NOTE:Frank
Sinatra has been a fascination for biographers ever since his rise to
fame in the 1940s, with the first being eyewitness accounts of
his undeniable influence on popular culture. Sinatra's
numerous successes and failures in music, film and
life have always been somehow larger than the world he lived in, and
even early on, observers have attempted, with various degrees of
success, to quantify and dissect the power of his art and
personality. Sinatra was one of a kind, but the books
chronicling his life are legion; hopefully this guide will
direct you to the best - the ones that do the proper job of
reaching into Sinatra's soul and shedding light on the
Legend. Used book sellers sometimes sell of Amazon.com, but
if you can't find these titles there, I would suggest searching at abebooks.com or Alibris, as well as Half.com and eBay.com The Voice: The Story of An
American Phenomenon - Frank Sinatra
by E. J. Kahn, Jr.; Harper
& Brothers Publishers, 125 p.
Released 1947
"Sinatra's
eminence is as least in part a
result of the feverish letter writing of his fans. They are
as diligent a bunch of correspondents as any older pressure group, and,
at the instigation of their leaders, they keep bombarding people in the
radio, movie, and recording business with demans for more of Frankie.
Most of Sinatra's fans are insatiable for information about him and
find that the sustenance provided by movie magazines - articles with
titles like "That Old Sinatra Magic," "Sweet Sin-atra," and "Sinatra -
Prophet of Peace?" - is, like chop suey, filliing enough but
of little nutritive value. Their fan-club publications,
mostly mimeographed affairs, which deal exclusively, and often
lengthily, with Sinatra, provide more nourishment." [pg.
76-77]
REVIEW:
I
don't give The Voice,
an early book on Sinatra four stars for its portrayal of
Sinatra per se, but as a glimpse into another era, and more
particularly as a glimpse of early Sinatra mania, it's
unsurpassed. There's something about the language, the
first-hand account of seeing and hearing the phenomenon of Frank's
appeal is far fresher and more alive than reading about it in modern
recounts. The author, E.J. Kahn, Jr., tells in the
introduction how he first heard of 'Frankie' in 1941, as he was in boot
camp, and one of his fellow soldiers had written "This Love Of Mine"
which Sinatra had recorded, and was played on radios around the
camp. Later exposure after the war was so noticably
pervasive, that the author began to study the singer, and his effect on
the populace in general. He humorously notes that even if
people didn't like Sinatra, 'everybody had an opinion of him' (except
his Grandfather, who was more interested in race horses, and considered
Bing Crosby the better singer, since he owned race horses, and
therefore, had to be a better singer). What's also
illuminating about this book is that its contents take place before his
slide into obscurity at the end of the 1940s. At the time
this book was written, Frank was still extremely popular, had conquered
radio, the Paramount, the Waldorf (where the hotel was innundated with
phone calls from fans), and was still viewed as a humble, generous, and
gregarious performer. There is nothing mentioned of his
fights with the press, his affair with Ava Gardner, his mob
connections, or his communist leanings. But there are
paragraphs devoted to his charitable works, floppy ties, fan clubs, and
family life. It's a peculiar peek into an innocent time just
shy of the years when it would all come tumbling down.
Included in the book are a packet of sixteen photographs, all of which
might have been provided by Frank's publicist, as they show Frank with
his family, with the Dorsey band, at an army hospital, and an
autographed photo for fans to hang on their walls, among others.
Hollywood's Loveable
Rogue - Frankie: The Life and Loves of Frank Sinatra
by
Don Dwiggins; Paperback Library, 156 p.
Released 1961
"Clearly,
the poor boy needed help. MCA generously rushed to his
aid. Their strategy was simple - first it was necessary to
convince Sinatra that he needed saving. MCA men with flashy
diamond rings and stiff shirts and stiffer upper lips moved in and
jabbed expensive cigars at the tousle-headed entertainer.
"Brother, are you being taken for a sucker!" they told him, shaking
their heads. "Twenty-five gees for a movie? Hell,
you're worth two hunnert grand!" "What can I do?" Sinatra
asked plaintively. "Sit tight, Frankie," they told
him. "Sit tight. Maybe you got the laryngitis and
can't sing because you're so shook up over those bum deals you
made." "So?" Frankie asked innocently.
