NOTE: The
vast amount of material published about the Chairman of the Board
continued unabated in the new millennium, with books of all stripes
dotting the landscape. More essays, more harshly critical
biographies, some excellent photographic albums, a tell-all by a former
employee, and a stunning gift book put out by the Sinatra family
containing rare reproductions of memorabilia are just a few of the
items to be found here. Six years after his death, there are
still two or three major book releases each year devoted to Sinatra -
and the trend only seems to be growing.
September
In The Rain: The Life Of Nelson Riddle
By
Peter J. Levinson;
Billboard Books, 320 p.
Released September 1, 2001
"Nelson's first recording
session with Sinatra took place on April 30, 1953.
...When Sinatra walked into the studio, he saw a strange
figure standing on the podium and asked the visiting Capitol
record producer Alan Dell, "Who's that?" "He's just
conducting the band. We've got the Billy May arrangements,"
Dell explained. The first two tunes they recorded
were "South of the Border" and "I Love You," both arranged by Nelson
but written in the "slurping saxes" style Billy May had designed for
his new band. ...Since he was so well versed as a
ghostwriter, Nelson had no trouble handling the assignment.
...Billy May observed, "It wasn't difficult for Nelson because, ya
know, there's only so many things you can do with eight brass and five
saxes. Nelson knew it, and I knew it. Nelson and I
had become good friends. It was a quick thing for Nelson.
Anyway, he started working for Sinatra, and it turned into a
hell of a deal for him." [pg. 112]
REVIEW:
Outside
of Alex Stordahl, no other arranger can be so closely identified with
the sound of Frank Sinatra than Nelson Riddle. In fact, it
can be
argued that it was Nelson Riddle who saved Frank's musical career once
he had been signed to Capitol Records in the early 1950s.
This
illuminating biography traces the many public successes, and chronicles
the many private demons which made Nelson Riddle such an enigma to his
colleagues. And while this isn't a Sinatra biography, Frank
looms
large within its pages, as his and Nelson's fortunes intertwined and
their personalities clashed in the studio. The book reveals
Nelson's troubled upbringing, his stint in the Maritime Service
Orchestra, his slow rise through the entertainment world, working with
talents like Nat King Cole (and recounts how Nelson observed first-hand
the racial violence which followed Cole from stage to stage), and
describes in detail the somewhat bumpy road that Nelson had to traverse
in the opening stages of his working relationship with Sinatra.
The author isn't terribly sympathetic to Frank - he paints a
portrait of him that tints him as a martinet in the studio, certain of
what he wanted his "new sound" to be, and unafraid of dictating new
arrangements to Riddle - even canceling entire sessions if he felt that
Riddle hadn't nailed a particular 'feel' in a song. Levinson
points out time and again that Riddle was expected to come up to
Sinatra's level of output in each of his works, and that Frank was a
determined, exacting artist. There are lots of personal
anecdotes, from session players, recording technicians, and other
watchers, and the highs and lows of Nelson's life is laid out with
clean, precise prose. Fans of Frank will find a lot of good
stories and information here, and if the persona Levinson lays out
isn't all roses, it still lies close to the truth, at least from Nelson
Riddle's side of the story.
A Storied Singer:
Frank Sinatra As Literary Conceit
By
Gilbert L. Gigliotti;
Greenwood Press, 170 p.
