Synopsis

Synopsis:

What is a legend? A legend is a man who, more than 65 years after stepping on stage for the first time, is still larger than life. A man who changed the way we wear our hats. A man possessed not of a voice, but The Voice. Frank Sinatra is that man, and The Sinatra Treasures is the book that does justice to the legend.
Created in conjunction with the Frank Sinatra Estate, The Sinatra Treasures tells the story of Sinatra’s life with rare and never-before-published quotes from those he loved and those he worked with--and from the Chairman of the Board himself. More than 200 black-and-white and full-color images from several Sinatra archives, as well as 30 removable facsimile reproductions of items, such as a script from one of his radio shows and a Sinatra family photo album, provide a behind-the-scenes glimpse into Sinatra’s world and talent. Also included is a new compilation CD of rare interviews, early radio appearances, and songs. This celebration of the many elements of Frank Sinatra—as singer, as actor, as humanitarian, as friend—brings to life as never before the man who made the standards standard.
Written and assembled by Sinatra family archivist Charles Pignone, the volume aims to set the record straight, and to detail an astonishing life. “Over the years,” writes Pignone, “the legend of Frank Sinatra has been disputed, distorted, and dissected countless times.” The Sinatra Treasures tells that story again—but from a new perspective, the inside.

Sample Chapter

SAMPLE CHAPTER/THE SINATRA TREASURES

Chapter 1: Young at Heart

NANCY SINATRA JR.: “I think he came up fighting because he was born fighting. He was born trying to get breath, trying to live. . . . They didn’t think he was going to make it. I think that sense of wanting to be a survivor stayed with him all of his life. . . . Every time he got knocked down, he got up.”

Over the years, the legend of Frank Sinatra has been disputed, distorted, and dissected countless times. Whatever the analysis, there’s no disputing how the legend began; on the wintry morning of December 12, 1915, Francis Albert Sinatra was born to Martin and Dolly Sinatra in Hoboken, New Jersey.

FRANK SINATRA: “When I was born my mother weighed approximately ninety-two pounds, and I weighed twelve and three-quarter pounds, and when I was removed from her womb by a midwife there was a problem—I didn’t want to come out. They finally summoned a doctor, and upon removing me the forceps damaged the left side of my neck, ear, and face. My grandmother told me that the doctor set me aside to save my mother’s life. My grandmother stuck me under ice cold water and got the blood moving in me.”

Even getting born was an event when Frank Sinatra was involved. As it turned out, the near-death experience did as much as anything to mold the infant Sinatra into the kind of a man who would always fight to achieve his dreams. Once he had filled those legendary lungs with their first breath of air, it wasn’t long until everyone knew what those dreams were.

FRANK SINATRA: “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.’”

NANCY SINATRA JR.: “My grandmother and grandfather owned a little saloon in Hoboken, New Jersey. Dad would sing there for pennies; he used a megaphone, and some of the people there would throw the coins into the megaphone and try to get them in his mouth. . . . My dad’s roots were in the saloon, and he never forgot that, never lost that. I think he lovingly called the nightclubs that he worked in saloons.”

That early taste of fame whetted Sinatra’s appetite for more. Dolly encouraged her son’s aspirations to greatness, buying him a public-address system so that he could practice singing into a microphone. But Marty hoped for a more stable life for his son than that of an entertainer.

FRANK SINATRA: “I remember we were having breakfast, and I was supposed to go out and look for a job, because I had decided that I didn’t want to go to college. I had planned to go to Stevens Institute, in Hoboken, which is considered one of the finest engineering schools in the world. This particular morning my father said to me, ‘Why don’t you just get out of the house and go out on your own?’ I think the egg was stuck in my throat for about twenty minutes. My mother was nearly in tears, but we agreed that it might be a good thing.”

And so, at the tender age of nineteen, Sinatra was on his own, trying to make it as a singer in the big city. Though it wouldn’t be long before Sinatra’s voice would become the very soundtrack of New York life, it wasn’t yet his time for greatness, and he soon returned home. Back in Hoboken, Sinatra worked odd jobs by day and continued to look for an entrée into showbiz by night. While he waited for that big break, Sinatra set to work on his instrument, soaking up the talents of every kind of musician out there—and improving on them.

FRANK SINATRA: “Early on, my phrasing developed from a combination of musicians and singers that I had heard and was influenced by, such as certain nuances that Billie Holiday would use. Louis Armstrong had a great effect on me. I think these people affect everybody’s career as singers, anyway; they were so natural about it. Then I began to listen to both jazz and classical musicians. I was fascinated by Heifetz, the way he could make a change of bow in a phrase and continue without missing a beat. I thought that if that can be done with an instrument, why not do it with the human voice? It was very tough to do. It took a lot of calisthenics and physical work to get the bellows built up.”

