Sinatra

Francis Albert Sinatra (; December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. Nicknamed the "Chairman of the Board" and "Ol' Blue Eyes", he is regarded as one of the most popular entertainers of the 20th century. Sinatra is among the world's best-selling music artists, with an estimated 150 million record sales globally.

Born to Italian immigrants in Hoboken, New Jersey, Sinatra began his musical career in the swing era and was influenced by the easy-listening vocal style of Bing Crosby. He joined the Harry James band as the vocalist in 1939 before finding success as a solo artist after signing with Columbia Records in 1943, becoming the idol of the " bobby soxers". In 1946, Sinatra released his debut album, '' The Voice of Frank Sinatra''. He then signed with Capitol Records and released several albums with arrangements by Nelson Riddle, notably ''In the Wee Small Hours'' (1955) and '' Songs for Swingin' Lovers!'' (1956). In 1960, Sinatra left Capitol Records to start his own record label, Reprise Records, releasing a string of successful albums. He collaborated with Count Basie on '' Sinatra-Basie: An Historic Musical First'' (1962) and '' It Might as Well Be Swing'' (1964). In 1965, he recorded '' September of My Years'' and starred in the Emmy-winning television special '' Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music''. After releasing '' Sinatra at the Sands'' in 1966, Sinatra recorded one of his most famous collaborations with Tom Jobim, ''Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim''. It was followed by 1968's '' Francis A. & Edward K.'' with Duke Ellington. Sinatra retired in 1971 following the release of "My Way" but came out of retirement two years later. He recorded several albums and released "New York, New York" in 1980.

Sinatra also forged a highly successful acting career. After winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for ''From Here to Eternity'' (1953), he starred in ''The Man with the Golden Arm'' (1955) and '' The Manchurian Candidate'' (1962). Sinatra also appeared in musicals such as '' On the Town'' (1949), ''Guys and Dolls'' (1955), ''High Society'' (1956), and '' Pal Joey'' (1957), which won him a Golden Globe Award. Toward the end of his career, he frequently played detectives, including the title character in ''Tony Rome'' (1967). Sinatra received the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1971. On television, '' The Frank Sinatra Show'' began on CBS in 1950, and he continued to make appearances on television throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

Sinatra was recognized at the Kennedy Center Honors in 1983, awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1985, and received the Congressional Gold Medal in 1997. Sinatra received eleven Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Trustees Award, Grammy Legend Award, and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. American music critic Robert Christgau called him "the greatest singer of the 20th century" and he continues to be regarded as an iconic figure.

Early life

Francis Albert Sinatra was born on December 12, 1915, in a tenement at 415 Monroe Street in Hoboken, New Jersey, the only child of Italian immigrants Natalina "Dolly" Garaventa and Antonino Martino "Marty" Sinatra. Sinatra weighed at birth and had to be delivered with the aid of forceps, which caused severe scarring to his left cheek, neck, and ear, and perforated his eardrum—which remained damaged for the rest of his life. His grandmother resuscitated him by running him under cold water until he gasped. Due to his injuries, his baptism at St. Francis Church in Hoboken was delayed until April 2, 1916. A childhood operation on his mastoid bone left major scarring on his neck, and during adolescence he was further scarred by cystic acne. Sinatra was raised in the Catholic Church.

Sinatra's mother was energetic and driven; biographers believe that she was the dominant factor in the development of her son's personality and self-confidence. Sinatra's fourth wife Barbara would later claim that Dolly "knocked him around a lot" when he was a child. Dolly became influential in Hoboken and in local Democratic Party circles. She worked as a midwife, and according to Sinatra biographer Kitty Kelley, ran an illegal abortion service that catered to Italian Catholic girls, for which she was nicknamed "Hatpin Dolly". She had a gift for languages and served as a local interpreter.