Released June 30, 2002
"The
next closest approximation of Sinatra to the Clapton credo is the one
in the introduction of Sinatra at the 1995 Grammy Awards ceremony by
Paul "Bono" Hewson, the lead singer of the Irish rock band U2, when he
declared the singer was "living proof that God was a Catholic" (Vare
214). While far from "Sinatra is God," the religio-political
ramifications of this proof, especially when uttered by an Irishman,
probably tend toward a battle cry of some kind, but that is another
story. Nevertheless, while rarely being equated with God,
Sinatra's theological and philosophical implications have not been
overlooked, and this chapter will discuss a quartet of works and the
ways in which their conceptions of "Frank Sinatra" deal with such
issues." [pg. 108]
REVIEW: Essentially
a collection of bloated scholarly essays, these heavily annotated
papers dig deeply into Sinatra's influence into popular
culture. The author ascribes far too much importance
to his own ideas, or at least in believing his
writing about Sinatra to be of interest, or has literary
merit. In the left-leaning prologue to this collection, the
author waxes verbose about Sinatra's appearance in pop culture fixtures
such as syndicated cartoonist Garry Trudeau's "Doonesbury" and
conversely in Twyla Tharp's 'balletic incarnation' the Sinatra
Suite. Although the Doonsbury strip
appeared for only a week, it has long been a battle cry for
hacks who point to it as a defining moment in cultural history
in regards to Sinatra. The
strip was reprinted in full in Kitty
Kelly's biography, and here it's recounted again with
delighted glee. Conversely, the author exhumes Twyla
Tharp's ballet as a counter-example of Sinatra's place in
culture, which is so obvious that it defies further
examination. The entire book is filled with weighted-down
papers such as these: "The Whitmanesque Sinatra Of Sammy
Cahn," (for fans of Walt Whitman and Sinatra lyricists) "The
Composition Of Celebrity: Sinatra As Text In The Liner Notes of Stan
Cornyn," and "The Universal Tongue: Language and Image in Rual
Nenez's Sinatra." These lengthy
intellectual pursuits leap through the usual 'compare and contrast'
hoops which all of academia must seeming contort to, but
for all its sound and fury, it too, ends up signifying
nothing. About as fun as wading through a sheaf of college
essays, this book would have been sneered at by the kid from Hoboken,
New Jersey, and won't be much fun for any regular Joes either.
Sinatra: An
Intimate
Collection
By Bob
Willoughby;
Weatherhill, Inc., 208 p.
Released November 1, 2002
"When
I came on the set of From Here To Eternity for Collier's
magazine, Frank was hungry for good press. All the stories I
had heard about his hatred for photographers made me cautious when I
first met him. But he was so agreeable and charming, it was
hard to believe this could be the same person.
We went outside on the studio lot and had a Coke together, and I felt
it was my lucky day. As it turned out, it was, for I never
saw Frank quite as cooperative again. He was professional
always, but easy... well, that's another story.
Here was a Sinatra charming and funny, wearing his hat sideways on his
head for the camera, ... giving me that romantic little-boy-lost look
so beloved by a generation of fans. I felt my photographic
guardian angel was watching over me that day for sure."
[pg. 6]
REVIEW:
From
1953 to 1965, Bob Willoughby was assigned to photograph
Sinatra for different events. They first met on the set
of From Here To Eternity, but later met
up during the filming of The Man With Golden Arm,
the recording session for same; his daughter Nancy's high
school, where he caught Frank trying to sooth Nancy's
onslaught of stage fright; a petulant Sinatra on the recording stage
for Can-Can, in Las Vegas for the Rat
Pack and the filming of Ocean's 11; and strangely, Willougby was also
on hand for Frank & Dean's 1962 appearance on The
Judy Garland Show. The final major photo shoot for
Willoughby occurred in 1965, for the filming of Love On The
Rocks. The book itself is a handsome oversize paperback, with
thick, glossy paper showing off the color and black and white shots to
best effect. Every photo is laid out chronologically, with
small, inconspicuous text boxes accompanying each of the
pictures. Willougby also attends his impressions of the
moment - relating memories he has of each shoot: the vague feeling that
Sinatra and Kim Novak were becoming more than friends during the shoot
of Golden Arm; how Nancy had her doting father wrapped around her
finger during their moments together; Frank's change of mood when he
sees the score that's been prepared for Can-Can;
how Sinatra was tireless and endlessly working or preparing, or
playing; and how Frank and Dean always seemed to be in a competition
for laughs when they were together. It's an outsider looking
in, with the camera his roving eye. In that sense, the reader
is brought in as the phantom observer - seeing what's on the surface,
but not able to penetrate underneath the
skin. Released only days before the similarly-themed
book below, this is a fantastic bunch of pictures, and a great
book for fans, just don't expect to be much enlightened.
Sinatra:
An Intimate
Portrait Of A Very Good Year
Photographs
by John Do minis, Text by Richard B. Stolley;
Stewart, Tabori, and
Chang, 144 p.
