Union City with her "little black bag".
She was reportedly arrested six or seven times and convicted twice for this offense, the first of which was in 1937.
When Sinatra was a small child,
Prohibition
came into effect, and in those years Dolly and Marty ran a tavern,
allowed to operate openly by local officials, who refused to enforce
Prohibition laws.
When Sinatra was six, his uncle Babe, Dolly's brother, was arrested for
driving a getaway car after a Railway Express truck driver was
murdered. Though Dolly attended his trial daily and attempted to evoke
sympathy, her brother was convicted and sentenced to prison for 15
years.
Other family members had minor clashes with the law; Sinatra's father and uncles had been arrested for assorted minor offenses.
During the
Great Depression, Dolly provided money to her son for outings with friends, and for him to buy expensive clothes.
He also earned pocket money as a little boy singing on street corners.
Neighbors described Sinatra as the "best-dressed kid in the
neighborhood" and the "richest kid on the block", aided by the fact that
he was an only child, and had his own bedroom.
Excessively thin and small as a child and young man, Sinatra's skinny
frame later became a staple of his own jokes and those of the Rat Pack
members during stage shows, one self-effacing joke being "A little kid,
skinny. So skinny my eyes were single file. Between those two and my
belly button my old man thought I was a clarinet".
[33]
Education and musical development
Sinatra developed an interest in music, particularly
big band
jazz, from a young age, and became addicted to listening to the radio,
"entranced by the new musical and comedy routines and captivated by the
huge audiences they commanded", according to biographer Chris Rojek.
He began singing at a young age, sitting on top of the piano at his parent's bar in Hoboken, "Marty's O'Brien's.
Dolly was not enthusiastic at the idea of her son becoming a singer,
but she realized when Sinatra was as young as 11 he had something.
Sinatra later recalled: "One day, I got a nickel. I said "This is the
racket". I thought, "It's wonderful to sing.... I never forgot it."
During his early teenage years Sinatra forced himself to develop his
voice. Wanting to "make something of himself". He listened heavily to
Gene Austin,
Rudy Vallée,
Russ Colombo and
Bob Eberly, and "idolized"
Bing Crosby, adopting Crosby's props such as a sailor's cap and pipe in his own performances.
Sinatra's maternal uncle, Domenico, gave him a
ukulele for his 15th birthday, and he began performing at family gatherings.
Sinatra graduated from David E. Rue Junior High, and enrolled at A. J. Demarest High School on January 28, 1931, where he arranged bands for school dances.
He left without graduating, having attended only 47 days before being expelled for "general rowdiness".
The school principal, Arthur Stover stated that he "showed no real
talent for anything", while Macy Hagerty, his Maths teacher, described
him as a "lazy boy" with "absolutely no ambition at all when it came to
school".
Sinatra's father was particularly disappointed with his son, hoping
that he would make it to college.
Sinatra recalled his father scolding
him in his strong local accent on the school step after Stover ordered
Sinatra senior to "get him out", exclaiming, "What's the matter with
you? You don't want to learn nothing?"
[33]
To please his mother, he enrolled at Drake Business School, but departed after 11 months.
First jobs
Sinatra's father, who knew that his son was interested in getting
into show business, insisted that his son find a "real job" to avoid
becoming a "bum" after leaving school.
[33]
Dolly found him work as a delivery boy at the
Jersey Observer newspaper, where his godfather Frank Garrick worked,
[a] and briefly as a riveter at the Tietjen and Lang shipyard.
She was also responsible for his job at the Union Club at 600 Hudson
Street in Hoboken, run by Joseph Samperi, where he was paid $40 a week
for five weeks.
He performed in local Hoboken social clubs such as The Cat's Meow and
The Comedy Club, and sang for free on radio stations such as WAAT in
Jersey City.
In New York he found jobs singing for his supper or for cigarettes.
Sinatra began taking 45-minute
elocution
lessons for a dollar an hour under New York-based vocal coach John
Quinlan to improve his speech. Quinlan was impressed by his vocal range,
remarking, "He has far more voice that people think he has.
He can
vocalize to a B-flat on top in full voice, and he doesn't need a mike
either".
Years later, Sinatra professed that he had never had a proper
vocal lesson, but that Quinlan had simply helped him work on vocal
calisthenics to "help the throat grow and add a couple of notes on the
top and spread the bottom".
In 1938, Sinatra found employment as a singing waiter at a roadhouse called The Rustic Cabin in
Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, for which he was paid $15 a week. The roadhouse was connected to the
WNEW radio station in New York City, and each Saturday, Sinatra would perform with a group live during the
Saturday Dance Parade show.
Despite the low salary, he felt that this was the break he was looking
for, and boasted to friends that he was going to "become so big that no
one could ever touch him".
Fellow musicians began to resent his cocksure attitude, and according
to one Jersey city musician, Sam Lefaso, Sinatra was mocked for
displaying little talent and having a "tight, high voice", which sounded
"awful".
When they told him that he was a lousy singer, Sinatra would
flare up, angrily cursing and swearing at the others.
It was while working at The Cabin that he became involved in a dispute
between his girlfriend Toni Della Penta, who suffered a miscarriage, and
Nancy Barbato, a stonemason's daughter, in 1939.
Sinatra had met Barbato in
Long Branch, New Jersey, where he spent most of the summer working as a
lifeguard.
After Della Penta attempted to tear off Barbato's dress, Sinatra
ordered Barbato away and told Della Pinta that he would marry Barbato,
several years his junior, because she was pregnant.
Della Penta went to
the police, and Sinatra was arrested on a morals charge for seduction.
After a fight between Della Penta and Dolly, Della Penta was later
arrested herself.
Sinatra married Barbato that year, and
Nancy Sinatra was born the following year.
Career
The Hoboken Four and Harry James (1935–39)
Sinatra (far right) with the Hoboken Four on Major Bowes' Amateur Hour
Sinatra began singing professionally as a teenager in the 1930s, although he
learned music by ear and never learned how to read music.
[51]
He got his first break in 1935 when his mother persuaded a local singing group,
the Three Flashes,
to let him join.
Fred Tamburro, the group's baritone, stated that
"Frank hung around us like we were gods or something", and admitted that
they only took him on board because he owned a car and could chauffeur
the group around.
Sinatra soon learned that the group were looking to
audition for the
Major Bowes Amateur Hour show, and "begged" the group to let him in on the act.
With Sinatra, the group became known as the Hoboken Four, and they sufficiently impressed
Edward Bowes
enough for him to ask for them to appear on his show.
They attracted
40,000 votes and won first prize: a six-month contract to perform on
stage and radio across the United States.
Sinatra quickly became the group's lead singer, and much to the
jealousy of his fellow group members, garnered most of the attention
from girls.
[b]
He spent lavishly on the latest designer pin-striped suits and
clothing, aided by friend Nick Sevano, who worked at De Santos tailors
in Hoboken.
He later admitted that the clothing made him feel wealthy and important, bolstering his ego.
Due to the success of the group, Bowes kept asking for them to return,
disguised under different names, varying from "The Seacaucus
Cockamamies" to "The Bayonne Bacalas".
[33]
In early 1936, Dolly "footed the bill for a $65 portable public-address
system", which could be used by her son for performing in public.
[c]
Bandleader
Harry James had an engagement at the
Paramount Theatre in New York in June 1939.
One evening after his show, James was listing to a program on
WNEW
radio called "Dance Band Parade" which consisted of a series of remote
broadcasts.
James heard a voice on the program which was of much
interest to him; the announcer did not identify the male singer and the
vocalist did not sing another song during the program.
James was able to
find out that the vocalist was with
Harold Arlen's
Band and that they were from the Rustic Cabin in Englewood, New Jersey.
When James went to the Rustic Cabin asking about the singer, he was
told that the club had no singer, but they did have an
emcee
who did some singing.
After James had heard more of Sinatra's singing,
he asked Sinatra to meet with him at the Paramount and a two-year
contract of $75 a week was signed.
The only sticking point was that James wanted Sinatra to change his
name to Frankie Satin, as he thought that Sinatra sounded too Italian.
Sinatra, nor his mother, would agree to this; he told James that his
cousin, Ray Sinatra, was a bandleader in Boston, kept his own name and
was doing well with it.
James knew of Ray Sinatra, so he did not press
any further to get him to change his name.
[63][64][d]
It was with the James band that Sinatra released his first commercial
record "From the Bottom of My Heart" in July 1939 – US Brunswick
No. 8443 and UK Columbia #DB2150. Fewer than 8,000 copies of the record
were sold, making the record now a very rare find that is sought after
by record collectors worldwide.
Sinatra released ten commercial tracks
with James through 1939, including "All or Nothing At All" which had
weak sales on its initial release, but then sold millions of copies when
re-released by Columbia at the height of Sinatra's popularity a few
years later.
[66]
After three months, Sinatra became increasingly frustrated with the
status of the James band, feeling that he was not achieving the major
success and acclaim he was looking for.
His pianist and close friend
Hank Sanicola persuaded him to stay with the group, and in September
1939 journalist
George T. Simon of
Metronome
was approached by the band's manager, Jerry Barrett, begging him to
give Sinatra a good write-up, because he "wants it more than anybody
I've ever seen".
In one interview with a reporter, Harry James said "The kid's name's
Sinatra. He considers himself the greatest vocalist in the business, Get
that! No one ever heard of him. He's never had a hit record. He looks
like a wet rag.
But he says he is the greatest. If he hears you
compliment him, he'll demand a raise tonight..."
Thanks to his vocal training, Sinatra could now sing two tones higher,
and developed a repertoire which included songs such as "
My Buddy", "
Willow Weep for Me", "
It's Funny to Everyone But Me", "
Here Comes the Night", "
On a Little Street in Singapore", "
Ciribiribin" and "
Every Day of My Life".
Tommy Dorsey years (1939–42)
In November 1939, in a meeting at the Palmer House in
Chicago, attended by many of the prominent groups of the time, Sinatra was slipped a note by bandleader
Tommy Dorsey
asking him to visit him in suite.
Dorsey had not recognized him from an
earlier audition which had been a disaster for Sinatra, in which he had
"cut out completely—dead" after becoming starstruck.
Dorsey asked Sinatra to join his band for $125 a week as a replacement for Jack Leonard,
[e]
who had recently left to launch a solo career.
This meeting was a
turning point in Sinatra's career, and he knew it would be the band that
would make him a star.