As his talent grew, Sinatra’s luck in the music game picked up, too. He won a spot on the nationally syndicated radio show Major Bowes’ Original Amateur Hour as part of a quartet and toured with them. Then he found work as a singing waiter at the Rustic Cabin, a New Jersey roadhouse.

FRANK SINATRA: “When I started at the Rustic Cabin, I was the head-waiter, chief bottle washer, and sweep-up man, but it was a great experience, I must say. I was there about two years—I was dying to get out of that place. So when Harry James came to see me—he actually heard me on the radio, since they used to have a dance band pick up on WNEW from different clubs in the metropolitan area—I almost broke his arm so he couldn’t get away.”

At the time, James had one of the hottest new bands in the nation and offered Sinatra a two-year contract as a featured singer at the rate of seventy-five dollars a week; the pay wasn’t much, even in 1939, but the job was a turning point in Sinatra’s professional life. As part of the James band, Sinatra garnered national attention—and the attention of other notables in the music business.

In January 1940 Tommy Dorsey, another prominent bandleader, hired Sinatra away from the James band for $110 a week. It was a substantial raise, and one that even Harry James could not begrudge his star.

FRANK SINATRA: “Harry James was one of the finest men I’ve ever known in my life. . . . To tell you the kind of man he was, I signed a two-year contract with him, and when I was offered a job with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra six months later, Harry took the contract and tore it up. All he said to me was be sure to get more money than I was able to pay you.”

More than the money—though the money was nice—Sinatra had had his eye on Dorsey for a long time.

FRANK SINATRA: “I would go and watch the Dorsey band at Roseland. . . . I wanted to join his band because of the way he would feature the vocalists. That was one time in my life that I made it an objective to do something and tried to plan and make it happen.”

And make it happen he did. Touring as the featured vocalist with the Dorsey orchestra, Sinatra had his first taste of what it was to be a star as his name began to appear in the papers—and fans began to seek him out.

PAUL KEYES: “It was in Portland, Maine, and Tommy Dorsey along with his band were playing at Ricker Garden, but I wasn’t let in because the place served liquor. Still, I wanted autographs of Dorsey, Sinatra, and the rest of the band. So I waited in the Howard Johnson’s nearby, where they ate in the back dining room before boarding their bus for the next stop. Dorsey saw me and asked me to leave. . . . Who walked in [to the men’s room] but Sinatra, and he asked me how I was doing, and I told him, ‘Not so good.’ When he saw my autograph book, he took me out and introduced me to Dorsey, Jo Stafford, Buddy Rich, and the rest of the band, and I got what I was after.”

Soon Sinatra knew he had gotten all he could out of being part of an ensemble. He left Dorsey’s band in September 1942, though leaving a steady job in a famous band was looked upon by the music world as a career killer.

FRANK SINATRA: "The reason I wanted to leave the band was because Bing Crosby was the number one singer at that time, and there were several other good vocalists with other bands. I thought if I didn’t make a move out of the band and try to do it on my own, one of the other guys may do it. . . . I kept thinking to myself, ‘I need to climb a little higher.’ I was now free, and I didn’t even have an agent at that point. I was living in Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey, and went around looking for places to play locally. Bob Whiteman, the manager of the Paramount Theatre, caught me singing at a small theatre in New Jersey. Whiteman called and asked me to open the show on New Year’s Eve [1942] at the Paramount, with Benny Goodman on stage and a Crosby picture. I was billed as an extra added attraction!”

Sinatra’s booking at the Paramount was for that first week of 1943 only; he wound up staying eight weeks instead, each wilder that the next, as “Swoonatra” was born. A groundswell of young female fans—dubbed “bobbysoxers” by the press for the white ankle socks that were part of their uniform—would help Sinatra become the Pied Piper of their generation and an entertainment phenomenon.

On October 11, 1944, Frank Sinatra returned to the stage of the Paramount Theatre—this time, as the featured attraction. Police were called in to calm the thousands of fans lined up outside. But the bobbysoxers’ lust for Sinatra was more powerful than any police line, and the girls stormed Sinatra in what became known in the annals of Sinatra history as the Columbus Day riot. Photographs of the event show a startled but exhilarated Sinatra being ushered through a sea of girls by some very disconcerted policemen.

FRANK SINATRA: “It was very difficult to hear myself during the bobbysox years. If I bent a note they would squeal and howl. . . . Every moment was wonderful during those times. The greeting from the audience was the greatest reward in the world. It was never a question of money in those days.”

As Sinatra’s star rose, both critics and fans did their darnedest to analyze Sinatra’s popularity. He had his own theory.

FRANK SINATRA: “I think it had a lot to do with the time period. It was important for people to have someone to root for during the war years. I always felt that I was, in their mind, one of the kids from their neighborhood who made good.”