Released November 5, 2002
"Frank
Sinatra was a party animal before the term was invented. He
works hard ("I'll do my job and you do yours" is his motto) and
carouses hard, sleeping only four or five hours a night. His
off-duty "gasoline" intake (as he calls booze) is prodigious.
It never interferes with his singing but has led to some highly
publicized scrapes. After a fistfight with a Hearst newspaper
columnist, he admitted, "I'm known as the Eichmann of song."
Always loyal to friends, usually courteous to strangers, he packs an
explosive personality. As Tommy Dorsey put it: "He's the most
fascinating man in the world, but don't stick your hand in the
cage." [pg 34]
REVIEW:
In
late 1964 and early 1965 LIFE magazine photographer John
Dominis got an unprecedented opportunity to shadow Frank Sinatra around
for three months to gather shots for a feature
article. Of the four thousand images which Dominis
took, only a small fraction made their way into LIFE, and the rest have
languished, most never-before-seen, until this book gathered the best
of them here. One hundred and fifty of them,
all in stunning black and white, and printed on good gloss
paper, show the behind the scenes Sinatra that most people
never saw. From nighttime parties with an obviously
wired Frank having a great time; to a quick shot of him doing a morning
shave in the mirror; to Sinatra conferring with Marriage
On The Rocks director Jack Donahue while Dean
Martin enjoys a cup of joe; to sharing an quick word
with Count Basie, or spread out on a table receiving a massage
while dressed in nothing but his briefs; to Nancy giving her
dad a hug while having an after dinner drink with Yul Brenner
- the shots are all revealing of the private Sinatra. The
text is minimal, mostly encapsulating what the photographs already
tell,
whether it be Sinatra joking around by falling off his chair, or
showing devotion while giving his daughter Tina a kiss on the cheek,
these are wonderful pictures that the authors wisely let speak for
themselves. A few of the shots have shown
up elsewhere, as a stylized imprint on Trilogy, for example; but for
the most part, these photographs are new for fans, and show a relaxed,
concerned, professional and casual Frank which goes far further in
humanizing him than any biography ever could hope to. Highly
recommended for fans.
Sinatra:
The Untold Story
By
Michael Munn;
Robson Books, 226 p.
Released January 1, 2003
"Frank
was furious to find himself being interrogated by FBI agents.
They came to him in secrecy and promised him immunity from anything he
might say that could incriminate him in any way as far as his
associations with the Mafia were concerned. At this time,
Sinatra had nothing more to go on that a well-educated guess about
Marilyn's death, but he was not going to start suggesting to federal
agents that Sam Giancana might be behind the murder. The
agents left Sinatra with a friendly suggestion that if he should
discover anything, the attorney general would welcome his
cooperation. He flew into a rage, furious at having been put
in that position - and he suspected Lawford was behind it.
Lawford told me - and Davis confirmed it - that Sinatra confronted him,
and he sheepishly admitted that he had suggested that Bobby send agents
to question Frank. ...That was when he told Lawford
he would never speak to him again." [pgs. 125-126]
REVIEW:
I
know that there are several folks who don't consider themselves fan of
Sinatra's music or films, but who really enjoy
wallowing in the mire of his darker side. I don't pretend to
understand it, but I know they're out there. This
book, which is a sloppy, overheated entry in Sinatra's biographical
canon, is for them, as it ignores completely his music and film roles,
except as they surround the authors narrow-minded focus on Sinatra's
mob ties. Michael Munn puts together an unimaginative
retelling of Sinatra's life through the lens of his associations with
the mafia. Recounting how Sinatra grew up in a heavily
Italian neighborhood, and how his family often had
brushes with the 'law' - his father running trucks for bootleggers
during prohibition, and his mother performing abortions for
neighborhood girls, Munn asserts that Sinatra's association
with Mafia members (eventually leading to his rubbing shoulders with
it's hierarchy) began early on, and although some biographers might
claim that Sinatra got into show business to escape a life of crime,
Munn runs with the theory that Sinatra took it with
him. Of course, he doesn't have much to back that
up, especially in the thin content contained in Frank's early
successes; Munn breezes through Sinatra's early fame
with Dorsey, and his spectacular stardom during the 1940s,
with Columbia Records, barely touching on these
years. But as soon as Ava Gardner comes upon the
stage, Munn launches into a frenzy of gossip and innuendo,
and oddly weaves in a particularly heavy thread
involving Marilyn Monroe, with whom Sinatra apparently only
had fleeting dalliances with, but here, she becomes a
major player, along with the usual line-up of mafiosos, Kennedy's and
Rat Packers. The 'he said - she said' journalism on display
here is very messy, and often contradictory, but for fans who
love their Sinatra tabloid-style, this will satisfy
that craving nicely.