Sinatra's illiterate father was a bantamweight boxer who later worked at the Hoboken Fire Department, working his way up to captain. Due to his illiteracy, he stressed the importance of a "complete and full" education and had instilled in his son the desire to become a civil engineer and enroll at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken. Sinatra spent much time at his parents' tavern in Hoboken, working on his homework and occasionally singing for spare change. During the Great Depression, Dolly provided money to her son for outings with friends and to buy expensive clothes, resulting in neighbors describing him as the "best-dressed kid in the neighborhood". Excessively thin and small as a child and young man, Sinatra's skinny frame later became a staple of jokes during stage shows.''Sinatra at the Sands'' (1966), Reprise Records

At a young age, Sinatra developed an interest in music, particularly big band jazz and listened to Gene Austin, Rudy Vallée, Russ Colombo, and Bob Eberly while idolizing Bing Crosby. For his 15th birthday, his uncle Domenico gave him a ukulele, with which he performed at family gatherings. Sinatra attended David E. Rue Jr. High School from 1928, and A. J. Demarest High School (since renamed as Hoboken High School) in 1931, where he arranged bands for school dances, but left without graduating after having attended only 47 days before being expelled for "general rowdiness".

To please his mother, he enrolled at Drake Business School, but departed after 11 months. Dolly found her son work as a delivery boy at the ''Jersey Observer'' newspaper (since merged into ''The Jersey Journal''), where his godfather Frank Garrick worked; he later worked as a riveter at the Tietjen and Lang shipyard. He began performing in local Hoboken social clubs and sang for free on radio stations such as WAAT in Jersey City. In New York, Sinatra found jobs singing for his supper or for cigarettes. To improve his speech, he began taking elocution lessons for a dollar each from vocal coach John Quinlan, one of the first people to notice his impressive vocal range.

Music career

1935–1942: Hoboken Four, Harry James, and Tommy Dorsey

Sinatra began singing professionally as a teenager. He never learned to read music but learned by ear. He got his first break in 1935 when his mother persuaded a local singing group called the 3 Flashes to let him join. Baritone Fred Tamburro stated that "Frank hung around us like we were gods or something", admitting that they only took him on board because he owned a car and could chauffeur the group. Sinatra soon learned they were auditioning for the ''Major Bowes Amateur Hour'' show and "begged" the group to let him join.

With Sinatra, the group became known as the "Hoboken Four" and passed an audition from Edward Bowes to appear on the show. They each earned $12.50, and attracted 40,000 votes to win first prize—a six-month contract to perform on stage and radio across the U.S. Sinatra quickly became the group's lead singer, and, much to the jealousy of his fellow group members, garnered most of the attention from the girls. Due to the success of the group, Bowes kept asking for them to return, disguised under different names, varying from "The Secaucus Cockamamies" to "The Bayonne Bacalas," although this may be apocryphal, sourced from Sinatra’s humorous stage patter during his legendary appearance with the Count Basie orchestra at the Sands (1966).

In 1938, Sinatra found employment as a singing waiter at a roadhouse called "The Rustic Cabin" in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, for which he was paid $15 a week. The roadhouse was connected to the WNEW radio station in New York City, and he began performing with a group live during the ''Dance Parade'' show. Despite the low salary, Sinatra felt that this was the break he was looking for, and boasted to friends that he was going to "become so big that no one could ever touch him". In March 1939, saxophone player Frank Mane, who knew Sinatra from Jersey City radio station WAAT, arranged for him to audition and record " Our Love", his first solo studio recording. In June, bandleader Harry James, who had heard Sinatra sing on "Dance Parade", signed him to a two-year contract of $75 a week after a show at the Paramount Theatre in New York. It was with the James band that Sinatra released his first commercial record "From the Bottom of My Heart" in July. No more than 8,000 copies were sold, and further records released with James through 1939, such as "All or Nothing at All", also had weak sales on their initial release. Thanks to his vocal training, Sinatra could now sing two tones higher, and developed a repertoire which included songs such as " My Buddy", " Willow Weep for Me", " It's Funny to Everyone but Me", "Here Comes the Night", "On a Little Street in Singapore", " Ciribiribin", and "Every Day of My Life".

Sinatra became increasingly frustrated with the Harry James band, feeling that he was not achieving the major success and acclaim he was looking for. His pianist and close friend Hank Sanicola persuaded him to stay with the group, but in November 1939 he left James to replace Jack Leonard as the lead singer of the Tommy Dorsey band. Sinatra earned $125 a week, appearing at the Palmer House in Chicago, and James released Sinatra from his contract.