By signing with Dorsey's band, one of the biggest bands at the time, he
greatly increased his visibility with the American public. Though
Sinatra was still under contract with James, James recognized the
opportunity Dorsey offered and graciously released Sinatra from his
contract.
[71]
Sinatra recognized his debt to James throughout his life, and upon
hearing of James' death in 1983, stated: "he [James] is the one that
made it all possible."
On January 26, 1940, Sinatra made his first public appearance with the Dorsey band at the
Coronado Theatre in
Rockford, Illinois.
Dorsey recalled: You could almost feel the excitement coming up out of
the crowds when the kid stood up to sing. Remember, he was no
matinée idol.
He was just a skinny kid with big ears. I used the stand there so
amazed I'd almost forget to take my own solos".
Dorsey also observed
that Sinatra would "take a musical phrase and play it all the way
through seemingly without breathing for eight, ten, maybe sixteen bars.
How the hell did he do that?" Sinatra later confessed that he regularly
swam and held his breath underwater, thinking of song lyrics to increase
his breathing power.
In his first year with Dorsey, Sinatra released more than forty songs, with "
I'll Never Smile Again" topping the charts for twelve weeks beginning in mid-July.
"I'll Never Smile Again" was the song that made Sinatra a star, placing him higher in the charts than even
Connie Haines,
Jo Stafford, and
The Pied Pipers.
According to Kelley, Sinatra and drummer
Buddy Rich
became bitter rivals, both equally as arrogant, with volatile tempers.
Fights broke out between them, and in one incident witnessed by Stafford
backstage at the
Astor Hotel
in New York, Rich called Sinatra a name and Sinatra threw a heavy glass
pitcher at his head filled with water and ice, which smashed into one
of the posters.
In another incident at the
Golden Gate Theater in San Francisco, Rich attempted to ram Sinatra against the wall with his high F cymbal.
Dorsey was a major influence on Sinatra and became a father-like
figure.
He copied his mannerisms and traits, becoming a demanding
perfectionist like him, and even adopting his hobby of toy trains.
Dorsey got on famously with Dolly, enjoying her cooking, and he was made
the godfather of Sinatra's daughter Nancy in June 1940.
Dorsey advised Sinatra to listen heavily to Bing Crosby, the only singer that he thought that Sinatra should strive to emulate.
In September 1940, Sinatra, after playing with Tommy Dorsey at
Old Orchard Beach Pier, surprised nightclubbers in Portland, Maine, by turning up at the Morocco Lounge.
[79]
As his success and popularity grew in 1941, Sinatra kept pushing
Dorsey to record some solo songs.
Dorsey eventually relented, and on
January 19, 1942, Sinatra recorded "
Night and Day, "
The Night We Called It a Day", "
The Song is You" and "
Lamplighter's Serenade", with
Axel Stordahl as arranger and conductor.
Sinatra first heard the recordings at the
Hollywood Palladium and
Hollywood Plaza
and was astounded at how good he sounded.
Stordahl recalled: "He just
couldn't believe his ears. He was so excited. You almost believed he had
never recorded before. I think this was a turning point in his career.
He thought he began to see what he might do on his own".
After the recordings, Sinatra increasingly felt that he needed to go solo,
and while Dorsey had made him a star and given him much of the
spotlight, he was hampered by his contract which gave Dorsey 43% of
Sinatra's lifetime earnings in the entertainment industry.
Sinatra was able to persuade Stordahl to leave Dorsey with him and
become his personal arranger, offering him $650 a month, five times the
salary of Dorsey.
On September 3, 1942, Dorsey bid farewell to Sinatra, reportedly saying as Sinatra left, "I hope you fall on your ass".
Dorsey replaced him with singer
Dick Haymes.
[71]
A story appeared in the Hearst newspapers that Sinatra's mobster godfather
Willie Moretti coerced Dorsey to let Sinatra out of his contract for a few thousand dollars, holding a gun to his head.
The incident started rumors of Sinatra's involvement with the
Mafia, and was fictionalized in the book and movie
The Godfather.
A legal battle ensued, eventually settled in August 1943.
[f]
Dorsey and Sinatra, who had been very close, never patched up their
differences before his death in 1956, worsened by the fact that Dorsey
occasionally made biting comments to the press such as "he's the most
fascinating man in the world, but don't put your hand in the cage".
Sinatra later said of his reason for the departure: "The reason I
wanted to leave Tommy's band was that Crosby was Number One, way up on
top of the pile.
In the open field, you might say, were some awfully
good singers with the orchestras.
Bob Eberly (with Jimmy Dorsey) was a
fabulous vocalist.
Mr. Como (with
Ted Weems)
is such a wonderful singer.
I thought, if I don't make a move out of
this and try to do it on my own soon, one of those guys will do it, and
I'll have to fight all three of them to get a position".
The onset of Sinatramania and role in World War II (1942–44)
In May 1941, Sinatra was at the top of the male singer polls in
Billboard and
Down Beat magazines.
His appeal to
bobby soxers,
as teenage girls of that time were called, revealed a whole new
audience for popular music, which had been recorded mainly for adults up
to that time.
[90]
The phenomenon became officially known as "Sinatramania" after his "legendary opening" at the
Paramount Theatre in New York on December 30, 1942.
According to Nancy Sinatra,
Jack Benny
later said, "I thought the goddamned building was going to cave in. I
never heard such a commotion ... All this for a fellow I never heard
of."
Sinatra performed for four weeks at the theatre, his act following the
Benny Goodman orchestra, after which his contract was renewed for another four weeks by Bob Weitman due to its popularity.
He was named by
Metronome
as the most popular male vocalist in the country in early 1943.
He
become known as "Swoonatra" or "The Voice", and his fans "Sinatratics".
The bobbysoxers organized meetings and sent in masses of letters of
adoration, and within a few weeks of the show, some 1000 Sinatra fan
clubs had been reported across the US.
When Sinatra returned to the Paramount in October 1944, 35,000 fans
caused a near riot outside the venue because they were not allowed in.
It wasn't long before Sinatra was being blamed by New York officials
for runaway girls and truancy, and according to Kelley, the education
commissioner of New York City considered pressing charges against him.
Sinatra later said of the bobbysoxer craze: "I was—I was everything.
Happy. I don't know. I wasn't unhappy, let's put it that way. I never
had it so good. Sometimes I wonder whether anybody ever had it like I
had it, before or since. It was the darndest thing wasn't it?".
Sinatra's publicist, George Evans, encouraged interviews and
photographs with fans, and was the man responsible for depicting Sinatra
as living the
American Dream,
a vulnerable, shy, sincere Italian American with a rough childhood, a
"Depression child who knew only poverty and deprivation", who came good.
Sinatra made his film debut in 1941, performing in an uncredited sequence in
Las Vegas Nights, singing "I'll Never Smile Again" with Tommy Dorsey's The Pied Pipers.
[97]
In 1943 he had a cameo role along with the likes of
Duke Ellington and
Count Basie in
Charles Barton's
Reveille with Beverly, making a brief appearance singing "
Night and Day".
The following year he was given his first leading role opposite
Michèle Morgan and
Jack Haley in 1944 in
Tim Whelan's musical film
Higher and Higher for
RKO Pictures, playing himself.
[100]
He again worked with Whelan in another musical of that year,
Step Lively, co-starring
George Murphy and
Adolphe Menjou.
Biographer Tim Knight wrote that that this was the film that Hollywood
"fully unleashed 'The Voice' on the movies", giving Sinatra a role as a
"sweetly naive playwright who is swept into scheming Broadway director's
Gordon Miller's chaotic universe".
During the
musicians' strike of 1942–44,
Columbia Records re-released Harry James and Sinatra's version of "
All or Nothing at All"
(music by Arthur Altman and lyrics by Jack Lawrence), recorded in
August 1939 and released before Sinatra had made a name for himself.
When the recording was re–released in 1943 with Sinatra's name
prominently displayed, the record was on the best–selling list for 18
weeks and reached number 2 on June 2, 1943.
Sinatra in a radio interview with Italian actress
Alida Valli
Sinatra signed with Columbia as a solo artist on June 1, 1943, and he
initially had great success, particularly during the 1942–44 musicians'
strike.
Although no new records had been issued during the strike, he had been performing on the radio on
Your Hit Parade from February 1943 until December 1944, and on stage.
Columbia wanted new recordings of their growing star as quickly as possible, so
Alec Wilder was hired as an arranger and conductor for several sessions with a vocal group called the Bobby Tucker Singers.
These first sessions were on June 7, June 22, August 5, and November
10, 1943. Of the nine songs recorded during these sessions, seven
charted on the best–selling list.
[106]
A successful concert in the Wedgewood Room of the prestigious
Waldorf-Astoria New York secured his popularity in New York high society.
By the end of 1943 he was more popular in a
Downbeat poll than Bing Crosby, Perry Como, Bob Eberly and Dick Haymes.
Sinatra did not serve in the military during World War II.
On December 11, 1943, he was classified
4-F
("Registrant not acceptable for military service") for a perforated
eardrum by his draft board.
Also reported in army files was that Sinatra
was "not acceptable material from a psychiatric viewpoint", but the
physical eardrum condition was cited instead of emotional instability as
the issue to avoid "undue unpleasantness for both the selectee and the
induction service".
His exemption status occasionally resurfaced from certain critics,
often Democrat pundits who resented his endorsement of Republican
candidates when he turned Republican in the early 1970s.
Biographers
have noted that the singer actively supported the war effort (much as
Bing Crosby and Bob Hope did, although both were much older), via USO
shows and other actions in support of the military during and after
WWII.
Briefly, there were rumors reported by columnist
Walter Winchell,
[111] that Sinatra paid $40,000 to avoid the service – but the FBI found this to be without merit.
[113]
Kelley claimed that Sinatra privately confided to columnist Earl Wilson
that he would lose more than $300,000 of contracts if he had served
during the war.
Towards the end of the war, Sinatra entertained the troops during several successful overseas USO tours with comedian
Phil Silvers.
[115]
During one trip to Rome he met the Pope, who asked him if he was an operatic tenor.
Sinatra worked frequently with the popular
Andrews Sisters, both on radio in the 1940s, appearing as guests on each other's shows, as well as on many USO shows broadcast to troops via the
Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS).
He appeared as a special guest in the sisters' ABC
Eight-to-the-Bar Ranch series, while the trio in turn guested on his
Songs by Sinatra series on CBS.
Musical films and album debut (1945–49)
Sinatra in Till the Clouds Roll By (1946)
In 1945,
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cast Sinatra opposite
Gene Kelly and
Kathryn Grayson in the
Technicolor musical
Anchors Aweigh,
in which he played a sailor on leave in Hollywood for four days.
