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The soul is contained in the human voice. JORGE LUIS BORGES poet and writer
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Left: Hoboken, 1929. This page: Dolly Sinatra with young Frank, Uncle Vincent (standing), and unidentified friends, Hoboken, 1919 (top left). Sinatra’s parents, Martin and Dolly Sinatra, early 1900s, New Jersey and Atlantic City (top right and above).
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Nancy Snr. with Nancy Jnr. (top left). Little Nancy in the driveway at home in Toluca Lake, California, circa 1947 (lower, far left) – Sinatra wrote on the back “Nancy With the Laughing Face.” Father and daughter (lower right and above) by Nancy Snr.
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Photographed at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, New York with the Dodgers’ third baseman Chuck Dressen sitting on the piano; and with Nat King Cole (right).
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Frank Sinatra was an enormous movie star and singer when I was in Hollywood. Frank and I had both appeared in the movie The Manchurian Candidate, but never actually played a scene together. I was about to embark on a huge career move to Broadway, to play the leading role in the musical Mame. During a conversation I was telling Frank about this exciting event in my career. He was immediately intrigued, and then and there offered to help me in singing the role, he said, “I will teach you every line of the music, where to breathe and how to phrase.” He really meant it, and I was stunned by his sincerity.
ANGELA LANSBURY actor
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I got a call from him one day and he told me “I’m feeling awful, I’m gonna retire.” I got a call from him one day and he told me “I’m feeling awful, I’m in Vegas, I’m gonna quit, I’m gonna retire.” So I say to him, “Whassamatter with you?” “I’m telling you I can’t go down there and sing MY WAY one more time.” I said, “Wait a minute I’ll be right there, let me catch a plane.” So I get on a plane and he’s sitting in Caesars Palace in this big suite and it’s nine in the morning and he says to me “I don’t wanna work anymore.” So I say, “How can you talk this way, you are the greatest artist in the world and I have a great idea for you I was gonna tell you about but didn’t want to till I was here.” And he said, “What is it?” and I had NO IDEA absolutely NO IDEA. I said to him, “We’re gonna play Madison Square Garden.” And he said, “We played Madison Square garden 10 times already, what’s so big about that?” “’Cause we’re gonna go there and do THE MAIN EVENT” and he says, “What’s the main event?” I said, “You’re the main event, you’re the champ of the world and we’re gonna call it THE MAIN EVENT and you’re going to be in a boxing ring and you’re gonna sing in the boxing ring.” And he said to me, “You really lost your mind!” But I said, “Wait, listen to the rest of it” and this is coming to me as I’m talking. Anyway, I said to him, “I’m gonna broadcast it live around the world, it’s going to be a live show…no rehearsal.” And even though he rehearsed more than anybody I ever knew, he loved that. So he said to me, “No rehearsal, fantastic I’m doing it let’s go, let’s do it next Saturday!!” I said, “Frank I can’t do it next Saturday I gotta set this up I need six months to do it, I got to sell it around the world.” I put the thing together, we get to New York and he’s in the Waldorf and I call him up and I say, “Meet me in Madison Square Garden, we’ll do some rehearsal.” He says to me “You told me there’s no rehearsal – I’ll talk to you later.” He hangs up on me and so I’m waiting for him and I’ve got 350 people working on the show, I have people from all over the world willing to broadcast it and I’m making an album and I’m making a video of it! He won’t come rehearse and all of a sudden a kid shows up at the Garden with a list [from Frank] and there’s not one Sinatra song on it. There is stuff on it like ‘Crocodile Rock’ and stuff he must have found in the newspaper ’cause I know he didn’t listen to these songs. So I go over to the Waldorf and he was sitting in his bathrobe reading the newspaper and I said, “Frank why didn’t you take my phone call?” “’Cause I wanted to see you and I knew if I didn’t take your calls I’d see you. I knew when you saw the list you’d go nuts.” “Well I am nuts and I’m worried and scared the show is three hours from now and it’s live.” And he said, “Come on! You said the show is live and live is live.” We go to the dressing room and I said, “I need to go to commercial four times during the show.” So he says, “I’m just going to keep singing and if you go to commercial you go to commercial – that’s why this is live!” He looked up at me and pinched my cheek and said, “You know kid, lemme tell you something. You got me into this and I’m gonna get you out of it.” And with that he went out through the curtain and blasted them!
JERRY WEINTRAUB
film and music producer/promoter
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He was the epitome of what singing is all about. Beautiful sounds, smooth as silk, effortless, impeccable phrasing, stylish, intelligent, and full of heart. BARBRA STREISAND
Sinatra loved concerts and cabarets more than almost any other aspect of his career and, in particular, his interaction with fans, no matter how young. This little boy’s beaming face is a testament to Sinatra’s relationship with a live audience.
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Frank Sinatra and his second wife (1951-1957), the actress Ava Gardner in 1952.
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What Frank Sinatra has is beyond talent. It’s some sort of magnetism that goes in higher revolutions than that of anybody else, anybody in the whole of show business. BILLY WILDER
film director and producer
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You’ve got to be on the ball from the minute you step out into that spotlight. You gotta know exactly what you’re doing every second on that stage, otherwise the act goes right into the bathroom. It’s all over. Goodnight. FRANK SINATRA
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Frank always supported me and when he called me his favorite singer, it changed my life. I have been sold out all over the world ever since. What a friend! TONY BENNETT singer and artist
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Frank Sinatra with his granddaughter Amanda Erlinger (left) and with his grandchildren, Amanda Erlinger, Michael Sinatra and AJ Lambert, 1996. Photo by Nancy Sinatra Jnr.
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