Mr.
S:
My Life With Frank Sinatra
By
George Jacobs with William Stadhiem;
HarperEntertainment, 288 p.
Released June 1, 2003
"Mr.
S's
philosophy was that bad things only happened to good people.
If someone was bad enough, he somehow had a natural immunity to
disaster, at least in this lifetime, which is the only one Mr. S could
count on. There was no day of reckoning for the bad
guys. The meek would inherit nothing, and Sam Spiegel and Lew
Wasserman would live forever. Thus it was a terrible shock to
Mr. S's system when the baddest guy of all, the guy who had taken all
the marbles, his way, was felled by a massive stroke on the golf course
in Palm Beach. It was 1961. Old Joe would live
another eight years, but he would never speak again. Mr.
Ambassador had become a vegetable. Mr. S found out from Peter
Lawford by phone. He was shocked, as I said, but he wasn't
sad. He was just amazed, for he thought Joe Kennedy was
beyond the long arm of God. [pg. 148]
REVIEW:
George
Jacobs served as Frank Sinatra's personal valet for more than thirteen
years, and who was fired in 1968, serves up his version of the facts in
this foul-mouthed, R-rated book which seems to take more glee in giving
graphic descriptions of Sinatra's more libidinous appetites than
digging too far beneath the surface. Sorely lacking in
corroborative evidence, and leaning heavily on his own opinions, this
book will carry little weight with discerning readers.
Obviously still stinging from being so unceremoniously dumped by 'Mr.
S' (as the author chummily calls him repeatedly), but the book
thankfully isn't an acid-drenched attack on Sinatra, but a first-person
account of his former boss. Unfortunately, Mr. Jacobs seems
to recall only one facet of the years with Sinatra:
the sex. Whether recalling sordid details
like a homosexual encounter between two starlets at a party, to
recounting how Sinatra felt that sex made him sing better, to
discussing private sexual details of various celebrities in
graphic detail, Mr. Jacobs apparently never left the age of fourteen,
as he recalls such moments in all-too-vivid
detail. On the flyleaf, the author's bio
states that George is 'no sycophant', but rather just a
'clear-eyed observer.' Well, it's pretty clear from
this almost non-stop pornographic account, that this
'clear-eyed observer' made it a point to not avert his eyes from
private matters. If Frank had survived long enough to see
this book in production, I have no doubt that another multi-million
dollar lawsuit would have ensued. As one-sided in its way
as Kitty Kelly's smear job, this portrait of a sex-obsessed
Sinatra is a poor portrait of the Chairman of the board and
little more than a prostitution of Sinatra's name
to sell books. Not for the weak-stomached or
sensitive. Perfect for sycophants.
The Cinema of Sinatra: The Actor,
On Screen and In Song
by Scott
Allen Nollen;
Luminary Press, 364 p.
Released December 2003
"The
Pride and the Passion is most effective when Kramer uses the
1.66:1 Vista Vision ratio to create sweeping long shots depicting the
struggling people against the awesome power of the
environment. As in the best silent cinema, they convey
content and meaning without using dialogue. In fact,
Pride is often better when dialogue is kept to
a minimum or avoided altogether: Loren is limited by her knowledge of
English, Grant's drawing-room demeanor is out of place in dusty Spain
and Frank is held back by his faux accent. And there is very
little humor in the script, another aspect that adds to the lagging
pace.