A
major success, it garnered several Academy Award wins and nominations,
and the song "
I Fall in Love Too Easily", sung by Sinatra in the film, was nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Original Song.
Knight notes that while the film "drew Sinatra's young, excitable
fans", it also "attracted an older audience who never would have stood
in line all night just to hear him sing", making him into a "truly cross
generational star".
That same year, he was loaned out to RKO to star in a short film titled
The House I Live In.
Directed by
Mervyn LeRoy, this film on tolerance and
racial equality earned a special
Academy Award shared among Sinatra and those who brought the film to the screen, along with a special
Golden Globe for "Promoting Good Will".
[122]
According to biographer John Frayn Turner, "The three aspects of his
persona progressed in parallel through 1946: his professional life, his
social outlook, and his family connections".
He released his first album,
The Voice of Frank Sinatra, and was soon selling ten million records a year.
Sinatra returned to MGM to make
Till the Clouds Roll By, a Technicolor musical biopic of
Jerome Kern, directed
Richard Whorf, with an ensemble cast which included
Robert Walker,
Judy Garland,
Lena Horne,
June Allyson and
Van Heflin.
Santopietro considered the film to be the "dodo bird of MGM musicals—it
moves but never flies", but noted that Sinatra had a cameo in the
climax of the film, singing "
Ol' Man River".
In 1947, Sinatra released his second album,
Songs by Sinatra, originally released as a set of four 78 rpm records. It features songs of a similar mood and tempo such as
Irving Berlin's "
How Deep is the Ocean?",
Harold Arlen's "
Over The Rainbow",
George Gershwin's "
Embraceable You" and
Jerome Kern's "
All The Things You Are", and is presented in such a way that it is considered his first "concept album".
He featured in another musical directed by Whorf of MGM,
It Happened in Brooklyn, co-starring
Peter Lawford, Kathryn Grayson and
Jimmy Durante.
The film contains six songs written by
Sammy Cahn and
Jule Styne, including "The Song's Gotta Come From the Heart", in which Sinatra performed a duet with Durante.
Variety
noted: "Much of the lure will result from Frank Sinatra's presence in
the cast. Guy's acquired the Bing Crosby knack of nonchalance, throwing
away his gag lines with fine aplomb.
He kids himself in a couple of
hilarious sequences and does a takeoff on Jimmy Durante, with Durante
aiding him, that's sockeroo."
[131]
In 1948 Sinatra appeared with Grayson in
The Kissing Bandit,
playing a shy, Boston-bred son of a robber, who falls for the daughter
of the Spanish Governor of California. The film was a financial
disaster, and was so poorly received critically, that it is often cited as the worst film of Sinatra's career.
[133]
Also in 1948, Sinatra played a priest, one of his most unlikely roles according to Knight, opposite
Fred MacMurray and
Alida Valli in
Irving Pichel's
The Miracle of the Bells.
Due to press negativity at the time, particularly from
Lee Mortimer,
[g]
because of his alleged Mafia connections, Evans announced to the public
that Sinatra would donate his $100,000 in wages from the film to the
church.
It fared poorly upon release, with
Time Magazine declaring in their review that "The Archangel Michael, familiarly picture, ought to sue".
In 1949, Sinatra co-starred with Gene Kelly in the Technicolor musical
Take Me Out to the Ball Game, a film set in 1908, in which Sinatra and Kelly play baseball players who are part-time vaudevillians.
It was well received critically and became a commercial success. That
same year, Sinatra teamed up with Kelly for a third time in
On the Town,
playing a sailor on leave in New York City. Today the film is rated
very highly by critics, and in 2006 it ranked No. 19 on the
American Film Institute's
list of best musicals.
[138]
In May 1949, Sinatra was dropped from
Your Hit Parade.
His new album,
Frankly Sentimental, a compilation of eight recordings between 1946 and 1947, was panned by
Downbeat, who commented that "for all his talent, it seldom comes to life".
Starting in September 1949, the
BBD&O advertising agency produced a radio series starring Sinatra for its client
Lucky Strike called "Light Up Time" – some 176 15-minute shows which featured Frank and
Dorothy Kirsten singing – which lasted through to May 1950.
Career slump and move to Las Vegas (1950–52)
Sinatra's career and appeal to new teen audiences declined as he
moved into his mid-30s.
By the end of 1948, Sinatra felt that his career
was stalling, something that was confirmed when he slipped to No. 4 on
Down Beat's annual poll of most popular singers (behind
Billy Eckstine,
Frankie Laine, and Bing Crosby).
By the following year, Sinatra was pushed out of the top spots in polls
for the first time since 1943, and his records were no longer the most
popular on the jukeboxes.
After a series of poor reviews in 1949, and his moving to second billing in
On the Town, with a sacking from MGM imminent, Sinatra approached
Columbia Pictures for a part as Nick in
Nicholas Ray's
Knock on Any Door.
Sinatra felt he was right for the part, given his New Jersey background, but producer
David Selznick thought that he was too old for the part at 34, and it was given to
John Derek instead.
MGM formally parted with Sinatra on April 27, 1950, a year before the contract was due to expire.
Cementing the low of his career was the death of publicist George Evans from a heart attack in January 1950 at just 48.
[h].
Evans had been crucial to Sinatra's career and popularity with the
bobbysoxers, and the two had a father-son relationship.
According to
Jimmy Van Heusen, Sinatra's close friend and songwriter, Evans's death to him was "an enormous shock which defies words".
Sinatra's reputation continued to decline as reports broke out in
February 1950 of his affair with Ava Gardner and the destruction of his
marriage to Nancy, though Sinatra responded by saying that his marriage
had long been over even before he'd met Gardner.
In April 1950, Sinatra was engaged to perform at the
Copa
club in New York, but had to cancel five days of the booking due to
suffering a submucosal hemorrhage of the throat.
He showed up on the
sixth day, still without his voice, humiliating himself in front of the
audience, only turning up because he knew that Lee Mortimer had bet
Jack Entratter $100 that he wouldn't complete the engagement.
Sinatra was forced to cancel his remaining
Copa performances and take a two week vacation with Gardner on the Spanish Mediterranean coast, to recover.
In financial difficulty following his divorce and career decline,
Sinatra was forced to loan $200,000 from Columbia to pay his back taxes
after MCA refused to front the money.
Rejected by Hollywood, he turned to
Las Vegas and made his debut at the
Desert Inn in September 1951, becoming one of its pioneer entertainers.
He also began singing at the Riverside Hotel in
Reno, Nevada.
Biographer Arnold Shaw remarked that "If Las Vegas had not existed, Sinatra could have invented it".
He quoted reporter
James Bacon
in saying that Sinatra was the "swinging image on which the town is
built", adding that no other entertainer quite "embodied the glamour"
associated with Las Vegas as him.
Sinatra became a prominent figure on the Vegas scene
throughout the 1950s and 1960s, a period described by Rojek as the "high-water mark" of
Sinatra's "hedonism and self absorption".
Rojek notes that the
Rat Pack
"provided an outlet for gregarious banter and wisecracks", but argues
that it was Sinatra's vehicle, possessing an "unassailable command over
the other performers".
Dean Martin referred to Sinatra's authoritative
presence as "Frank's World".
Sinatra made his first performance at the
Sands Hotel and Casino on October 4, 1953, after an invitation by the manager Jack Entratter, a man Sinatra had known earlier from the days when he worked at the
Copa in New York.
Sinatra typically performed there three times a year, and later acquired a share in the hotel.
[i]
In October 1951, the second season of
The Frank Sinatra Show began on
CBS Television.
Ultimately, Sinatra did not find the success on television for which he had hoped.
[j]
That year, Sinatra featured opposite
Jane Russell and
Groucho Marx in the
Irving Cummings comedy,
Double Dynamite
for RKO.
The picture involves an innocent bank teller (Sinatra)
suspected of embezzling who turns to a sardonic waiter (Groucho Marx)
for advice.
Although Sinatra has by far the most screen time, he took third billing behind Jane Russell and Groucho Marx.
[k]
Both Sinatra and Jane Russell play against type as a shy, timid pair,
while Marx portrays a sarcastic waiter who breezily mentors the
frightened young couple.
Jane Russell and Groucho Marx each sing a duet
with Frank Sinatra written by
Jule Styne and
Sammy Cahn.
Marx and Sinatra sing "
It's Only Money", and Russell and Sinatra deliver the romantic "Kisses and Tears.
In 1952, Sinatra appeared in
Joseph Pevney's
Meet Danny Wilson with
Shelley Winters, in a role which Knight thought at times was overacted.
For Santopietro, the film marked the end of the first period of Sinatra's film career, at a time when his career had slumped.
The
New York World Telegram and Sun ran the headline "Gone on Frankie in '42; Gone in '52".
At a concert at
Chez Paree nightclub in Chicago that year, only 150 people in a 1200-seat capacity venue turned up to see him.
Sinatra's last studio recording for Columbia was made in New York in
September 1952, "Why Try To Change Me Now", with orchestra arranged and
conducted by Percy Faith.
Columbia and MCA dropped him later in 1952.
Rebirth of career and first Capitol concept albums (1953–56)
Sinatra as Maggio in From Here to Eternity (1953)
The rebirth of Sinatra's career began in 1953 with
Fred Zinnemann's drama
From Here to Eternity, and based on the
novel of the same name by
James Jones.
The picture deals with the tribulations of three soldiers, played by
Burt Lancaster,
Montgomery Clift, and Sinatra, stationed on
Hawaii in the months leading up to the
attack on Pearl Harbor.
Sinatra had long been desperate to find a film role which would bring him back into the spotlight, and Columbia Pictures boss
Harry Cohn had been inundated by appeals from people across Hollywood to give Sinatra a chance to star as "Maggio" in the film.
Initially, Sinatra was sure that
Eli Wallach would be given the part, and spent a miserable few weeks on location with Ava Gardner in Africa during the shooting of
John Ford's
Mogambo.
He was eventually cast in the role, accepting a minor fee to "prove his worth".
[172][l]
During production, Montgomery Clift became a close friend, and Sinatra
later professed that he "learned more about acting from him than anybody
I ever knew".
After several years of critical and commercial decline, his
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor win helped him regain his position as the top recording artist in the world.
[175]
The
Los Angeles Examiner
wrote that Sinatra is "simply superb, comical, pitiful, childishly
brave, pathetically defiant", commenting that his death scene is "one of
the best ever photographed".