"So you don't sing, you don't make no money for those
vultures. So they get hungry. We offer a better
deal and zing! You start working again. We'll split
commissions, of course." Through the cloud of blue smoke
Sinatra saw the logic here." [pg. 53]
REVIEW:
Oh,
mercy! You know, sometimes you can
judge a book by its cover. The second I saw this cheesy
photo, and read the line, Hollywood's
Loveable Rogue, I just knew
that this book was going to be pure SPAM. Reading like a
10-cent romance novel, Don Dwiggins weaves a tale as implausible as any
fairy tale, with the curtain opening on an "angry-eyed Italian night
club singer" who jumps up onto the stage of a local high-school and
incites the crowd of doe-eyed bobby-soxers to rebel against a local
strike. I can just see the publicist pushing this manuscript
at a Hollywood exec and screaming: "It's pure GOLD! I can see
Fabian as Frankie, Donna Mills as devoted, but
heart-broken, wife Nancy, and a cast of THOUSANDS!
Talk to me, baby!" But seriously, the book is a scream,
re-writing the Sinatra story into a panting pot-boiler, complete with
stilted dialogue and quick-cutting scenes which careen from
hot-and-heavy romances to shady deals with the mob. Through
it all Frank is cast as the naive innocent who floats above all the
ruckus with a wink and a smile, coming off as pure and unspoilt as a
new-born lamb, but with just enough of a wicked gleam in his eye to
make him just a little 'naughty." The author has the
gall to describe such uber-blunders as The Kissing Bandit
as "a frothy musical" and even has the chutzpah
to fabricate a scene where Queen Elizabeth falls head over
heels for Frankie, only to be politely rebuffed! Oh,
the humanity! But how seriously can you take a
book which uses several pages to academically dissect Frank's frequent
use of slang: ("Sinatra fans are apt to confuse the usage of gas
and gasser. A gas is a situation, like
a date with a broad can be a wonderful gas.
A gasser, Sinatra explained, applies to a
person") [pg. 118], or inventing a scene where Frank shudders like a
nervous schoolboy in the grip of an amorous redhead: ("Frankie,"
she breathed in an alchoholic cloud, "You were wonderful
tonight. Do you know what you do to women?" Sinatra
gulped and looked for a fire escape") [pg. 37]. If
Glamour and Spy
magazines had had a love child, this book would be it, so bad it's good
- so trashy you'll need to take a bath afterwards, but so dumbell that
it's impossible to take seriously, Frankie is a
guilty pleasure - loads of fun if you're in the right mood.
Sinatra
and His Rat Pack
by Richard Gehman; Belmont
Books, 200 p.
Released 1961
"The
lights went up and [Joey Bishop] walked on stage. His opening
line was, "Some time I want to work in a room where there's a Jewish
orchestra and Spanish people are
dancing." This reference to the audience was greeted with an
uncontrolled laugh. Bishop said, "On occasions like this
there is a tendency to be a little nervous. Please don't
be." He went on like that, croaking out one-liners in his
tough, husky voice for nearly ten minutes. At one point
Sinatra and Martin suddenly entered from each side of the stage,
without being introduced, stared at each other, shrugged, and walked
back into the wings. Both were in dinner jackets.
Bishop looked at the audience in bewilderment. "Son of a
gun," he said. "Italian penguins." This too
provoked a loud laugh." [pg. 73]
REVIEW:Sinatra and His Rat Pack
is a
marvellously entertaining book, written at the time of the Rat Pack's
dominance in the entertainment industry, author Richard Gehman takes a
front row seat in observing the Pack, and without cowtowing or
genuflection, gives a remarkably candid, clear-eyed, and insider look
at this tempestuous cabal of pals. Gehmen spends time with
each member of the pack, as well as their cronies, girlfriends, and
hangers-on, getting first hand interviews as well as insightful
observations of how the dynamic shifted each time they were
together. He paints a biographical portrait of each member,
discusses at length their individual traits, spends copious amounts of
ink transcribing their stage routines, and anaylizes their unique
blends of humor, music, and night-life escapades. He even
labels each member, with the back cover of the book spelling out the
chain of command: Frank Sinatra as Chairman of the Board; Dean Martin
as Sommelier (pack animal driver); Sammy Davis, Jr. as Court Jester;
Peter Lawford as the 'Liason Man'; Joey Bishop is the Needler; Shirley
Maclaine is the Rat Pack Mascot; Tony Curtis is Scout Leader; Jimmy Van
Heusen is the Keeper of the Royal Exchequer; Sammy Cahn is Court
Wholesaler; Irving Paul Lazar is the Director of Sanitation; and Harry
Kurnitz is the Roving Ambassador. Each gets time in the pages, with
Sammy Davis' racial and religious persecution rising to the fore, but
also mafia friendships and wild soiree's which bounced from club to
club. Since the author was writing 'as it's happening' - the book has
an immediacy and freshness that's almost entirely lacking from more
contemporary accounts. I would love to see this rare item republished,
since not only does it count as one of the more vital documents of the
Rat Pack era; its flavor and presence serves as a living relic from the
time. Fun stuff... and getting hard to find. Sinatra
by Robin
Douglas-Home; Grosset & Dunlap Publishing, 64 p.
