Frank
Sinatra as caricatured by Sam Berman for NBC's 1947 promotional book
The Columbia Years and "The Voice"
In
1943, he signed with Columbia Records as a solo artist with initially
great success, particularly during the musicians' recording strikes.
Vocalists were not part of the musician union and were allowed to record
during the ban by using a cappella vocal backing. Sinatra scored
several hits during the strike, then enjoyed one of his biggest hits
when the strike ended with "Saturday Night Is the Loneliest Night
of the Week." He also starred on radio
programs during this period and was widely considered the nation's
second-most-popular singer, behind Bing Crosby, whose attendance/box
office records at the New York Paramount he shattered in December 1942,
when a two-week engagement was extended to eight. It was during these
shows that the bobby soxers began to create a deafening roar, the likes
of which had never been heard before, when Sinatra was on stage. "Sinatra-mania"
was now, officially, in full swing as he landed no less than 23 top ten
singles on Billboard between 1940 and early 1943 and became
affectionately known as "The Voice".
In
1943, Sinatra made his debut at Madison Square Garden — in a benefit
show for Greek War Relief — and caused a stir playing to a crowd of
10,000 at the Hollywood Bowl, a venue usually reserved for classical
music and opera. The
takings were so huge that the Bowl, in severe financial distress, was
able to wipe all of its debt from the earnings.
That
October, Songs by Sinatra premiered on CBS radio, and ran over
the course of the next two years.
In
1944, Sinatra started his film career in earnest — after appearing in
three pictures as the singer with the Dorsey Band in 1941/1942 —
signing a seven-year contract with RKO and appearing in light musical
vehicles — Step Lively, Higher and Higher, catered to
appeal to teenage fans. Sinatra was soon noticed by Louis B. Mayer, who
bought his contract from RKO and upped his salary from $25,000 to
$130,000 per film under a $1.5 million contract with MGM.
When
Sinatra returned to the Paramount in October 1944, 35,000 fans caused a
near riot outside the venue. Dubbed "The Columbus Day Riot",
it took the police several hours to defuse the situation. Sinatra was
rapidly becoming one of the biggest stars in all of the entertainment
business, with estimates suggesting that he had some 40 million fans in
America. He returned to the Paramount the following November, again
playing to ecstatic crowds, something that was more than a trend across
the nation as Sinatra embarked on a cross-country tour over the spring
and summer of 1946, playing at the Golden Gate Theatre in San Francisco,
Chicago Stadium, Madison Square Garden and the Hollywood Bowl amongst
other major venues.
The
images of screaming and swooning young women fans in Sinatra's big-band
years (anticipating similar antics for Elvis Presley and The Beatles),
along with caricatures of Sinatra himself, were recurring themes in
various contemporary pop culture media, such as Warner
Bros. cartoons. 1945's Book Revue, for example, centers on
Sinatra singing "It Had to Be You", with various women of
classic literature (as well as an apparently male wolf) crying
"Frankie!" and then passing out.
In
1945, Sinatra co-starred with Gene Kelly in Anchors Aweigh. A
major success, this set the standard for subsequent Kelly/Sinatra
pictures, such as Take Me Out to the Ball Game and On the Town,
all of which were hugely popular with fans and critics alike. That same
year, he was loaned out to RKO to star in a short film titled The
House I Live In. Directed by Melvin LeRoy, this film on tolerance
and racial equality earned a special Academy
Award.
By
1946, Sinatra was performing 45 shows a week during some months. That
year saw the release of his first concept album, The Voice of Frank
Sinatra, and the debut of his own weekly radio show. On screen, he
appeared at the finale of Till the Clouds Roll By, singing "Ol'
Man River", and starred in the well-received It Happened in
Brooklyn.
Frank
Sinatra 1947
http://www.solarnavigator.net/music/frank_sinatra.htm
Alleged organized crime links
Sinatra
has been frequently linked to members of the Mafia and it has long been
rumored that his career was aided behind the scenes by organized crime.
One
of his uncles, Babe Gavarante, was a member of a Bergen County armed
gang connected to the organization of Willie Moretti. Gavarante was
convicted of murder in 1921 in connection with an armed robbery in which
he had driven the getaway car. Sinatra was also allegedly personally
linked to Willie Moretti — his first wife Nancy Barbato was a cousin
of one of Moretti's senior henchmen and Sinatra sang at the daughter's
wedding in 1948. According to testimony from Moretti, Sinatra received
help from him in arranging performances in return for kickbacks.