Sinatra later stated that the "greatest change in my life began the night they gave me that Oscar".
In 1953, Sinatra starred in the NBC radio program
Rocky Fortune,
portraying Rocco Fortunato (a.k.a. Rocky Fortune), a "footloose and
fancy free" temporary worker for the Gridley Employment Agency who
stumbles into crime-solving.
The series aired on NBC radio Tuesday
nights from October 1953 to March 1954. That year, Sinatra signed with
Capitol Records, where he worked with many of the finest musical arrangers of the era, most notably
Nelson Riddle,
Gordon Jenkins, and
Billy May.
[178]
Sinatra's split with Gardner in the fall of 1953 had a profound impact
on the types of songs he sang and his voice.
He began to console himself
in songs with a "brooding melancholy", such as "
I'm a Fool to Want You", "
Don't Worry 'Bout Me", "
My One and Only Love" and
There Will Never Be Another You".
Author John Lahr comments that the new Sinatra was "not the gentle boy
balladeer of the forties.
Fragility had gone from his voice, to be
replaced by a virile adult's sense of happiness and hurt".
He quoted
Nelson Riddle as saying "It was Ava who did that, who taught him how to
sing a torch song. That's how he learned.
She was the greatest love of
his life and he lost her, and Sinatra as declaring "You have to scrape
bottom to appreciate life and start living again".
Riddle found Sinatra to be a "perfectionist who drove himself and
everybody around him relentlessly", and stated that his collaborators
approached him with a sense of uneasiness because of his unpredictable
and often volatile temperament.
Sinatra's career at the time was facilitated by developments in technology.
As disc jockey
Jonathan Schwartz
said, "Never before had there been an opportunity for a popular singer
to express emotions at an extended length".
In the words of Lahr, "as
many as sixteen songs could be held by the twelve-inch L.P., and this
allowed Sinatra to use song in a novelistic way, turning each track in a
kind of chapter, which built and counterpointed moods to illuminate a
larger theme".
Sinatra in Suddenly (1954)
In 1954, Sinatra released
Swing Easy!, with Nelson Riddle at the helm (his second album for Capitol).
It was named Album of the Year by
Billboard, who also awarded "
Young at Heart", the title song of his 1954 film with
Doris Day), with Song of the Year.
That year he was also named "Top Male Vocalist" by
Billboard,
Down Beat and
Metronome.
[185] That year he starred opposite
Doris Day in the musical film
Young at Heart.
They released an album together,
of the same name which peaked at #11 on
Billboard,
while the single reached #2 and was considered as Sinatra's comeback
single after several years away from the top of the pop singles chart.
[187][188][m]
So popular was the song "
Young at Heart" that the film was also titled
Young at Heart, having had no title until the song's success.
The
Young at Heart album released by Day and Sinatra did not include the title song, which Sinatra recorded prior to his film work.
[n]
Later in 1954, Sinatra starred opposite
Sterling Hayden in the
film noir Suddenly, playing a psychopathic killer posing as an
FBI agent who takes over a familial residence during a stakeout.
Sinatra's performance was lauded by critics, with
Bosley Crowther of
The New York Times
declaring that "Mr. Sinatra deserves a special chunk of praise for
playing the leading gunman with an easy, cold, vicious sort of gleam"
and that the film demonstrated a turn in direction in a career in
playing such a "repulsive role", in comparison to his earlier career.
[191]
Sinatra had wanted to play the lead role in
On The Waterfront that year, which eventually went to
Marlon Brando.
According to Kelley, Sinatra sued producer
Sam Spiegel
for $500,000 for breach of contract, settled amicably in the end, and
labelled Brando the "most overrated actor in the world" in rage.
In 1955 Sinatra released
In the Wee Small Hours, his first 12" LP and his second collaboration with Nelson Riddle, He was nominated for an
Academy Award for Best Actor and
BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his role as a heroin addict in
The Man With The Golden Arm.
In preparation for the film he spent time at
drug rehabilitation clinics observing addicts going
cold turkey.
This was followed by a role opposite Brando in
Guys and Dolls and
Debbie Reynolds in
The Tender Trap.
Biographer Roy Pickard considers
The Tender Trap to have been the film in which "Sinatra at last got into top gear", bringing him back to MGM.
Later in the year he starred opposite
Robert Mitchum and
Olivia de Havilland as a hospital orderly in
Stanley Kramer's debut picture,
Not as a Stranger, for which he was nominated for a
BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role.
During production, Sinatra got drunk with Mitchum and
Broderick Crawford and trashed Kramer's dressing room. Kramer vowed to never hire Sinatra again at the time.
Sinatra and Grace Kelly on the set of High Society (1956)
Sinatra was cast in the lead role in
Henry King's
Carousel (1956), a
20th Century Fox
production. However, when Sinatra learned that the film was to be shot
in two formats, Cinemascope and a new 55-millmeter process, he refused
to make "two pictures for the price of one", and walked off the set and
didn't return.
Fox sued Sinatra for a million dollars for breach of
contract and replaced him with
Gordon MacRae.
Instead, he featured alongside
Bing Crosby and
Grace Kelly in
High Society.
The public rushed to the cinemas to see Sinatra and Crosby together
onscreen, and it ended up earning over $13 million at the box office,
becoming one of the highest-grossing pictures of 1956.
Later that year he appeared at the titular character in
Johnny Concho, a Western,
in which he played an "skinny, scared, evil runt, living of his
brother's fearsome reputation, even hiding behind the skirts of his
woman in the ultimate showdown".
He also had cameo roles in
Around the World in 80 Days and
Meet Me in Las Vegas.
Another collaboration with Nelson Riddle resulted in the development of the album
Songs for Swingin' Lovers!, which was released in March 1956 and was both a critical and financial success.
It featured a recording of "
I've Got You Under My Skin" by
Cole Porter.
[205]
Also in 1956, Sinatra sang at Democrat convention, and performed with
The Dorsey Brothers for a week soon afterwards at the
Paramount Theatre.
Broadening film career and Academy musical success (1957–59)
In 1957, Sinatra released
Where Are You? (1957) – his first album in stereo, with Gordon Jenkins, and
Come Fly With Me (1957).
He formed a three-year $3 million contract with ABC to launch
The Frank Sinatra Show,
featuring Sinatra and guests in 36 half hour shows. ABC agreed to allow
Sinatra's Hobart Productions to keep 60% of the residuals,and bought
stock in Sinatra's film production unit, Kent Productions, guaranteeing
him $7 million. Though an initial critical success upon its debut on October 18, 1957, it soon attracted negative reviews from
Variety and
The New Republic, and
The Chicago Sun-Times
thought that Sinatra and frequent guest Dean Martin "performed like a
pair of adult delinquents", "sharing the same cigarette and leering at
girls". He starred opposite
Rita Hayworth and
Kim Novak in
George Sidney's
Pal Joey, for which he was nominated for the
Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. Santopietro considers the scene in which Sinatra sings "
The Lady Is a Tramp" to Hayworth to have been the finest moment of his film career.
He next portrayed comedian
Joe E. Lewis in
The Joker Is Wild,
a romanticized biopic of his life. Sinatra earned $125,000 for the role
through his new company Bristol Productions, which had a 25% share in
the film and box-office gross.
The song "
All the Way" won the
Academy Award for Best Original Song.
[210] Later that year he spent time on location in Spain shooting
The Pride and the Passion with
Cary Grant, in which he played a Spanish guerrilla leader during the Peninsular War of 1810.
[211]
Director Kramer agreed to give Sinatra another chance, and later
regretted it, finding him uncooperative and arrogant, as he was
unwilling to shoot his scenes twice.
He only accepted the role as he wanted to be closer to Ava Gardner while she was filming
The Sun Also Rises in Europe, due to marriage problems.
[212]
Sinatra insisted on staying at the Hotel Castellana in Madrid, rather
than on location with the rest of the cast, and when Kramer failed to
pay $5000 to send his Thunderbird from Los Angeles to Madrid, he had to
hire a $15,000 Mercedes and a chauffeur especially for him.
Kramer said of the production: "[Sinatra] didn't want to wait
around.... He wanted his work all done together.... Eventually for the
sake of harmony, we shot all his scenes together and he left early.
The
rest of the cast acquiesced because of the tension, which was horrific".
Despite the problematic production, the film received good reviews upon release.
In 1958, Sinatra was one of the ten biggest box office draws in the United States. He starred opposite Dean Martin,
Martha Hyer and
Shirley MacLaine in
Vincente Minnelli's
Some Came Running
for MGM.
Daniel O'Brien considers it to be "probably the high point of
Sinatra's late fifties output, a superior piece of schlock melodrama
that flaunts the courage of its dubious convictions to largely
successful effect".
He next appeared alongside
Tony Curtis and
Natalie Wood as a World War II lieutenant in
Kings Go Forth, an film which dealt with themes of
racism and
miscegenation, Sinatra was responsible for the casting of Wood in the film, paying her $75,000 for just ten weeks work.
In September 1958 Sinatra released
Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely,
a stark collection of introspective saloon songs and blues-tinged
ballads, was released in September 1958, and proved a huge commercial
success, spending 120 weeks on Billboards album chart and peaking at
No. 1. Cuts from this LP, such as "
Angel Eyes" and "
One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)", would remain staples of the "saloon song" segments of Sinatra's concerts.
[221]
In 1959, Sinatra again appeared in a war picture—
John Sturges's
Never So Few, with
Gina Lollobrigida,
Peter Lawford, and
Steve McQueen, based on the
OSS Detachment 101 incident in South East Asia during World War II.
Davis, Jr. was originally intended to play McQueen's role, but Sinatra
fired him in revenge for a mild comment he made about the proverbial
"old blue eyes" during a Chicago radio interview.
McQueen's biographer Wes D. Gehring claims that Sinatra got on so
famously with McQueen during the production, often performing practical
jokes on each other, that McQueen "might have become part of the Rat
Pack".
Sinatra ended the decade with a role as a "lovable small-time operator and hotel keeper" opposite
Edward G. Robinson and
Eleanor Parker in the
Frank Capra comedy,
A Hole in the Head.
[225]
It was shot on location in
Miami Beach, Florida over the winter of 1958.
[227] "
High Hopes", sung by Sinatra in the film, won the
Academy Award for Best Original Song,
[228] and became a chart hit, lasting on the Hot 100 for 17 weeks.
In the words of Kelley, by 1959, Sinatra was "not simply the leader of the Rat Pack" but had "assumed the position of
il padrone in Hollywood".