...Frank's one truly dramatic moment occurs when Miguel speaks to a
huge crowd of Spaniards who have joined their French occupiers at a
bullfighting arena... [pg. 152]
REVIEW:
I can't tell you
how pleased I was with this independently published title, one of only
a handful of books which tackles the subject of Sinatra as a film
actor, and the only one that examines the subject
with reverence, knowledge, and technical skill.
Author Scott Nollen draws on formidable resources, from interviews,
reviews, press releases, and various articles, tied with his own
clear-eyed, fluid writing, to fill this paperback book with loads of
information and insight that other, similar books
lack. In the tight preface and introduction with leads off
the book, Nollen deftly lays out the reasons for his appreciation of
Sinatra the actor, and makes a strong case for a critical re-evaluation
of Sinatra's filmography. Then diving into the films
chronologically, Nollen ties together several different aspects of
Frank's life, bringing in both personal, musical, professional, and
peripheral events that surrounded the making of each film
- meshed with insightful criticisms of each film that neatly
dissects both the strengths and weaknesses that the film's story,
direction, and acting involve. Behind the scenes
squabbles, on-set tensions, high points and low are all
put under the microscope, and it's a relief to say that
although Nollen is an unabashed fan of Sinatra's films and other work,
the writing is neither gushy, nor one-sided, but unremittingly
clear-eyed, balanced, and fair. The sheer amount of detail
which the author has gathered is staggering, giving truly comprehensive
looks at all the events which make the films what they are:
contract negotiations, personality clashes, box-office, reviews, script
changes, musical interpolations, and much, much more fill the
pages. And with the print being quite small, there
is much more here than the outer heft of the book would
warrant. To my mind, this is the best book on Frank's films
out there, and one well worth investigating for a deeper appreciation
of Frank's deep and varied film roles.
Sinatra
by
Richard Havers;
Dorling Kindersley Publishing, Inc., 360 p.
Released September 13, 2004
"Frank
Sinatra was (unnegotiably, as I see it) the greatest interpretive
musician of the 20th century. By interpretive I mean that he
took what others had written or composed, and swept across the country,
allowing his vivid personality, his musical genius, his untrained
actorial impulse, to spread universal emotions into the longing souls
of millions of people. . .
Sinatra's
warm decency is there on the records, his very humanness is alive,
sparkling with candor. . . all these amazing graces collaborated on
well over a thousand recordings, leaving a vital American presence on
the waters, the cities, the ashes of mankind. If you read me
as hyperbolic, so be it. There are few who warrant such
outpouring. Sinatra is two of them. [from the
introduction by Jonathan Schwartz, pg. 7]
REVIEW:
The best
book on Sinatra ever released - I don't think that's overstating
it. In presentation, in completeness, in even-handedness, in
appeal, this book by Richard Havers is monumental not only in
what it gives the reader, but how the information is
presented. Dorling Kindersley Publishers,
long known to me as a quality publisher of children's
titles, has put together with Mr. Havers a mind-bogglingly
panoramic overview of the life, career, and works of Frank Sinatra with
such loving attention to detail and style that it equals anything that
has come before. Chronologically laid out, the
author weaves the genealogy of the Sinatra in its historical
context, giving a brief, but thorough history of American immigration
at the turn of the century, he follows Sinatra's birth, his youth, his
early successes and meteoric rise to fame and eventual legendary status
with clear, detailed analysis - not buttering over Sinatra's failures,
and not waxing overly rapsodical with his triumphs, but with an
even-handedness that belies the difficulty in achieving such a
goal. Woven throughout the text are countless side-bars which
help the reader place Sinatra in time: full-pages devoted to
the depression, side-bars on popular band singers during
Sinatra's early struggles; listings of Sinatra's studio
recordings with Harry James, and Tommy Dorsey; notes on artistic rivals
and co-workers such as Bing Crosby and Connie Haynes, film reviews,
album reviews with full track listings, year-by-year music
charts showing Frank's placings, concerts he headlined, tours
he made, details about the record companies he signed with,
and much, much more. All of this is accompanied by hundreds
of black and white/color scans of sheet music, film posters, record
albums, promotional fliers, photographs of all the players, historical
photographs of places he worked and stayed, his wives and lovers, the
Rat Pack, and again, much more. There are some omissions,
such as Frank's album where he conducted the music Alec Wilder - I
can't find a mention of the December 1945 sessions, and only a
cursory mention of the All Alone album is given;
but in putting together a behemoth edition like this, trying to get it
all in is staggering. What's here is puh-lenty.