On January 26, 1940, he made his first public appearance with the band at the Coronado Theatre in Rockford, Illinois, opening the show with " Stardust". Dorsey recalled: "You could almost feel the excitement coming up out of the crowds when the kid stood up to sing. Remember, he was no matinée idol. He was just a skinny kid with big ears. I used to stand there so amazed I'd almost forget to take my own solos".

Dorsey was a major influence on Sinatra and became a father figure. Sinatra copied Dorsey's mannerisms and traits, becoming a demanding perfectionist like him, even adopting his hobby of toy trains. He asked Dorsey to be godfather to his daughter Nancy in June 1940. Sinatra later said that "The only two people I've ever been afraid of are my mother and Tommy Dorsey." Though Kelley says that Sinatra and drummer Buddy Rich were bitter rivals, other authors state that they were friends and even roommates when the band was on the road, but professional jealousy surfaced as both men wanted to be considered the star of Dorsey's band. Later, Sinatra helped Rich form his own band with a $25,000 loan and provided financial help to Rich during times of the drummer's serious illness.

In his first year with Dorsey, Sinatra recorded more than forty songs. Sinatra's first vocal hit was the song " Polka Dots and Moonbeams" in late April 1940. Two more chart appearances followed with "Say It" and "Imagination", which was Sinatra's first top-10 hit. His fourth chart appearance (and his first on the first officially published ''Billboard'' chart) was "I'll Never Smile Again", topping the charts for twelve weeks beginning in mid-July. Other records with Tommy Dorsey issued by RCA Victor include " Our Love Affair" and "Stardust" in 1940; " Oh! Look at Me Now", " Dolores", " Everything Happens to Me", and "This Love of Mine" in 1941; " Just as Though You Were There", " Take Me", and "There Are Such Things" in 1942; and " It Started All Over Again", " In the Blue of Evening", and " It's Always You" in 1943.

As his success and popularity grew, Sinatra pushed Dorsey to allow him to record some solo songs. Dorsey eventually relented, and on January 19, 1942, Sinatra recorded " Night and Day", " The Night We Called It a Day", " The Song is You", and " Lamplighter's Serenade" at a Bluebird recording session, with Axel Stordahl as arranger and conductor. Sinatra first heard the recordings at the Hollywood Palladium and Hollywood Plaza and was astounded at how good he sounded. Stordahl recalled: "He just couldn't believe his ears. He was so excited you almost believed he had never recorded before. I think this was a turning point in his career. I think he began to see what he might do on his own".

After the 1942 recordings, Sinatra believed he needed to go solo, with an insatiable desire to compete with Bing Crosby, but he was hampered by his contract which gave Dorsey 43% of Sinatra's lifetime earnings. A legal battle ensued, eventually settled in August 1942. On September 3, 1942, Dorsey bade farewell to Sinatra, reportedly saying "I hope you fall on your ass", but he was more gracious on the air when replacing Sinatra with singer Dick Haymes.

Rumors began spreading in newspapers that Sinatra's mobster godfather, Willie Moretti, coerced Dorsey at gunpoint to let Sinatra out of his contract for a few thousand dollars. Sinatra persuaded Stordahl to come with him and become his personal arranger, offering him $650 a month, five times his salary from Dorsey. Dorsey and Sinatra, who had been very close, never reconciled their differences.

1942–1945: Onset of Sinatramania and Role in World War II

By May 1941, Sinatra topped the male singer polls in ''Billboard'' and ''DownBeat'' magazines. His appeal to bobby soxers, as teenage girls of that time were called, revealed a new audience for popular music, which had previously been recorded mainly for adults. The phenomenon became officially known as "Sinatramania" after his "legendary opening" at the Paramount Theatre in New York on December 30, 1942.

According to Nancy Sinatra, Jack Benny later said, "I thought the goddamned building was going to cave in. I never heard such a commotion... All this for a fellow I never heard of." Sinatra performed for four weeks at the theatre, his act following the Benny Goodman orchestra, after which his contract was renewed for another four weeks by Bob Weitman due to his popularity. He became known as "Swoonatra" or "The Voice", and his fans "Sinatratics". They organized meetings and sent masses of letters of adoration, and within a few weeks of the show, some 1,000 Sinatra fan clubs had been reported across the US.