He was asked by 20th Century Fox to be the master of ceremonies at a luncheon attended by President
Nikita Khrushchev on September 19, 1959.
The peak of the Rat Pack and influence in Las Vegas (1960–66)
Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra in 1958
Sinatra started the 1960s as he ended the 1950s. His first album of the decade,
Nice 'n' Easy, topped
Billboard 's chart and won critical plaudits.
[232]
Sinatra grew discontented at Capitol and decided to form his own label,
Reprise Records. His first album on the label,
Ring-a-Ding-Ding! (1961), was a major success, peaking at No.4 on
Billboard.
[233]
The album was released in February 1961, the same month that Reprise Records released
Ben Webster's
The Warm Moods, Sammy Davis, Jr.'s
The Wham of Sam,
Mavis River's
Mavis and
Joe E. Lewis's
It is Now Post Time.
His fourth and final
Timex TV special was broadcast in March 1960, and earned massive viewing figures. Titled
It's Nice to Go Travelling, the show is more commonly known as
Welcome Home Elvis.
Elvis Presley's
appearance after his army discharge was somewhat ironic; Sinatra had
been scathing about rock and roll earlier, saying: "His kind of music is
deplorable, a rancid smelling aphrodisiac... It fosters almost totally
negative and destructive reactions in young people."
Presley had responded: "... [Sinatra] is a great success and a fine
actor, but I think he shouldn't have said it ... [rock and roll] is a
trend, just the same as he faced when he started years ago." Later, in efforts to maintain his commercial viability, Sinatra recorded Presley's hit "
Love Me Tender" as well as works by
Paul Simon ("
Mrs. Robinson"),
the Beatles ("
Something", "
Yesterday"), and
Joni Mitchell ("
Both Sides, Now").
[237]
In 1960 Sinatra starred in
Can-Can.
He personally financed
Ocean's Eleven,
the first film to feature the Rat Pack together, and paid Martin and
Davis Jr. fees of $150,000 and $125,000, exorbitant for the period.
The following year he appeared in
The Devil at 4 O'Clock.
[239] On September 11 and 12, 1961, Sinatra recorded his final songs for Capitol.
In 1962, Sinatra and
Count Basie collaborated for the album
Sinatra-Basie. This popular and successful release prompted them to rejoin two years later for the follow-up
It Might as Well Be Swing, which was arranged by
Quincy Jones.
One of Sinatra's more ambitious albums from the mid-1960s was
The Concert Sinatra (1963), with a 73-piece symphony orchestra led by Nelson Riddle.
[o]
In 1962 Sinatra had a leading role in the Academy Award winning
The Manchurian Candidate and appeared with the Rat Pack in the western
Sergeants 3, following it with
4 for Texas in 1963, which was co-produced by Sinatra, Martin and
Robert Aldrich.
For his performance in
Come Blow Your Horn he was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. In 1964 he starred in
Robin and the 7 Hoods; the song "
My Kind of Town" was nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Original Song.
Sinatra at the Grauman's Chinese Theatre in 1965
In June 1965, Sinatra,
Sammy Davis, Jr., and
Dean Martin played live in
St. Louis
to benefit Dismas House, a prisoner rehabilitation and training center
with nationwide programs that in particular helped serve African
Americans.
The
Rat Pack concert was broadcast live via satellite to numerous movie theaters across America.
[citation needed]
Released in September 1965 was
September of My Years, which won the Grammy Award for best album of the year.
One of the album's singles, "
It Was a Very Good Year", won the Grammy Award for Best Vocal Performance, Male in 1966.
A career anthology,
A Man and His Music, followed in November, winning Album of the Year at the Grammys in 1966. The TV special,
Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music, garnered both an Emmy award and a
Peabody Award.
In the mid 1960s, Brad Dexter hoped to revive Sinatra's film career
and Sinatra Enterprises. Dexter wanted Sinatra to display the same
professional pride in his films as he did his recordings.
On one
occasion he gave Sinatra
Anthony Burgess's novel
A Clockwork Orange (1962) to read, with the idea of making a film, but Sinatra thought it had no potential and didn't understand a word.
[p]
Sinatra featured in three films in 1965. His first was
None but the Brave, which was also the only feature film he directed.
His two other films include
Marriage on the Rocks and
Von Ryan's Express.
[249][250] The following year he starred in
Assault on a Queen and
Cast a Giant Shadow.
[251][252]
In spring,
That's Life appeared, with both the single and album becoming Top Ten hits in the US on
Billboard's pop charts.
Strangers in the Night went on to top the
Billboard and UK pop singles charts, winning the award for Record of the Year at the
Grammys.
[citation needed] The
album of the same name also topped the
Billboard chart and reached number 4 in the UK.
[citation needed]
Sinatra's first live album,
Sinatra at the Sands,
was recorded during January and February 1966 at the Sands Hotel and
Casino in Las Vegas. Sinatra was backed by the Count Basie Orchestra,
with Quincy Jones conducting.
Pull-out from the Sands and "My Way" (1967–69)
In the late 1960s, Sinatra became known for playing detectives, notably Tony Rome in
Tony Rome (1967) and its sequel
Lady In Cement (1968).
[254][255]
He also played a similar role in 1968's
The Detective.
[256]
Sinatra started 1967 with a series of recording sessions with
Antônio Carlos Jobim. He later worked with Jobim and
Ella Fitzgerald on the TV special,
A Man and His Music + Ella + Jobim, which was broadcast on CBS on November 13.
Also in 1967, a duet with daughter Nancy, "
Somethin' Stupid", topped the
Billboard pop and UK singles charts.
In December, Sinatra collaborated with
Duke Ellington on the album
Francis A. & Edward K..
[258]
It was also in 1967 that Sinatra pulled out from the Sands, when he was driven out by its new owner
Howard Hughes, who still resented Sinatra for marrying
Ava Gardner.
Hughes plotted to rid of Sinatra from the Sands for good, and asked
Robert Maheu
to draw up a plan shortly after the new hotel opened in 1967.
The hotel
imposed restrictions on what Sinatra could gamble in the casino, to
just $3000 a night.
[260][q]
Fuming, Sinatra began what
The Los Angeles Times describes as a "weekend-long tirade" against the "hotel's management, employees and security forces".
[262]
It culminated when Sinatra reportedly drove a golf cart through the
window of the coffee shop where casino manager Carl Cohen was seated and
began "screaming obscenities and anti-Semitic remarks" at Cohen.
[r]
Sinatra reportedly punched Cohen, a heavily built man, who responded
with a smack in the mouth, bloodying Sinatra's nose and knocking two of
his teeth out.
As a result, Sinatra never performed at the Sands again while Hughes owned it, and began performing at
Caesar's Palace.
A number of the staff were not disappointed to see Sinatra leave the
Sands. Numerous employees had been humiliated or intimidated by the Rat
Pack over the years, including a busboy that Sinatra tripped up while he
was carrying a tray with dishes.
After Sinatra left, the mobsters pulled out of Sands and gradually left Vegas in the 1970s.
During the late 1960s, press agent
Lee Solters would invite columnists and their spouses into Sinatra's dressing room just before he was about to go on stage.
The New Yorker recounted that "the first columnist they tried this on was Larry Fields of the
Philadelphia Daily News,
whose wife fainted when Sinatra kissed her cheek.
'Take care of it,
Lee,' Sinatra said, and he was off."
The professional relationship
Sinatra shared with Solters focused on projects on the west coast while
those focused on the east coast were handled by Solters' partner,
Sheldon Roskin of Solters/Roskin/Friedman, a well-known firm at the
time.
[268]
With Sinatra in mind, singer-songwriter
Paul Anka wrote the song "
My Way", inspired by the French "Comme d'habitude" ("As Usual"), composed by
Claude François and
Jacques Revaux.
Sinatra first recorded just after Christmas 1968.
"My Way", over the years, become Sinatra's definitive, best-known song
on the Reprise label, but it wasn't a major success initially when
released as a single in 1969, charting at #27 in the US and #5 in the
UK.
"Retirement" and return (1970–79)
In 1970, Sinatra starred opposite
George Kennedy in the western
Dirty Dingus Magee.
According to biographer Tom Santopietro, Sinatra only agreed to the
film, an "abysmal" affair which was clearly the "wrong vehicle" for him
as he put, because he needed something to cheer him up following the
death of his father in January 1969.
The film was panned by the critics. In a scathing review,
Roger Ebert
referred to the film as "as shabby a piece of goods as has masqueraded
as a Western", and stated: "I lean toward blaming Frank Sinatra, who in
recent years has become notorious for not really caring about his
movies.
If a shot doesn't work, he doesn't like to try it again; he
might be late getting back to Vegas".
[272]
Watertown
was one of Sinatra's most acclaimed concept albums, released that year,
with music by Bob Gaudio (of the Four Seasons) and lyrics by
Jake Holmes.
However, it sold a mere 30,000 copies in 1970 and reached a peak chart
position of 101, putting an end to plans for a television special based
on the album.
Watertown was one of the only recording sessions having Sinatra sing against pre-recorded tracks instead of a live orchestra.
[275]
On November 2, 1970, Sinatra recorded the last songs for Reprise Records before his self-imposed retirement.
One of the songs recorded during the session, "The Game is Over", was written by
John Denver.
On June 13, 1971, at a concert in Hollywood to raise money for the
Motion Picture and TV Relief Fund, at the age of 55, Sinatra announced
that he was retiring.
When responding to press reports that poor health
or terminal illness was the reason he responded: "My health is
spectacular. In fact it's never been better.
That's why those goddamn
rumors burn me so. It shows the irresponsibility of the American press".
[278]
While he was in retirement, President
Richard Nixon
asked him to perform at a Young Voters Rally in anticipation of the
upcoming campaign. Sinatra obliged and chose to sing "My Kind of Town"
for the rally held in Chicago on October 20, 1972.
In 1973, Sinatra came out of his short-lived retirement with a television special and album, both entitled
Ol' Blue Eyes Is Back.
The album, arranged by Gordon Jenkins and
Don Costa, was a success, reaching number 13 on
Billboard and number 12 in the UK.
[281]
The TV special was highlighted by a dramatic reading of "
Send in the Clowns" and a song-and-dance sequence with former co-star Gene Kelly.
The following January, Sinatra returned to Las Vegas, performing at
Caesars Palace despite vowing in 1970 never to play there again after
the manager of the resort,
Sanford Waterman, pulled a gun on him during a heated argument.