Released 1962
I
saw complete and utter involvement with the song he was singing -
involvement so close that one might feel he was in the throes of
composing both tune and lyric as he went along. When he
controlled his breathing he shuddered, almost painfully - shoulders
shook, neck muscles twitched, even his legs seemed to
oscillate. His nostrils dialated and his eyes closed
dreamily, then opened again as sharp as ever as he watched a soloist,
then closed again and his face contorted into a grimace, and his whole
frame seemed to be caught up in a paroxysm, quivering all over as he
expressed a key note or word... He was putting so much into that song,
giving so much of himself that it drained my own energy just to watch
him - without hearing a note he was singing; left me so limp at the end
that I felt I had actually been living through some serious emotional
crisis." [pg. 16]
REVIEW:Sinatra
is a
slim book, which has a very similar tone and feel to E.J. Kahn's book
above, yet is a completely personal commentary on the effect which
Sinatra
has had on the author's life. Touching only briefly upon
Sinatra's life and career, the author recounts how, as a college boy,
he saw a fellow roomate with a picture upon his wall of Sinatra, and
asked who it was. Later, in the army, he heard Sinatra's
voice on the radio, and not recognizing it,asked a subordinate who was
singing: "'Frank Sinatra, sir,' he answered with a look suggesting I
had asked him what my own name was..." It was not until five years
later that, on a whim, he bought his first Frank Sinatra album, Songs
For Swingin' Lovers, and understood what all the fuss was
about. The most remarkable aspect of this brief book is the opportunity
the author had to visit a recording session, Frank's last with Alex
Stordahl, for the album Point of No Return. The
depth of detail and the fine observant eye the author brings to the
page is remarkable; quite possibly the best first-hand account we have
of Sinatra's methods in the studio. He transcribes entire conversations
between Frank and the orchestra and conducter in sharp detail. On
another occasion, the author travelled with Frank and his entourage to
Las Vegas for an early performance of the Rat Pack at the Sands; and at
another time, he jet-sets with Frank on a worldwide Charity concert
tour to raise money for underpriviledged children. The author resists
the urge to turn these few moments he spent with Frank into a full-bore
biography; but thankfully, he succinctly and vividly paints a portrait
of a few days in Sinatra's life that stands as one of the best
first-person accounts ever published.
Sinatra:
Twentieth Century Romantic
by
Arnold Shaw; Henry Holt and Company, 371
p.
Released 1968; Reissued 1969
"Beyond
the appeal of other Sinatra images, mirror and retouched, was the magic
of his comeback. The press was mesmerized by his re-entry
from the outer space of the has-been. Over and over,
reporters and freelance writers told the tale of the underdog who had
beaten the tough odds against climbing back into the
limelight. But he had done more. He had
miraculously propelled himself into a new career as a dramatic actor.
His buoyance reflected itself in a new record style and
taste. Moving from Columbia Records to Capitol, he began
recording with a large complement of rocking brass and rhythm, and
using the finger-snapping charts of Nelson Riddle and Billy
May. Bounce and drive became the earmarks of a unique
kick-ballad style, as he chirped "I've Got The World On A String,"
"Come Fly With Me," and "Young At Heart." [pg.
195]
REVIEW:
This book has
been reissued several times over the years, with
several different covers and titles, including Sinatra,
and Sinatra: Retreat of the Romantic, as well as
the original title above: Sinatra:
Twentieth-Century Romantic.
Whatever the title or cover, this proves to be one of the more enduring
glimpses of Frank Sinatra that's ever been written, even if it fails to
be comprehensive. In the introduction, the author lays out
his thematic statement: "If Humphrey Bogart stands forth as the
existential man, viewing life with a sense of detached irony but living
with courage within the human condition, Sinatra is the archetype of
the romantic man, raging against the human condition... Sinatra is a
twentieth-century American with an almost renaissance flair for
excitement, lavishness, and emotional extravagance." [pg. 3]
Not a bad way of viewing Sinatra - and Mr. Shaw manages to carry this
promising ideal throughout the text, explaining and confirming his
hypothesis several times over within the course of
the balanced biography. Mr. Shaw is an extremely
talented writer, with through-thought ideas coursing over the
narrative; he incorporates what was then modern psychological models,
many of which still sound reasonable, especially with the examples
which he pulls from Sinatra's own life: Frank's temper coming from his
Sicilian heritage, his unforgiving nature pulled from his mother and
her association with Italian heritage groups; his work ethic
from the Hoboken community he grew up in, and his generosity from his
mother's involvement with the Democratic party. Shaw touches
on all the more notable events of Sinatra's life, not overlooking his
gangster friends or failed marriages, but the sociological and
psychological models he has built for the reader, along with his clear,
prosaic writing skills, make this book a pleasure to read, and may open
the eyes of many Sinatra fans and foes alike to what made one of the
most fascinating characters of the the twentieth-century
tick. Recommended.