I imagine that this book will be daunting to
many readers, with its oversize heft making it clumsy to
browse through and the busy layout often drawing the
eye away from the main text, but it's still a winner - a
first-rate job on collecting the many disparate threads of a life into
a single, attractive tome.
Frank
Sinatra: History,
Identity, and Italian American Culture
Edited
by Stanislao G. Pugliese;
Palgrave Macmillan, 256 p.
Released October 1, 2004
"But to
return to the problem of putting
his name on a song, the way in which he appropriates these songs, makes
them his own by personalizing and eroticizing them, especially those
involving the amorous catastrophe, infusing them with the Sinatran
tenebroso, an urban and mass-media version of that dark sound that
comes from what the poet Garcia Lorca calls the duende.
Although he constantly described himself as a saloon singer, an omnibus
category for a singer who can turn a booze ballad as well as bounce a
song or even belt an anthem like "New York, New York," he is unique as
a torch singer, as a voice that articulates the drama of erotic crisis
and the solitude of amorous loss. ...Indeed, the trajectory of his
oeuvre provides a complete anatomy of romantic love as it passes from
spring to winter." ["Sinatra, The Name Ending In
A Vowel", pg. 161]
REVIEW:
I
find myself shrinking a bit whenever I come across another collection
of scholarly essays concerning Frank Sinatra; a genre which is becoming
more and more prevalent in the years following his death. The
fear is, that the writers will over-intellectualize what for me has
always been a gut reaction - to love Sinatra's talents without knowing
exactly why. And while this book occasionally falls into that
trap of reading like a college English assignment, there are also
several enlightening papers here, covering an entire gamut of subjects,
some of which are guaranteed to interest most
fans. From the introduction, written by
Stanislao G. Publiese, which sets for the Sicillian-flavored theme
which runs through several pieces (this is about Italian-American
culture, after all), to the first section, "History and Politics" which
contains four essays which examine Sinatra's interests in Civil,
Political, and Social causes, and feature well-known authors such as
Leonard Mustazza and Douglas Brinkley; the second section "Identity and
Representation" which focuses its sights on Sinatra's acceptance into
American culture and society as pop icon, romantic fantasy, and public
superstar; and the final section, "A Riff On Italian American
Culture," with all-Italian authors waxing prosaic on Sinatra's impact
on Italians in America, and how there are perceived, with Rocco
Marinaccio, Pellegrino A. D'Acierno, Thomas J. Ferraro, John Gennari,
and Joe and Sal Scognamillo covering subjects as diverse as Dolly
Sinatra, assimilation, and Sinatra as the 'Urbane Villager.'
Edmund N. Santurri is given the task of providing a coda to this
compilation, with the tongue-twisting essay, "Prophet, Padrone,
Postmodern Prometheus: Moral Images of Sinatra in Contemporary
Culture," which describes Sinatra as an ubermensch
(you'll have to look that one up) as it traces Frank's stamp on
society. Better than some collections, this is still somewhat
of a chore to wade through, but if you're of a mind to wax intellectual
about Mr. S, this is a fine place to begin.
The
Sinatra Treasures: Intimate
Photos, Mementos, and Music from the Sinatra Family
Collection
By
Charles Pignone;
Bulfinch Press, 192 p.
Released October 15, 2004
"With
a fame as magnificent and persuasive as Sinatra's was, it wasn't long
before he started to put that charisma on screen. And for
Sinatra, it was a match made in heaven. When asked if he
preferred singing to acting, Sinatra once commented, "I started out as
a singer; the acting was in between. But I'd prefer not to
classify or pigeonhole things because there's a lot of acting in my
singing, and my singing has helped my acting." [pg
82]
"When
I was nine or ten years old I would sing with the piano roll at my
father's bar. One day I got a nickel for singing, and that's
where it all began. I thought: 'This is the racket to be in.'"