In Australia, he caused an uproar by describing journalists there – who
were aggressively pursuing his every move and pushing for a press
conference – as "fags", "pimps", and "whores". Australian unions
representing transport workers, waiters, and journalists went on strike,
demanding that Sinatra apologize for his remarks.
Sinatra instead
insisted that the journalists apologize for "fifteen years of abuse I
have taken from the world press".
The future
Prime Minister of Australia,
Bob Hawke, then the
Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU)
leader, also insisted that Sinatra apologize, and a settlement was
eventually reached to the apparent satisfaction of both parties.
In October 1974, Sinatra appeared at New York City's
Madison Square Garden in a televised concert that was later released as an album under the title
The Main Event – Live.
Backing him was bandleader
Woody Herman and the Young Thundering Herd, who accompanied Sinatra on a European tour later that month.
[287]
The following August, Sinatra held several consecutive concerts at
Lake Tahoe together with the newly-risen singer John Denver,
[288] who became a frequent collaborator.
[290]
Denver later appeared as a guest in the
Sinatra and Friends ABC-TV Special, singing "September Song" as a duet.
Sinatra covered the John Denver hits "My Sweet Lady" and "
Leaving on a Jet Plane", arranged for him by
Eumir Deodato.
According to Denver, his song "A Baby Just Like You" was written at
Sinatra's request, due to the birth of his grandchild Angela, which gave
Sinatra a new outlook on life and meaning.
During Labor Day weekend 1976 Sinatra was responsible for reuniting
old friends and comedy partners Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis for the
first time in nearly twenty years.
Sinatra performed for the "Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon" that afternoon and before he performed he brought Martin out on stage.
[295]
In 1979, Sinatra performed in front of the
Egyptian pyramids for
Anwar Sadat, which raised more than $500,000 for
Sadat's wife's charities.
Back in Las Vegas, while celebrating 40 years in show business and his 64th birthday, he was awarded the
Grammy Trustees Award during a party at
Caesars Palace.
[298]
Trilogy, She Shot Me Down, L.A. Is My Lady (1980–89)
Sinatra's last major film role was opposite
Faye Dunaway in
Brian G. Hutton's
The First Deadly Sin
(1980), in which he plays a troubled New York City homicide cop,
Captain Edward X. Delaney.
In a small role, Dunaway is the detective's
ailing wife, hospitalized during the entire story with a rare kidney
affliction.
The musical score was by composer and arranger
Gordon Jenkins, who had first worked with Sinatra on the 1957 album "Where Are You?".
The First Deadly Sin
failed to make much of an impression at the box office, but was
well-received by a number of critics.
Santopietro noted that Sinatra
gave an "extraordinarily rich", heavily layered characterization, one
which "made for one terrific farewell" to his film career,
and Ebert was pleasantly surprised by Sinatra's "quiet, poignant, and
very effective performance" as the detective, who "looks and acts very
touchingly like a tired old cop on the threshold of retirement".
[302]
In 1980, Sinatra's first album in six years was released,
Trilogy: Past Present Future,
a highly ambitious triple album that found Sinatra recording songs from
the past (pre-rock era) and present (rock era and contemporary) that he
had overlooked during his career, while 'The Future' was a free-form
suite of new songs linked à la musical theater by a theme, in this case,
Sinatra pondering over the future.
[citation needed]
The album garnered six
Grammy nominations – winning for best liner notes – and peaked at number 17 on
Billboard's album chart, while spawning yet another song that would become a signature tune, "
Theme from New York, New York", as well as Sinatra's much lauded (second) recording of
George Harrison's "
Something" (the first was not officially released on an album until 1972's
Frank Sinatra's Greatest Hits, Vol. 2).
[citation needed]
The following year, Sinatra built on the success of
Trilogy with
She Shot Me Down,
an album that revisited the dark tone of his Capitol years, and was
praised by critics as a vintage late-period Sinatra. Sinatra would
comment that it was "A complete saloon album ... tear-jerkers and
cry-in-your-beer kind of things".
[303]
Also in 1981, Sinatra was embroiled in controversy when he worked a ten-day engagement for $2 million in
Sun City, in the internationally unrecognized "independent"
bantustan Botswana, breaking a cultural boycott against apartheid-era South Africa.
Botswana's president,
Lucas Mangope, awarded Sinatra with Botswana's highest honor, the Order of the Leopard, and made him an honorary tribal chief.
In 1982, Sinatra signed a $16 million three-year deal with the
Golden Nugget
of Las Vegas. Kelley notes that by this period Sinatra's voice had
grown "darker, tougher and loamier", but he "continued to captivate
audiences with his immutable magic".
She added that his baritone voice
"sometimes cracked, but the gliding intonations still aroused the same
raptures of delight as they had at the Paramount Theater".
That year he made a reported further $1.3 million from the Showtime
television rights to his "Concert of the Americas" in the Dominican
Republic, $1.6 million for a concert series at
Carnegie Hall, and $250,000 in just one evening at the Chicago Fest.
He donated a lot of his earnings to charity.
Sinatra was selected as one of the five recipients of the 1983
Kennedy Center Honors, alongside
Katherine Dunham,
James Stewart,
Elia Kazan, and
Virgil Thomson.
Quoting
Henry James,
President Reagan said in honoring his old friend that "art was the
shadow of humanity" and that Sinatra had "spent his life casting a
magnificent and powerful shadow".
On September 21, 1983, Sinatra filed a $2 million court case against
Kitty Kelley, suing her in punitive damages, before her unofficial biography,
His Way,
was even published. Kelley claims that in writing it, she "began trying
to read everything ever written about Sinatra", an "enormous task",
given the depth of his 40-year career, and conducted 857 interviews to
prepare for it.
The book became a best-seller for "all the wrong reasons" and "the most
eye-opening celebrity biography of our time", according to
William Safire of
The New York Times.
[309]
Sinatra was always adamant that such a book would be written on his
terms, and he himself would "set the record straight" in details of his
life.
According to Kelley, the family detested her and the book, which took
its toll on Sinatra's health. Kelly claims that Tina Sinatra blamed her
for her father's colon surgery in 1986.
He was forced to drop the case on September 19, 1984, with several
leading newspapers expressing concerns about his views on censorship.
In 1984, Sinatra worked with Quincy Jones for the first time in nearly two decades on the album,
L.A. Is My Lady, which was well received critically.
The album was a substitute for another Jones project, an album of duets with
Lena Horne, which had to be abandoned.
[314][s]
From the late 1980s, one of Sinatra's favorite haunts in Los Angeles was
Nicky Blair's, an Italian restaurant on the
Sunset Strip, where Sinatra and the Rat Pack would play poker in the kitchen to escape fans and the press.
[315]
Duets and final performances (1990–98)
In 1990 Sinatra was awarded the second "Ella Award" by the Los Angeles-based
Society of Singers, and performed for a final time with Ella Fitzgerald at the award ceremony.
[316]
Sinatra maintained an active touring schedule in the early 1990s,
performing 65 concerts in 1990, 73 in 1991 and 84 in 1992 in seventeen
different countries.
In 1993, Sinatra returned to Capitol Records and the recording studio for
Duets.
The album and its sequel,
Duets II,
would see Sinatra remake his classic recordings with popular
contemporary performers, who added their vocals to a pre-recorded tape.
During his tours in the early 1990s, his memory failed him at times during concerts, and he happened to faint onstage in
Richmond, Virginia in March 1994.
His final public concerts were held in
Fukuoka Dome in Japan on December 19–20, 1994.
The following year, on February 25, 1995, at a private party for 1200
select guests on the closing night of the Frank Sinatra Desert Classic
golf tournament, Sinatra sang before a live audience for the very last
time.
Esquire reported of the show that Sinatra was "clear, tough, on the money" and "in absolute control".
His closing song was "
The Best is Yet to Come", and he exclaimed to
Tom Dreesen as he walked off stage, "Don't Put Away That Suitcase".
Sinatra was awarded the
Legend Award at the
1994 Grammy Awards, where he was introduced by
Bono,
who said of him, "Frank's the chairman of the bad attitude ... Rock 'n
roll plays at being tough, but this guy is the boss – the chairman of
boss ... I'm not going to mess with him, are you?"
[321]
Sinatra called it "the best welcome ... I ever had", but his acceptance
speech ran too long and was abruptly cut off, leaving him looking
confused and talking into a dead microphone.
[322]
In 1995, to mark Sinatra's 80th birthday, the
Empire State Building glowed blue.
[323]
A star-studded birthday tribute,
Sinatra: 80 Years My Way, was held at the
Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, featuring performers such as
Ray Charles,
Little Richard,
Natalie Cole and
Salt-N-Pepa singing his songs.
At the end of the program Sinatra graced the stage for the last time to
sing the final notes of the "Theme from New York, New York" with an
ensemble.
[325]
In recognition of his many years of association with Las Vegas, Frank Sinatra was elected to the
Gaming Hall of Fame in 1997.
[326]
Personal life
Sinatra had three children,
Nancy (born 1940),
Frank Jr. (born 1944), and
Tina
(born 1948), all with his first wife, Nancy Sinatra (née Barbato) (m.
1939–1951).
Sinatra had numerous extra-marital affairs, the first of
which was with blonde starlet
Alora Gooding from October 1940 while in Hollywood, his "first big love away from home" according to Nick Sevano.
Next followed
Rita Maritt, a 16-year-old
Long Island debutante, the daughter of an oil baron, and
Mary Lou Watts, a wealthy socialite.
Gossip magazines published details of affairs with the likes of
Lana Turner and
Marilyn Maxwell.
Kelley claims that Sinatra had first seen photographs of
Ava Gardner
in a magazine and had sworn that he would marry her.
Ruth Rosenthal, a
friend of Gardner's, stated that Gardner initially detested him upon
meeting him at MGM, finding him to be "conceited, arrogant and
overpowering".
Their similarities, however, from vices like smoking,
drinking hard liquor and cursing, to their volatile tempers and love of
violent sports, soon became apparent.
Sinatra separated from Nancy on Valentine's Day 1950, after he
confessed to his passionate affair with Gardner, and she subsequently
locked him out of the house and hired a lawyer.
As Nancy refused to divorce him, Sinatra was eventually granted a
divorce in Nevada in October 1951, and subsequently obtained a marriage
license in Pennsylvania, marrying Gardner in a small ceremony.
A turbulent marriage, with many well-publicized fights and altercations, the couple formally announced their separation on October 29, 1953 through MGM.