The
Films Of Frank Sinatra
by Gene Ringgold and Clifford McCarty; Citadel
Press, 249 p.
Released 1971
"Sometimes
called "The Monster with the Golden Charm," he's been profiled in every
international magazine of prominence and too many scandal
sheets. The authors of more than a few novels... have
patterned their protagonists in his unmistakable public
image. Others have used that concept for a background
character as an opportunity to explicate and exploit his sex
life and underworld associations. A wealth of material about
him is available for anyone to ponder. Unfortunately, much of
it is emotionally bankrupt and superficial. It is hoped that
someday he will write the real story. ...Because there is a real Frank
Sinatra. ...The overblown accounts of his frailities and follies merely
reaffirm his flesh and blood actuality." [pg 22]
REVIEW:The Films of Frank Sinatra,
part of an entire series devoted to individual film stars like
Kate Hepburn and Cary Grant, traces the films of Frank Sinatra
from Las Vegas Nights to 1970s Dirty
Dingus Magee. A true reference book, there is little here in
the way of Hollywood gossip or dishing, although the authors take up
several pages in the lengthy introduction which spells out his various
affairs and other peripheral matters. The meat of the book is
straightforward enough: amid generous sprinklings of black and white
photographs, the book lists the production and technical staff, running
time, full cast list, songs (if any) and composers, a story synopsis,
and finally, contemporary reviews which appeared after the film's
premiere. So we have Hollis Alpert, of The Saturday Review
quoted as saying, in regards to 1956's High Society,
"There is one delightful duet however, when Sinatra and Crosby get
together for five minutes or so and show solid professionalism in their
handling of "What A Swell Party This Is." If the rest of the movie were
up to that level - but it isn't." and more chatty comments on both
sides of the fence for each film. High praise is given for
From Here To Eternity ("[Sinatra] is simply superb"); low for Sergeants
3 ("It's more din than Gunga"), and all ranges in between.
Books like this are still being produced, but for the most
part they have been out-done by definitive web sites such as the
Internet Movie DataBase and the AllMovie
Guide. But this book contains more photos, and more
classic reviews than either of those sites, and may still be useful to
Sinatraphiles who wish to have something to read in their
hands. The format of the book is not generally attractive,
with each picture in flat black and white,
but for the sheer amount of information, and
the Sinatra-centric theme throughout, it's worth a
peruse.
Frank
Sinatra:
The Man, The
Myth and the Music
by Peter Goddard; Greywood
Publishing, Ltd., 154 p.
Released 1973
"No
matter what time of night it is in Miami, as soon as the sun goes down,
it seems like midnight. Anywhere else, midnight is the great
dividing line when all the gawkers and gee-gosh guys go home, when all
the good hustling starts and everyone plays it real loose and knowing.
...So guys with rotisserie-even tans rush into bars at dusk, leaning
over their drinks with their experienced Miami slouch, and start
playing it loose. you can catch this at hotels which deal
primarily with charter flights for middle ages housewives
from Chicago to New York, where everyone hits the lounge about 9 p.m.
to drink pastel colored drinks, and experience the rush of Miami
nightlife. But you only get to the throbbing core of all this
at the Gigi Bar at the Fountainbleau, or at the bar ajoining the La
Ronde Room, when Frank Sinatra is around."
[pg.39-40]
REVIEW:The Man, The Myth and the Music
is an
embarrassingly gushy
fan letter in the form of a biography. This fawning,
gee-whiz
love letter to Frank trips all over itself to immortalize the
Chairman of the Board in remarkably stilted prose. Glossing
over warts and punching up his successes, The Man, The Myth
and the Music is much more about the Myth than the
Man, and hardly touches the Music in it's quest to immortalize Sinatra
the God. The biography is a fairly straightforward
chronological account of Frank's life, with snippets of interviews from
folks who knew him in Hoboken before he became famous, and the
author does a perfunctory job of recounting basic facts about
Sinatra's rise to fame, his slow fall from popularity, and
rebound - but often he contributes paragraphs which go over the top in
thier adulation: "The magnetism he displayed in New York has never left
him; even recently, whenver he appeared in one of his favorite clubs,
when he started to sing the most cynical of reporters noticed quickly
how silent the room became and how transfixed everyone
was." He goes on to say that Hollywood both catalpulted and
nearly ruined Sinatra: "It... made him richer, more famous, more
feared, more loved, and more memorable than anyone who first met him
there could possibly have imagined." [pg. 48] The
author breathlessly enumerates the many news-worthy romances
which Frank enjoyed, with Ava Gardner, Juliet Prowse, and Mia Farrow
all getting heated write-ups, and the author seemingly envious
of every conquest. Honestly, this is just a ridiculous
exercise in fan worship, and quickly gets tiresome as a read.
