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[h3]Francis Albert Sinatra was the only child of two Italian immigrants. His father was Anthony Sinatra, a New York fireman of Sicilian origin, and his mother was Natalie Garavanta, who was usually called by her middle name, Dolly. [/h3]

Frank’s mother was often called “Hatpin Dolly”, and was well known for her fiery volatile Ligurian personality. Frank’s parents had both emigrated from mainland Italy to America in the 1890s, and the family enjoyed a reasonable standard of living, thanks to Anthony’s secure job in the Fire Department, as well as his mother’s political connections with the Democratic Party in Hoboken. Dolly was a local political ward boss, as well as working as a midwife.

Young Frank enjoyed a stable, comfortable upbringing and he was keen to enlist for the armed services during World War II, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. But when he attempted to sign up at the age of 26, he went for a medical check-up and was pronounced unfit for active service, owing to a punctured eardrum that he’d sustained at birth. It’s likely that Frank’s failure to enlist caused him to place even greater emphasis on his emerging career as an entertainer.

Frank had already embarked on his performing career, thanks to the help of his mother, who had found work for him singing in a group called The Three Flashes. One of his first engagements was at the Hoboken Union Club, and it was here, in 1935, that he got his first “big break”. The Three Flashes were approached by talent scout Edward “Major” Bowes, who then offered Frank work performing in a number of promotional films for his series, Amateur Hour.

In September 1935, Frank took part in a talent contest organized by Edward Bowes, and won first prize: this led to a national tour. When the tour was over, Frank took a job as a singing waiter and MC at a venue called the Rustic Cabin. The pay was only $15 per week, but the Rustic Cabin gigs were also broadcast across New York on the WNEW radio station. Frank’s voice was now being heard by a far wider audience than before. In 1939, the wife of bandleader and trumpet player Harry James heard Frank singing on the radio, and persuaded her husband to give Frank a job. Harry hired Frank for the princely sum of $75 per week, and the two artists made their first joint recording in July 1939, as war was looming in Europe.

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Working with Harry James was great experience for Frank, despite the fact that the band never made the big time. Frank and Harry recorded ten songs together. Shortly afterwards, Frank was offered a job with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, where he began to make his mark as a ballad singer. His first (and biggest) hit with his new band was the 1940s smash, “I’ll Never Smile Again”, which was also, by coincidence, the first ever Number One on Billboard magazine’s brand-new chart of America’s best -selling records. Frank’s gentle charisma and easy-listening crooning style made him an instant hit with the nation’s millions of teenage girls, known at the time as “bobby-soxers”, and his records began to sell in vast quantities.

Frank Sinatra cut a staggering total of 29 singles with Tommy Dorsey during 1941, which led to his being named Male Vocalist of the Year by Billboard Magazine. Frank stayed with the Dorsey Band until August 1942, when he left to pursue stardom as a solo recording artist.

In 1943, Sinatra signed a contract with Columbia Records, and was instantly successful. His career was no doubt given a further boost owing to the fact that there was a musicians’ strike in progress at the time his first records came out. He scored several hits during the strike, including the sensational “Saturday Night is the Loneliest Night of The Week”. Frank also starred on many radio programs during the 1940s, and soon began to be thought of as the nation’s second most popular male singer, running a close second to Bing Crosby, whose audiences at the New York Paramount he had actually succeeded in topping.

“Sinatra-Mania” was now in full swing - Frank scored a phenomenal 23 top ten singles between 1940 and early 1943 alone: to show their appreciation of his talent, his American fans affectionately nicknamed him “The Voice”.

In 1943, Sinatra made his debut at New York’s famed Madison Square Garden. He then caused a sensation whilst playing to an audience of over 10,000 people at the Hollywood Bowl. Frank’s concert was so profitable that the Bowl’s financial difficulties were resolved in one stroke. Wowed by Frank’s relaxed charm, Hollywood producers soon came knocking on his door. He signed a seven-year contract with RKO, and appeared in a string of light musical films, including “Step Lively” and “Higher and Higher.”

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Again, teenage fans made up his biggest audiences - a fact that did not go un-noticed by Louis B. Mayer - who bought his contract with RKO and signed him to MGM under a $1.5 million contract. Frank was now one of America’s top movie stars, and when he returned to New York’s Paramount for a concert, a crowd of over 35,000 fans caused a near riot - later known as the Columbus Day Riot! Frank’s fame during the 1940s was truly phenomenal: at one point, it was estimated that he had over 40 million fans!

In 1945, Sinatra starred in his first film alongside Gene Kelly, “Anchors Aweigh”. This film was an instant success, sparking a string of movies in which he co-starred with Kelly. His singing career was also booming, and by 1946, he was performing as many as 45 shows a month at some periods.