Gardner filed for divorce in 1954, at a time when she was dating matador
Luis Miguel Dominguín, but the divorce wasn't settled until 1957.
Sinatra blamed Peter Lawford for the split, who had dated Gardner
before, and it took six years for Sinatra to forgive him.
He was
inconsolable in the fall of 1953 after the split, and according to
Kelley, on November 18, Van Heusen found him in the elevator of his 57th
Street apartment with his wrists slashed.
[t]
Sinatra took responsibility for Gardner's business affairs long after
the split, and was still dealing with her finances in 1976.
Sinatra was very close to
Lauren Bacall.
According to Kelley, her husband
Humphrey Bogart
believed that Sinatra was in love with Bacall and attending the Sands
on Bacall's 32nd birthday out of jealousy, though the two men were on
good terms.
Sinatra and Bacall were frequently seen together in public throughout
1957, and on March 11, 1958 they reportedly became engaged, though
Sinatra denied intending to marry her.
Sinatra's affair with actress Shirley Van Dyke came to light following her overdose and hospitalization in 1957.
In the 1962 he broke off another engagement to
Juliet Prowse.
Sinatra was later married to
Mia Farrow (m. 1966–1968), and finally to
Barbara Marx (m. 1976–1998; his death).
In a 2013 interview Farrow admitted that Sinatra may be the father of her son,
Ronan Farrow (born 1986).
[341]
In 1960, Sinatra bought a share in the
Cal Neva Lodge & Casino, straddling the border between Nevada and California on the shores of
Lake Tahoe.
Though it only opened between June and September, Sinatra built the
Celebrity Room theater, which attracted the likes of the other Rat Pack
members,
Red Skelton,
Marilyn Monroe,
Victor Borge,
Joe E. Lewis,
Lucille Ball,
Lena Horne,
Juliet Prowse, the
McGuire Sisters and others. By 1962 he reportedly held a 50% share in the hotel.
Sinatra's gambling license was temporarily stripped by the
Nevada Gaming Control Board in 1963 after mobster Sam Giancana was spotted on the premises.
[343]
Due to ongoing pressure from the FBI and Nevada Gaming Commission and
mobster control of casinos, and trouble with the Mafia, Sinatra agreed
to give up his share in Cal Neva and the Sands.
In his spare time, Sinatra enjoyed listening to classical music, and would attend concerts when he could.
He also liked opera, particularly
Luciano Pavarotti, and told himself, "I'm just a wop baritone. This guy can really sing".
Impeccable with his dress and cleanliness, while with the Tommy Dorsey
band he developed the nickname "Lady Macbeth", because of frequent
showering and switching his outfits.
Throughout his life, Sinatra had mood swings and bouts of mild to severe
depression, admitting to an interviewer in the 1950s that "I have an over-acute capacity for sadness as well as elation".
Avoiding solitude and unglamorous surroundings at all costs, he
struggled with the conflicting need "to get away from it all, but not
too far away."
Anthony Quinn
once stated that he had a "cruel streak in his personality", but that
he still loved him as he was "what all men are and not one man in a
million ever is".
Sinatra's mood swings often developed into violence, directed at people
he felt had crossed him, particularly journalists who gave him scathing
reviews, publicists and photographers.
He received negative press for
fights with Lee Mortimer in 1947, photographer
Eddie Schisser in
Houston in 1950, and Judy Garland's publicist
Jim Byron in 1954, whom he reportedly referred to as a "fucking parasite".
Yet Sinatra was known for his generosity, particularly after his comeback.
When
Lee J. Cobb
nearly died from a heart attack in June 1955, Sinatra flooded him with
"books, flowers, delicacies", paid his hospital bills, and visited him
daily, telling him that his finest acting was yet to come.
In another instance, after a heated argument with manager Bobby Burns, rather than apologize, Sinatra bought him a brand new
Cadillac.
In a 1963 interview with
Playboy magazine, Sinatra stated that his belief in God was similar to
Albert Schweitzer,
Bertrand Russell and
Albert Einstein
in that had a "respect for life – in any form", but didn't believe in
"a personal God to whom I look for comfort or for a natural on the next
roll of the dice".
[354]
According to Kelley, he was critical of the church on numerous
occasions, and had thought it hypocritical in Hoboken that Italians had
to attend a different church from the Irish and Germans.
Though turned off by organized religion at times, however, Sinatra had a
deep faith that became public when he turned to the Catholic Church for
healing after his mother died in a plane crash late in his career.
He
died as a practicing Catholic and had a Catholic burial.
[356]
Alleged organized-crime links
Sinatra became the stereotype of the "tough working-class Italian
American", something which he embraced. Sinatra commented that if it
hadn't been for his interest in music he'd "probably have ended in a
life of crime".
Kelley claims that
Eddie Fisher
once remarked that Sinatra "wanted to be a hood" and had once told him
that "I'd rather be a don of the Mafia than president of the United
States".
However, Peter Lawford had said that Sinatra only referred to
them as the "boys" or "the Outfit", rather than the "Mafia".
In Sinatra's early days, mafia boss
Willie Moretti helped him for kickbacks and was reported to have intervened in releasing him from his contract with Tommy Dorsey.
Sinatra was present at the
Mafia Havana Conference in 1946.
When the press learned of Sinatra being in Havana with
Lucky Luciano, one newspaper published the headline, "Shame, Sinatra".
Kelley claims that
Phyllis McGuire referred to
Sam Giancana and Sinatra as the "best of friends", and would often play golf together in Nevada and visit each other.
She also quotes Jo-Carrol Silvers in saying that both Sinatra and her husband Phil Silvers "adored
Bugsy Siegel
so much", and would boast about him to friends and how many people he
had killed.
She also claimed that Silvers had told her that "like Bugsy,
Frank had a Mafia Redneck mentality", with their shared love of
high-living and grandiose plans in Las Vegas.
Kelley claims that Sinatra and mobster Joseph Fischetti had been good
friends from 1938 onward, and acted like "Sicilian brothers".
She also states that Sinatra and Hank Sanicola were financial partners with
Mickey Cohen, a West Coast mobster, in the gossip magazine
Hollywood Night Life, which she claims that Sinatra funded $15,000 into to get back at Hollywood.
The
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) kept records amounting to 2,403 pages on Sinatra, becoming a natural target with his alleged Mafia ties, his ardent
New Deal politics and his friendship with
John F. Kennedy.
[366]
The FBI kept Sinatra under surveillance for almost five decades
beginning in the 1940s.
The documents include accounts of Sinatra as the
target of death threats and
extortion schemes.
[367]
The FBI documented that Sinatra was losing esteem with the Mafia as he
grew closer to President Kennedy, whose brother Bobby was leading a
crackdown on organized crime.
They wiretapped Giancana's conversations,
and founded than Giancana no longer trusted Sinatra after he'd been
spotted with Kennedy and branded him a liar.
Their purported friendship finally came to an end in 1963 following the
Nevada Gaming Commission's investigation into the casinos—according to
Kelley, Giancana blamed Sinatra for the ordeal and was fuming at the
abuse he had given to the commission's chairman, Ed Olsen.
The FBI's secret dossier on Sinatra was released in 1998 in response to
Freedom of Information Act requests.
Despite the many connections and anecdotes reported, Sinatra frequently denied personal and professional links with
organized-crime figures such as Bugsy Siegel,
Carlo Gambino, Sam Giancana, Lucky Luciano, and Joseph Fischetti,
[371] vehemently declaring that "any report that I fraternised with goons or racketeers is a vicious lie".
When asked about his Mafia contacts in 1965 he stated that it was "due
to a legitimate reason. We built a hotel together in Las Vegas".
In
January 1967 Sinatra stood before a Las Vegas grand jury investigating
mobster influence in the casinos, and denied any financial exploits with
Giancana.
In his memoir,
Dean & Me, Sinatra's associate
Jerry Lewis
said of the subject: "In the 1940s and '50s, before the Mob lost its
hold on nightclubs and Vegas, it was literally impossible for an
entertainer, any entertainer, not to deal with them."
Political views
Political activities, 1944–69
Sinatra held differing political views throughout his life. Sinatra's
parents had immigrated to the United States in 1895 and 1897,
respectively.
His mother, Dolly Sinatra (1896–1977), was a
Democratic Party ward leader.
In 1944, after sending a letter to President
Franklin D. Roosevelt in support of the president's stewardship in wartime, Sinatra was invited to meet Roosevelt at the
White House,
where he agreed to become part of the Democratic party's voter
registration drives, and heavily campaigned for the Democrats in the
1944 presidential election.
According to Jo Carroll Silvers, in his younger years Sinatra was an
"ardent liberal" who was "so concerned about poor people that he was
always quoting
Henry Wallace".
He was outspoken on racism, particularly towards blacks and Italians
from early on. In November 1945 Sinatra was invited by the mayor of
Gary, Indiana
to try to settle a strike by white students of Froebel High School
against the "Pro-Negro" policies of the new principal.
Sinatra outraged
the mayor with his remarks about how to address the problem, which he
compared it to the racial policies of Nazism, and criticized the people
involved in the dispute who had nothing to do with the school.
His comments, while praised by liberal publications, led to accusations by some that he was a
Communist.
Sinatra responded by saying: "I don't like Communists, and I have
nothing against any organization except the Knights of Columbus".
In the
1948 presidential election, Sinatra actively campaigned for President
Harry S. Truman.
[379] In 1952 and 1956, he also campaigned for
Adlai Stevenson.
[379]
Of all the U.S. Presidents he associated with during his career, he was closest to
John F. Kennedy.
[379]
Sinatra often invited Kennedy to Hollywood and Las Vegas, and two would
womanize and enjoy parties together. Kennedy enjoyed hearing inside
gossip about the stars and their romances from him.
In 1960 Sinatra and his friends — Peter Lawford, Dean Martin, and Sammy
Davis Jr. - actively campaigned for Kennedy throughout the United
States;
[379]
A specially recorded version of "High Hopes" with lyrics praising
Kennedy, frequently was played during the 1960 presidential election.
[379]
In January 1961 Sinatra and Peter Lawford organized the Inaugural Gala
in Washington, DC, held on the evening before President Kennedy was
sworn into office.
[379]
The event, featuring many notable entertainment figures, was an
enormous success, raising a large amount of money for the Democratic
Party.
Sinatra's move toward the Republican party seems to have begun when he was snubbed by President Kennedy in favor of
Bing Crosby,
[382] a fellow singer and a Republican, for Kennedy's visit to
Palm Springs,
in 1962.