There's not a jot or tittle of new insight or information to be
found in its pages - just 150-plus pages of
adulation. It's too much even for a big fan
like me. Long out of print, this item can be found
in numerous used book sellers bins, but don't kill yourself
trying to scope it out - most fans could write
better.
The
Entertainers - On Stage: Frank Sinatra
by Harriet Lake; Creative Education, 47 p.
Released 1976
"Once
again, Sinatra was back on top. His career seemed to be
taking off in all directions. On television, he starred in a
musical version of Our Town.
ABC signed him for a $3 million, 13-segment T.V. series.
With fame and fortune again within his grasp, Sinatra glowed with
confidence. "Man, I feel 8 feet tall," he told one
reporter. "Everything is ahead of me. I'm on top of
the world . . . The career is going wonderfully. People are
wonderful to me and I'm a happy, happy man."
Frank's exuberant mood was revealed in his music. Along with
the romantic ballads he'd always sung, he began experimenting with
jazzy, hard-driving numbers. Record promoters began creating
a new image for him - the "Swinging Sinatra." [pg. 35]
REVIEW:
This
children's biography of Frank Sinatra from the mid-1970s
is the first young persons look at Sinatra which had been
published, and as such, it serves its purpose, giving a dry,
by-the-numbers look at Frank's life, glossing over the music and films
except when they serve the narrative. It's hard to imagine
that this ugly, dated format could appeal to kids who at the time were
hungry for biographies of Keith Partridge and the Osmonds, but
there you are. The writing is terribly dull, with
countless cliches littering the pages, and lazy descriptions
showing a real lack of enthusiasm for the subject by the
author. Broken into several short chapters flowing in
chronological order, the bio begins by painting a particularly
unflattering view of Sinatra's parents, intimating that they were
lower-class white trash who took particular glee in berating
Frank's desires to become a singer. Then the
narrative flashes quickly over Sinatra's tenure with the Hoboken
Four, devotes all of two paragraphs to Harry James,
then plows into the Dorsey Years. The entire book is quickly
written, and although it skims over several important events, it
manages to be concise, even though it smacks of cynicism
throughout, and paints a portrait of Sinatra as a brute, whose success
in music and film is propped up by the Mafia, and just plain good
luck. Not exactly the kind of values I'd want my kids to
absorb about such conciencious and hard-working man, but Ms. Lake
apparently is writing on deadline and is content to spoon feed
little minds a biography filled with character assasination
and like-minded sludge. On Stage
has black and white
photos scattered thorughout, taken from various newspapers,
and there are no sources noted, or bibliography
included. Not worth seeking out, even for rabid
collectors.
Sinatra
by Tony Sciacca;
Pinnacle Books, 248 p.
Released 1976
"Perhaps
Sinatra's insecurities in the face of the most incredible public
adulation ever given any performer may be at least a partial
explanation for his constant, although unspoken, demand for
respect. It's a guess, pure speculation, but after months of
researching this man, I am left with the very strong feeling that his
Il Padrone attitude, his public brawls, and private vendettas, his
close association with real-life Mafia Godfathers, his lack of
compulsion that Nancy cited - all the conflicting "schizophrenic" (to
use Cheshire's rather careless word) behavior by Frank Sinatra is a
form of defence enabling him to avoid facing himself. On a
few rare occasions, Frank has come close to admitting that his fears
and insecurities may be the unconscious motivation behind his erratic
behavior, but then he's backed away from such potentially dangerous
self-analysis." [pg. 112-113]
REVIEW:
In
the introduction, Mr. Sciacca disabuses himself of having any bias in
the examination of Frank Sinatra, due to the fact that for several
years he claims to have been a Sinatra apologist,
exusing Frank's many public fracasses with the press and
certain individuals, but later admits that his admiration for Sinatra
suddenly flip-flopped; and, when a fellow reporter suggested that he
could write a "balanced" biography on Sinatra since
he had been both a fan and a detractor, (and also, the associate
asserts, because the author is Italian and therefore, more intuitively
able to tackle Sicilian subject Sinatra), he apparently thought enough
of his own understanding of Sinatra's character to tackle the
project. Unfortunately, the author, who is only identified as
"a top investigative reporter" on the back cover, has no first hand
information or contacts to work with, and so we have two-hundred-plus
pages of him recounting newspaper and magazine reports, tied together
with his shaky grasp of pop-psychology. So this blunted
biography reads like left-overs, with Sciacca attempting to dig beneath
Sinatra's skin, but rather obviously
not able to even scratch the surface of Sinatra's complex
personality. Ignoring his music (how can a biography of
Sinatra ignore his music?) and clutching onto the coat-tails
of any published scandal sheet he can find, Sciacca fumbles
around in an attempt to delineate an obtuse theory on
Sinatra's psychology that fits his incomplete facts, and lays
a great big egg. Not even successful as a juicy tell-all, the
prose is flat and, saddled with his flailing sidebars into what makes
Frank tick, sinks Sinatra
quicker than any iceberg could.