[pg. 15]
REVIEW:
A potpourri
of reproduced personal mementos, Sinatra Treasures
is indeed a treasure-chest for hard-core fans - although in
construction it's far too fragile and fragmented for casual
purchasers. Filled with personal photographs from all eras
of Frank's life, from birthday parties to concert
appearances, tied together with Charles Pignone's literate (if overly
gushy) text, there are scores of reproduced material
enclosed. Included in pull-out pockets are lead
sheets for "My Way," memos, personal correspondence from Cary Grant and
Grace Kelly, invitations, concert tickets, an official score card for
the New York Giants, presidential inauguration invitations (for Kennedy
and Reagan), a 1944 radio program script with banter between
"The Voice" and comedian Bert Wheeler, autographed fan photos from the
1940s and much, much more. Also included is an exclusive CD,
much like the one included in Nancy Sinatra's An American Legend book,
filled with rare interviews, radio shows, reminiscences, and music,
most notably a 1945 radio show. This shotgun blast
of odds and ends is all tied together with text written by Sinatra
expert and President of the Sinatra Society of America, Pignone, who
does a fine job of annotating all the odds and ends included, and
summarizing Frank's impact on music, as well as his
personal charm. Two forewords are also included by
famous someones: Quincy Jones (who claims that Frank is the one who
started the nickname "Q") and his son, Frank Jr. You won't
find any dirt shoveled around here, this is strictly for fans who love
Sinatra. Everything is meticulously reproduced down
to the smallest detail, and it's an ideal gift item for the
Sinatra lover in your life.
Frank
Sinatra
By John Frayn Turner;
Taylor Trade Publishing, 256 p.
Released October 25, 2004
"Sinatra
loved John F. Kennedy. And he had helped him win the U.S.
presidency. On 22 November, the fateful day when
Kennedy was assassinated, Sinatra and the others had nearly
completed Robin and the Seven Hoods. He was back in Burbank,
California, on one of the very last scenes of the
film. They finished it that day and Sinatra hurried away to
Palm Springs. He saw no one for several
days. Kennedy had been one of his heroes.
But life went on, as it has a habit of doing after even
unbearable events like the death of Kennedy. But America felt
diminished in an indefinable way. There would never be
another Kennedy. Even subsequent revelations about his
private life did not change people's feelings much.
Then out of the blue came a Sinatra family crisis as sudden as it was
unimaginable..." [pg 143]
REVIEW:
The
author touts this book as not being 'obsessed' with mafia allegations,
and that's the honest truth. Unfortunately, what it is about
is nothing short of a complete whitewash of Sinatra's life.
Stripping away any sense of humanity about Frank, and leaving only the
bleached shell, this second biography by author John Frayn Turner is
just as myopic in its focus as his previous book, serving up a
hyper-conservative portrait of Sinatra that is just as skewed in its
way as its polar opposite, Kitty Kelly's
hatchet-job. This might have been forgivable if the author
had any style or inspiration to offer the reader, but the writing is so
trite and cliché'-ridden that's the prose quickly
becomes pedantic. Such sheer, unabashed adulation
quickly becomes tiresome, and although I cringe at the thought of
reading another mafia/sex-obsessed Sinatra bio, after reading this
one-dimensional portrait, I almost want to dive into Bill Adler's book,
just for some balance. Again taking the tack of a
straightforward chronology, the author slathers on the superlatives
like cake frosting, giving an unrelentingly sweet, gushy history that
doesn't simply shy away from the more seedy elements of Frank's life,
but adopts a 'hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil' approach
that leaves the narrative so threadbare the author is
left to spout homilies like, "New York. What magic words,
even then," and "How about these numbers for sheer songwriting quality?
...it soon becomes clear that the list is endless." Can't
anyone write a balanced biography anymore? Is this all that's
left - the black and white cartoon caricature that
Sinatra becomes in this book and countless others? Mr. Turner
may believe he's striking a blow for Sinatra fans everywhere with this
anti-biography, but to this reader, it feels more like he's
writing after receiving a sharp blow to the head. Not
recommended, even for those readers who like their Sinatra sanitized.