Kennedy had planned to stay at Sinatra's home over the Easter
holiday weekend, but decided to stay with Crosby because of Sinatra's
alleged connections to organized crime.
[u][382]
Sinatra had invested a lot of his own money in upgrading the facilities
at his home in anticipation of the President's visit, fitting it with a
heliport and building a large guest house to seat 40 people.
Sinatra was fuming and "deeply humiliated" at being rejected, smashing
up the concrete of the heliport himself with a sledgehammer.
He blamed Lawford and Bobby Kennedy for the decision, and created a
rift between Lawford and the other Rat Pack members, cutting him out of
subsequent films.
Yet Sinatra never said a bad word about Kennedy himself, and despite the humiliation and change in political affiliation, he still mourned when Kennedy was assassinated.
[379]
According to his daughter Nancy, Sinatra learned of Kennedy's assassination while filming a scene of
Robin and the 7 Hoods in Burbank.
[379]
Sinatra quickly finished filming the scene, returned to his Palm Springs home, and sobbed in his bedroom for three days.
[379]
Political activities, 1970–94
Sinatra remained a supporter of the Democratic Party until the early 1970s when he switched his allegiance to the
Republican Party as the Democratic Party under
George McGovern took a sharp turn to the left that was in conflict with his more traditional values.
The first sign of Sinatra's break from the Democratic Party came in 1970 when he endorsed
Ronald Reagan for a second term as
Governor of California;
[379] Sinatra, however, remained a registered Democrat and encouraged Reagan to become more moderate.
[379]
In July 1972, after a lifetime of supporting Democratic presidential
candidates, Sinatra announced he could not support the left-ward turn of
the party and its candidate, George McGovern, and would therefore
support Republican U.S. President
Richard Nixon for re-election in the
1972 presidential election.
His switch to the Republican Party was now official;
[379] he even told his daughter, Tina, who had actively campaigned for Nixon's Democratic opponent
George McGovern,
[379] "the older you get, the more conservative you get."
[379]
Sinatra said he agreed with the Republican Party on most positions.
During Nixon's Presidency, Sinatra visited the White House on several occasions.
[379]
In the
1980 presidential election, Sinatra supported Ronald Reagan and donated $4 million to Reagan's campaign.
[390]
He sponsored the initial fundraising campaign in the northeast, raising over $250,000 in Boston.
Sinatra referred to Reagan as "the proper man to be the President of
the United States ... it's so screwed up now, we need someone to
straighten it out."
[392]
Reagan's victory gave Sinatra his closest relationship with the White
House since the early 1960s.
Sinatra arranged Reagan's Presidential
gala, as he had done for Kennedy 20 years previously.
In 1984, Sinatra returned to his birthplace in Hoboken, bringing with
him President Reagan, who was in the midst of campaigning for the
1984 presidential election.
Reagan had made Sinatra a fund-raising ambassador as part of the
Republican National Committee's "Victory '84 Get-Out-The-Vote" (GOTV)
drive.
Racial activism
From his youth, Sinatra displayed sympathy for African Americans and
worked both publicly and privately all his life to help them win equal
rights.
In 1947 he remarked: "We've got a hell of a way to go in this
racial situation.
As long as most white men think of a Negro as a Negro
first and a man second, we're in trouble. I don't know why we can't grow
up.
It took us long enough to get past the stage where we were calling
all Italians "wops" and "dagos", but if we don't stop this "nigger"
thing, we just won't be around much longer."
He played a major role in the
desegregation of
Nevada hotels and casinos in the 1960s often stepping in to demand apologies for a racist incident and abolishing of
Jim Crow policies before he would fulfill his show contract.
On January 27, 1961, Sinatra played a benefit show at Carnegie Hall for
Martin Luther King, Jr.
and led his fellow Rat Pack members and Reprise label mates in
boycotting hotels and casinos that refused entry to black patrons and
performers.
He often spoke from the stage on desegregation and
repeatedly played benefits on behalf of Dr. King and his movement.
According to his son,
Frank Sinatra, Jr., King sat weeping in the audience at one of his father's concerts in 1963 as Sinatra sang
Ol' Man River, a song from the musical
Show Boat
that is sung by an African-American stevedore.
His well-known support
for African-Americans was the subject of a piece in the Chicago Tribune
by Laura S. Washington.
[395]
When he changed his political affiliations in 1970, Sinatra became less outspoken on racial issues.
In 1981, Sinatra performed in
Sun City, South Africa, at a time when he believed that
Bophuthatswana
was an independent country.
He was heavily criticized for performing
there, and the official from the National Congress of South Africa was
quoted in saying "He is trying to pretend that he's going tin a separate
state, which it is not.
We don't recognize Bophuthatswana as a separate
state of South Africa, and our policy is the same as if he agreed to
perform in South Africa.
He is saying that black people of South Africa
should be living on 13% of the land.
Death
Kelly states that Sinatra "hated growing old", and that it frustrated
him wearing a hearing aid, losing his hair and part of his memory.
She
claims that he prepared for his death in the 1990s by forcing gradually
himself to say goodbye to loved ones.
When he avoided Dean Martin's funeral in 1995, some argued that it was
due to a past disagreement involving the Rat Pack, but Sinatra did not
want to be seen publicly breaking down at the loss.
It also embarrassed
him that there was a family feud over his $200 million estate in the
years leading up to his death.
Sinatra died by his wife's side at
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on May 14, 1998, aged 82, after suffering a severe
heart attack.
[396]
Sinatra had suffered from ill health for the last few years of his
life, and had been frequently hospitalized for heart and breathing
problems, high blood pressure, pneumonia and bladder cancer, as well as
suffering from
dementia.
[397]
He had made no public appearances following a heart attack in February 1997.
[396] Sinatra's wife encouraged him to "fight" while attempts were made to stabilize him, and his final words were, "I'm losing."
[398]
Sinatra's daughter, Tina, later wrote that she and her sister, Nancy,
had not been notified of their father's final hospitalization, and it
was her belief that "the omission was deliberate.
Barbara would be the
grieving widow
alone at her husband's side."
The night after Sinatra's death, the lights on the
Empire State Building in
New York City were turned blue.
Also right after Sinatra's death, the lights on the
Las Vegas Strip were dimmed in his honor, and the casinos stopped spinning for a minute.
[400]
Sinatra's funeral was held at the
Roman Catholic Church of the Good Shepherd in
Beverly Hills, California, on May 20, 1998, with 400 mourners in attendance and thousands of fans outside.
[401]
Gregory Peck,
Tony Bennett, and Sinatra's son, Frank, Jr. addressed the mourners, who included many notable people from film and entertainment.
[398][401]
Sinatra was buried with mementos from family members including cherry-flavored
Life Savers,
Tootsie Rolls, a bottle of
Jack Daniel's, a pack of
Camel cigarettes and a
Zippo lighter, stuffed toys, and a dog biscuit, next to his parents in section B-8 of
Desert Memorial Park in
Cathedral City, California.
His close friends,
Jilly Rizzo and
Jimmy Van Heusen, are buried nearby.
The words "
The Best Is Yet to Come", plus "Beloved Husband & Father" are imprinted on Sinatra's grave marker.
Honors and legacy
The
United States Postal Service issued a 42-cent postage stamp in honor of Sinatra in May 2008, commemorating the tenth anniversary of his death.
[405][406]
The
United States Congress passed a resolution introduced by
Representative Mary Bono Mack on May 20, 2008, designating May 13 as Frank Sinatra Day to honor his contributions to American culture.
[407]
In Sinatra's native New Jersey, Hoboken's
Frank Sinatra Park, the Hoboken Post Office,
[406] and a residence hall at
Montclair State University were named in his honor.
[408]
Other buildings named for Sinatra include the
Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in
Astoria, Queens, the Frank Sinatra International Student Center at Israel's
Hebrew University in Jerusalem dedicated in 1978,
[409] and the Frank Sinatra Hall at the
USC School of Cinematic Arts in Los Angeles, California, dedicated in 2002.
[410]
Wynn Resorts'
Encore Las Vegas resort features a restaurant dedicated to Sinatra which opened in 2008.
[411]
Items of memorabilia from Sinatra's life and career are displayed at
USC's Frank Sinatra Hall and Wynn Resort's Sinatra restaurant.
[410][411] Near the
Las Vegas Strip is a road named Frank Sinatra Drive in his honor.
Sinatra has three stars on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame, for his work in film and music on the east and west sides of the 1600 block of
Vine Street respectively, and his work in television on the south side of the 6500 block of
Hollywood Boulevard.
[413]
Sinatra received three honorary degrees during his lifetime. In May 1976, Frank Sinatra was invited to speak at the
University of Nevada, Las Vegas (
UNLV)
graduation commencement held at Sam Boyd Stadium.
It was at this
commencement that he was bestowed an Honorary Doctorate litterarum
humanarum by the university.
During his speech, Sinatra noted that his education had come from "the
school of hard knocks" and was suitably touched by the award.
He went on
to describe that "this is the first educational degree I have ever held
in my hand. I will never forget what you have done for me today".
[415]
A few years later in 1984 and 1985, Sinatra also received an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from
Loyola Marymount University as well as an Honorary Doctorate of Engineering from the
Stevens Institute of Technology.
[416][417]
Film and television portrayals
Sinatra has been portrayed on numerous occasions in film and on
television. A television miniseries based on Sinatra's life, titled
Sinatra, was aired by CBS in 1992.
Sinatra was directed by
James Steven Sadwith, who won an Emmy award for
Outstanding Individual Achievement in Directing for a Miniseries or a Special, and starred
Philip Casnoff as Sinatra.
Sinatra was written by
Abby Mann and Philip Mastrosimone, and produced by Sinatra's daughter, Tina.
Sinatra has subsequently been portrayed on screen by
Ray Liotta (
The Rat Pack, 1998),
James Russo (
Stealing Sinatra, 2003),
Dennis Hopper (
The Night We Called It a Day, 2003),
Chris Diamantopoulos (
The Kennedys, 2011), and
Robert Knepper (
My Way, 2012), and spoofed by
Joe Piscopo and
Phil Hartman on
Saturday Night Live.
A biographical film directed by
Martin Scorsese has long been in production.
[419]
A 1998 episode of the BBC documentary series
Arena,
The Voice of the Century, focused on Sinatra.
[420]
Alex Gibney directed a four part biographical series on Sinatra,
All or Nothing At All, for HBO in 2015.
[421]
Discography
Filmography
Compositions
Frank Sinatra co-wrote the following songs:
Source: Wikipedia.org
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