Frank Sinatra (Rock'nPopStars)
by Paula
Taylor; Creative Education, 30 p.
Released 1976
"At
first Frank Sinatra seemed to be just another pleasant-voiced band
singer. He sounded much like Bing Crosby. So did
most of the other young singers. Crosby was still the top
male vocalist in the country. Everyone had tried to copy his
style. But Frank didn't want to sound like anyone
else. "It occured to me," he said later, "that maybe the
world didn't need another Crosby. I decided to experiment a
little and come up with something different."
Frank
began listening carefully to the musicians around him. He
particularly admired Tommy Dorsey's trombone playing. When
Tommy played, the melody flowed on endlessly, smooth and
unbroken. The trombonist never seemed to take a
breath. Fascinated, Frank began watching Tommy closely..."
[pg 23]
REVIEW: In
what may have been the first of its kind, this slim book, part of a
series called Rock'nPopStars
introduced the
artistry of Frank Sinatra to elementary-age children back in the
mid-1970s. Related in extremely simplistic tones, Frank's
story is told in 30 pages, accompanied by clunky watercolor images
depicting Frank at the poolside, or exiting a train as a throng of fans
mob him. A true relic of the 1970's, this book recounts a
modern-day concert setting featuring (gasp!) the 5th Dimension and Jose
Feliciano, but states that Sinatra rules over them all. It then
announces to the children that Sinatra has been around so long he even
pre-dates Elvis Presley! (Wow!) Neither terribly informative, and
carrying its share of errors, the book nevertheless finds the time to
discuss Frank's tastes in food: ("In the 40s every Sinatra fan knew
that Frank's favorite food was a banana split. Now he lunches on
prociutto and melon, cheese and red wine, and orders clams and Italian
bread flown in for dinner from his favorite restaurant in New York.")
The author takes pains to describe Sinatra as old, tempermental,
authoritative, and yet completely unique in American pop culture, while
glossing over his music, his films and his charitable works. On the
plus side, apparently his many affairs and marriages are considered too
spicy for the grade-school crowd, and his mob friends also are
thankfully missing. This comic book-level narrative may be a
collector's item now, but as a biography, it's distinctively behind the
times.
SINATRA: An Unauthorized
Biography
by Earl Wilson; McMillan
Publishing Co., Inc., 357 p.