He
had associations with and did favours for Charles Fischetti, a notorious
Chicago mobster dating back to 1946 (according to the FBI). Sinatra was
also friends with Charles's brother Joseph who ran the Fontainebleau
Hotel complex in Miami, who arranged work for him and introduced him to
Charles Luciano in Havana. After Luciano's deportation to Italy, Sinatra
visited him at least twice, singing at a 1946 Christmas Party and
gifting the famed mobster with a gold cigarette case engraved "To
my dear pal Charlie, from his friend Frank" the next year.
These
visits were widely reported by the media and used as further evidence of
Sinatra's ties to the mob, haunting him for the rest of his life. Among
the allegations was the $2 million that Sinatra gave Luciano. As Joseph
"Doc" Stacher later recalled of the Havana meeting, "The
Italians among us were all very proud of Frank. They always told me they
had spent a lot of money helping him in his career ever since he was in
Tommy Dorsey’s band. Lucky Luciano was very fond of Frank’s singing.
Frankie flew into Havana with the Fischettis, with whom he was very
friendly, but of course, our meeting had nothing to do with hearing him
croon. Everyone brought envelopes of money for Luciano. But more
important, they came to pay allegiance to him." The
"Havana" allegations — while the basis of rumors for
Sinatra's mob ties — have never been proved, and in his autobiography
Luciano himself denied there was any criminal association.
Sinatra
had a strong friendship with Sam Giancana, who always wore a sapphire
friendship ring given to him by Sinatra. A number of alleged incidents
have been noted where people who angered Sinatra had been threatened by
Giancana's mob. Comedian Jackie Mason has alleged that after mocking
Sinatra in his routine, he received threats and his hotel room was shot
up in his presence. After he continued, he received death threats and
was roughed up and his nose broken.
J.
Edgar Hoover apparently suspected Sinatra over the years, and Sinatra's
file at the FBI ended up at 2,403
pages, detailing allegations of extortion against Ronald Alpert for
$100,000. Sinatra publicly rejected these accusations many times, and
was never charged with any crimes in connection with them.
The
character Johnny Fontane in the book and movie The Godfather is
widely viewed as having been inspired by Frank Sinatra and his alleged
connections. Indeed, Sinatra was furious with Godfather author
Mario Puzo over the Fontane character and reportedly confronted Puzo in
public with profane threats supposedly on the basis that Fontane is
shown to cry in the film, an emasculating display Sinatra would have not
ideally had implied as a part of his personality.
In
June of 1985, soon after Sinatra received his Medal of Freedom,
satirical cartoonist Garry Trudeau ran a series of Doonesbury
strips resurrecting photos of Sinatra "Doing It My Way",
posing with known mafiosi many years earlier. Sinatra complained that
the strip series was "unfair", and pointed out that his mob
associates gave him work when no one else would.
Awards and legacy
For
a listing of Sinatra's awards and accolades, please see List of Frank
Sinatra's awards and accolades.
Stephen
Holden wrote for the 1983 Rolling Stone Record Guide:
-
Frank Sinatra's voice is pop music history. [...] Like Presley and Dylan — the only other white male American singers since 1940 whose popularity, influence, and mythic force have been comparable — Sinatra will last indefinitely. He virtually invented modern pop song phrasing.
Discography.....
http://www.solarnavigator.net/music/frank_sinatra.htm
Biographies
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Freedland, Michael. All the Way: A Biography of Frank Sinatra. St Martins Press, 2000.
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Kelley, Kitty. His Way. Bantam Press, 1986.
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Lahr, John. Sinatra. Random House, 1997.
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Munn, Michael. Sinatra: The Untold Story. Robson Books Ltd, 2002.
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Rockwell, John. Sinatra: An American Classic. Rolling Stone, 1984.
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Rojek, Chris. Frank Sinatra. Polity, 2004.
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Summers, Antony and Swan, Robbyn. Sinatra: The Life. Doubleday, 2005.
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Taraborrelli, J. Randall. Sinatra: The Man Behind the Myth. Mainstream Publishing, 1998.
Memoirs
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Ash, Vic. I Blew it My Way: Bebop, Big Bands and Sinatra. Northway Publications, 2006.
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Jacobs, George and Stadiem, William. Mr. S The Last Word On Frank Sinatra. HarperCollins, 2003.
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Frank Sinatra at the TCM Movie Database
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Frank Sinatra at the Internet Broadway Database
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"Frank Sinatra Dies at 82; Matchless Stylist of Pop" Obituary, New York Times, May 16, 1998
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