Sinatra's publicist, George Evans, encouraged interviews and photographs with fans and was the man responsible for depicting Sinatra as a vulnerable, shy, Italian–American with a rough childhood who made good. When Sinatra returned to the Paramount in October 1944, only 250 persons left the first show, and 35,000 fans left outside caused a near riot, known as the Columbus Day Riot, outside the venue because they were not allowed in. Such was the bobby-soxer devotion to Sinatra that they were known to write Sinatra's song titles on their clothing, bribe hotel maids for an opportunity to touch his bed, and steal clothing he was wearing, most commonly his bow tie.

Sinatra signed with Columbia Records as a solo artist on June 1, 1943, during the 1942–44 musicians' strike. Columbia Records re-released Harry James and Sinatra's August 1939 version of "All or Nothing at All", which reached number 2 on June 2 and was on the best-selling list for 18 weeks. He initially had great success, and performed on the radio on ''Your Hit Parade'' from February 1943 until December 1944, and on stage.

Columbia wanted new recordings of their growing star as quickly as possible, so Alec Wilder was hired as an arranger and conductor for several sessions with a vocal group called the Bobby Tucker Singers. Of the nine songs recorded during these sessions, seven charted on the best-selling list. That year he made his first solo nightclub appearance at New York's Riobamba, and a successful concert in the Wedgewood Room of the prestigious Waldorf-Astoria New York that year secured his popularity in New York high society. Sinatra released "You'll Never Know", " Close to You", " Sunday, Monday, or Always" and " People Will Say We're in Love" as singles. By the end of 1943, he was more popular in a ''DownBeat'' poll than Bing Crosby.

Sinatra did not serve in the military during World War II. On December 11, 1943, he was officially classified 4-F ("Registrant not acceptable for military service") by his draft board because of his perforated eardrum. However, Army files reported that Sinatra had actually been rejected because he was "not acceptable material from a psychiatric viewpoint;" his emotional instability was hidden to avoid "undue unpleasantness for both the selectee and the induction service". Briefly, there were rumors reported by columnist Walter Winchell that Sinatra paid $40,000 to avoid military service, but the FBI found this to be without merit.

Toward the end of the war, Sinatra entertained the troops during several successful overseas USO tours with comedian Phil Silvers. During one trip to Rome, he met the Pope, who asked him if he was an operatic tenor. Sinatra worked frequently with the popular Andrews Sisters in radio in the 1940s, and many USO shows were broadcast to troops via the Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS). In 1944, Sinatra released " I Couldn't Sleep a Wink Last Night" as a single and recorded his own version of Irving Berlin's " White Christmas". The following year he released " I Dream of You (More Than You Dream I Do)", " Saturday Night (Is the Loneliest Night of the Week)", "Dream", and "Nancy (with the Laughing Face)" as singles.

1946–1952: Columbia years and career slump

Despite being heavily involved in political activity in 1945 and 1946, in those two years, Sinatra sang on 160 radio shows, recorded 36 times, and shot four films. By 1946, he was performing on stage up to 45 times a week, singing up to 100 songs daily, and earning up to $93,000 a week.

In 1946, Sinatra released " Oh! What it Seemed to Be", " Day by Day", "They Say It's Wonderful", " Five Minutes More", and " The Coffee Song" as singles, and launched his first album, '' The Voice of Frank Sinatra'', which reached No. 1 on the ''Billboard'' chart. William Ruhlmann of AllMusic wrote that Sinatra "took the material very seriously, singing the love lyrics with utter seriousness" and that his "singing and the classically influenced settings gave the songs unusual depth of meaning." He was soon selling 10million records a year.

Such was Sinatra's command at Columbia that his love of conducting was indulged with the release of the set '' Frank Sinatra Conducts the Music of Alec Wilder'', an offering unlikely to appeal to Sinatra's core fanbase of teenage girls at the time. The following year he released his second album, '' Songs by Sinatra'', featuring songs of a similar mood and tempo such as Irving Berlin's "How Deep is the Ocean?" and Harold Arlen's and Jerome Kern's "All The Things You Are

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