Released 1976
"Frankie
became a fad, a fashion, a rage, a hurricane, a household word, a jest,
a Cinderella story, a subject for columnists to dwell upon in "think
pieces," a subject for dinner table debates. He was the new
wonder boy, the greatest thing in the entertainment business in recent
times, and he was also a tough kid who had taken on many bigger guys
and licked them. Often he sat quietly thinking
of the miraculous
thing that had happened to him. He felt humble, and he expressed his
thanks in one way he knew. He bought presents for those who had helped
him. He would do it all his life. [pg. 56]
REVIEW:Sinatra: An Unauthorized
Biography is one
of the few balanced biographies of Frank
Sinatra which have ever been written. Earl Wilson was a
reporter who
covered Sinatra's early success, and because of his favorable
articles, was given access to Frank's entourage and saw many of his
personal traits close up. He also got on the outs with Frank
in the early seventies, and was forced to observe him from the outside,
which strangely, only strengthened his admiration for what he often
describes as an absolutely unique individual. This thick book
is probably the best you'll find for in-depth detail about Frank's rise
to fame in the 1940s, with first-person accounts of the hysteria which
'Swoonatra' was able to produce in his female fans, and Earl's personal
recollections of Frank's two-sided personality, which could be humble
and generous, or proud and unforgiving. But reading this book
also makes it clear that Earl Wilson is undoubtedly caught up in the
Sinatra 'Legend' - he's as much a fan as a reporter, and although he
doesn't shrink from recounting Sinatra's more seedy side, the author is
forgiving, and understanding of Frank's faults; justifying many of them
through psychology or societal forces at work. He goes into
detailed accounts of certain events; the death of an early supporter
and friend, Rags Ragland, and Frank graciously stepping in to Rags'
shoes to be the brunt of Phil Silvers' comedy routine on night at the
Copa; his conversations with Ava Gardiner the day she
signed the divorce papers; the punch in the gut directness of Frank's
curt dismissal of him at the Fontainbleau in Miami, it's all told with
clarity, directness and a little awe, as if Earl himself cannot quite
understand the power that Sinatra holds over him. The one
large fault in this book is that it's strictly an examination of
Sinatra's life and the effect that his art and character had on others
- it completely ignores the art itself, with no mention of any of
Frank's recordings, films, or other ventures, other to recount their
occurance. But even though the book is not a
complete look at Frank's life, ending just short of 1976, it's
undoubtedly one of the clearest-eyed accounts of the man which we're
going to get; Earl knew Sinatra, and loved him; and with a
reporter's keen eye and a writer's skill, gives an understanding,
compassionate report. Highly recommended.
Frank
Sinatra: A Photobiography
by George Bishop; Epps-Praxis
Publishers, 80 p.
Released 1976
"...the
house lights were up and an air of good-natured expectancy
prevailed. Suddenly the lights would dim, a single spot would
bathe a microphone perched on an elevated podium several feet in front
of the bandstand, and a voice would dramatically announce: "Ladies and
gentlemen, Frank Sinatra!"
As the famed Stordahl strings slipped into the first song's
introduction, other spots would converge stage left or right, and,
flanked by four or six husky bodyguards who temporarily screened him
from view, a slight, curly-haired, hollow-cheeked young man would
stride purposefully to the podium. The bodyguards would melt
away and htere, in the flesh for all to see, IN PERSON, stood Frank
Sinatra. The crowd was on the edge of their seats uncertain
how to react, and before they made up their minds, Sinatra began to
sing. The general rapture knew no bounds."
[pg. 18]
REVIEW:
Both
cheaply made, and cheaply written, this oversize paperback book is yet
another canon-shot at Sinatra's image, filled with insults, degrading
descriptions, and a haphazard narrative which reels like a
drunken sailor. Although appearing
the same year as Wilson's bio above, Photobiography has
the temerity to quote from the
previous book, as well as Richard Gehman's Rat Pack
bio, and, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that the author cribbed
everything here from other sources, as the tone of the book veers
wildly from fawning admiration of his talent ("can anything equal the
thrill of hearing a song delivered as only he can?")
to purile sensationalism ("reportedly
extremely well-endowed, Sinatra has attracted prominent, beautiful
women"), to vilification ("his public image," Reed wrote, "is uglier
than a first-degree burn.") While this might give the
appearance of 'balance,' it reads more like a shoddy cut and
paste job, with little regard from continuity or forethought.
The author throws in everything he can in the brief space he's given,
from a worthless filmography containing nothing more than brief
synopses, to scattershot discussions of Sinatra's albums, to lazy
attempts to analyze Frank's cultural significance, and joyless
examinations of his well-publicized relationships and
romances. The book takes the tack of quoting numerous
articles which show the worst side of Sinatra, and
then explaining them away as misunderstood character flaws or
blown-out-of-proportion one-time events, a tiresome
exercise in apologism and justification see-sawing
relentlessly without coming to a conclusion. The book is
filled with black and white photographs from stock production and
promotional releases, as well as numerous shots snapped by paparazzi;
in other words, nothing terribly exciting or personal. Not
recommended.
Sinatra's
Women by Gerry
Romero; Manor Books, 220 p.
Released 1976
"... Frank
appeared in Australia for a
concert tour at the same time Ava was there for the filming of On The
Beach. The country/continent down under was backward in many
ways, but its press was decidedly forward. Suffering from an
inferiority complex, the newsmen took offense at iust [sp] about
anything. When Ava had jokingly made the comment, "I'm here
to make a film about the end of the world, and this sure is the place
for it," the press took her words as a challenge to make her life
miserable - more miserable than it, unfortunately, already was.
Frank did not fare any better with the reporters, but at this time he
was stronger and better able to take the hassle than Ava was ... All
they got was hostility and angry responses for their rudeness, which
the press managed to turn into news. And the press would not
forget their angry exchanges with Sinatra. They would let the
embers smolder for another fifteen years, so that - when Frank finally
came back for another tour of Australia - they would get their revenge
in a big way." [pg. 167]
REVIEW:
In
Sinatra's
Women,
author Gerry Romero seems to take great pleasure in constantly
denigrating the media (although, from the list of sources found in the
back of the book, he had no problem with perusing trashy
biographies). The sample above is typical - the evil press
hound and harass Frank and his loves at every turn, and the author
paints them all with the same diabolical brush. Although not
as one-sided as I might have expected, (assumed from the thuggish photo
of Frank used on the cover) Sinatra's Women is
nonetheless a tedious book - part social commentary, part flabby
biography, and part breathless tell-all, the author is obviously a
Sinatra fan, but lacking any direct sources to use, he's left
to freely lift his facts from other author's books,
and stitch together his own patchwork portrait of Sinatra's many
affairs. The author does try to be balanced, which is why I
award him an extra half-star; but the prose is so stilted, and the
author does so little in the way of first-hand research, that the book
reads like day-old bread, with a "he said, she said" mentality which
simply wore me out. It doesn't help that the author
occasionally tries to be socially adept; ham-fistedly throwing in
topical references with little or no applicability to the main subject
- no, they're just there to lend an air of respectability to what is,
at its core, a prying, gossipy, tabloid-like expose exactly
like the fodder the press he so gleefully lambasts, yet here is the
same material, cloned in all it's purile nakedness. The
author at least manages to touch all the bases - from
his mother Dolly to his final wife Barbara, each known female
acquaintance gets a nod, and Frank, despite his rampaging libido and
well-documented infidelities, still manages to come out smelling like a
rose. It's a good thing that the faceless press is such a
handy scapegoat for the author, otherwise this book might have to turn
the spotlight on Sinatra himself. A cheap, poorly researched
book, and a thinly-disguised hagiography.
The
Revised Compleat Sinatra
by Albert I Lonstein and Vito
R. Marino; Lonstein Publications, 702 p.
Released 1979
"The modern-day singer of popular songs is the
victim of an unrpredictable species; in a large part he is pushed
rapidly into prominence by a momentary whim of taste and just as
rapidly, when that taste has been satisfied, he is back where he
started, living out the remainder of his career in a sort of musical
limbo. There he remains, perhaps not entirely ignored by the public,
but passed over in favor of someone new; someone who may not have an
equal amount of talent, but now is the possessor of a different talent,
sounding gimmick, one which captures the vagaries of public attention
for a few fleeting seconds. This is the general pattern of success in
popular musical circles but as in the conjugation of French verbs,
there are exceptions. Certainly, one of the most obvious of these is
the career of Frank Sinatra, ...Unchanged and unchanging, Frank has
altered his style not one whit from the days when he was occupying more
musical space than the president of the United States, when teenagers
were falling over themselves to get glimpses of this romantic figure.
Frank has not changed and public acceptance of his vocal styling has
changed even less.
~ Bill Zeitung [from the foreword].
REVIEW: This
monster, weighing in at over five pounds and
over seven hundred pages in length, is a
heavily expanded revision of the earlier (and less
ponderous) Compleat Sinatra, and stands
proudly as one of the first scholarly reference works chronicling
Sinatra's many songs, films, and appearances
(including television, radio and concerts), and is the
grandfather to all Sinatra reference books which have followed
it. A massive undertaking an true labor of love, the authors
painstakingly gathered and edited a complete sessionography, including
musicians, arrangers, live appearances, radio performances and more,
giving information on session dates, songs recorded, album appearances,
arrangers, conductors, alternate takes, song indexes for each of
Sinatra's major labels, V-Discs, a complete listing of television
appearances, radio appearances, a complete filmography, air checks, a
complete discography (up to the time of publication) a selected
bibliography containing books and articles written about Sinatra, as
well as a section of books containing short material about Sinatra, a
list of major awards and honors, a full section of rare photographs,
and much more. It also contains chapter prefaces which help
delineate the different eras of Sinatra's career and recording
history. It's simply breathtaking - and the fact that it's
been surpassed in recent years by other books in no way diminishes this
book's importance or worth, since much of the infomation has since been
fragmented into different publications; this stands as the best single
all-around reference book of its kind. Later supplimented with an
120-page addendum in 1981, which is rare and hard to find. The Revised Compleat Sinatra
may be out of date now as far as completeness, but it's still the gold
standard, and worthwhile finding for the Sinatra collector.