The 1940s turned out to be Sinatra’s golden decade, and by the end of 1948, he himself suspected that his career was slipping from the pinnacle of success. This was reflected by the fact that he only reached No. 5 on Down Beat’s annual poll of most popular singers. As sales of his records slipped, Sinatra tried new ways of singing, such as gospel songs and novelty tracks. But his fortunes revived in 1949 as he co-starred with Gene Kelly again in “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” - which was followed up by a further success in “On The Town”.

Encouraged by his box office successes, Sinatra returned to the concert stage in January 1950, selling a staggering $18,000-worth of tickets for just two nights of performing - but an overly packed schedule of singing resulted in Sinatra’s haemorrhaging his vocal cords during a gig at the Copacabana night-club. He was forced to cut back on his commitments for a while, but bounced back to give a sell-out concert at the London Palladium in July 1950.

In 1951, he gave his debut performance at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas - a city that was to become the main arena for his singing over the ensuing decade. Elsewhere, his popularity was waning, as his appeal to teenage audiences fell. But Sinatra did have a few hits over this period, such as Goodnight Irene, Castle Rock, Bim Bam Baby, etc. and he continued to work extensively in radio, cabaret and television.

The slump that marked the beginning of the 1950s for Frank Sinatra turned out to be a temporary blip in his career. The massive success of the movie “From Here To Eternity” in 1953, in for which he won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor, marked the beginning of a major revival in his fortunes. Sinatra was a hugely successful film actor, but his dramatic style was marked by energy and spontaneity, rather than by technique - an approach that earned him the nick-name, “One-Take Charlie”. Critics consider “The Manchurian Candidate” (1964) to be his best film, but he is probably most famous for the handful of movies he made with his friends, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr., in particular, Ocean’s Eleven (1960) and The Detective (1968) - together, the three actor-performers were known as “The Rat Pack“.

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Frank Sinatra was also well known for stormy love life and colourful relationships, which were frequently the object of tabloid attention. Frank married no less than four times; his first marriage was to his childhood sweetheart, Nancy Barbato, with whom he had three children - Nancy, Frank Sinatra Jr., and Christina. The marriage hit the rocks when Sinatra had an affair with actress Ava Gardner. She became wife No. 2, when he married her in 1951. But rumour has it that Frank still loved Nancy’s cooking so much, that he would send someone by to pick up her homemade specialities many years after they had parted.

Frank’s marriage to Ava Gardner was comparatively short-lived, and they split up in 1953 (but did not divorce until 1957). He then had a romance with Lauren Bacall, which was also short-lived. But whilst he was filming Von Ryan’s Express in 1968, he had a fling with Rafaella Carra, who introduced him to his next wife, actress Mia Farrow, some thirty years his junior. They were divorced two years later. Finally, in 1976, Sinatra married Barbara Blakeley Marx, who became a Catholic in order to marry him. Barbara remained married to Frank until the day he died, despite her frequently difficult relationships with his children.

Notwithstanding Sinatra’s unparalleled success as a movie star and singer, his public image was often marred by rumours of his associations with organized crime and the Mafia. The allegations began as early as the 1940s, when Sinatra visited Havana with the Fischetti family, who were known mobsters. Sinatra was also friends with Sam Giancana, a Mafioso who was also linked with the Kennedy family. Giancana always wore a sapphire friendship ring that had been given to him by Sinatra. Despite the fact that J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI, suspected Sinatra of Mafia involvement, nothing was ever proved against him, and Frank publicly refuted these allegations on many occasions. The character of Johnny Fontane in the famous book and epic film series, “The Godfather”, was also widely believed to have been based on Sinatra, and his Mafia connections, much to Sinatra’s very public annoyance with the author.

Sinatra’s career suffered many ups and downs, but he always succeeded in making a comeback, and performed on the world’s stages right up until the last few years of his life. From his first released single in 1940, as the singer with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, to the release in 1980 of “Theme from New York, New York”, Frank Sinatra had an amazing total of 209 hits on Billboards pop singles charts. Of those, 127 reached the Top Twenty, 70 reached the Top Ten, and no less than 9 singles made it to No. 1! These were: “I’ll Never Smile Again” (1940), “There Are Such Things” (1942), “In The Blue Of The Evening”(1943), “All Or Nothing At All” (1944), “Oh, what it seemed to be”(1945), “Five Minutes More” (1946), “Strangers In The Night” (1966) and “Something Stupid” (1967).

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Of Sinatra’s 55 Top Twenty albums, 41 reached the Top Ten, and 6 made it to number One: “The Voice of Frank Sinatra (1946), “In the Wee Small Hours”, “Come Fly With Me” (1956), “Frank Sinatra Sings for Only The Lonely” (1958), “Nice n’Easy (1960), and “Strangers In The Night” (1966). His most successful album of all time was the 1997 compilation, “My Way: The Very Best of Frank Sinatra”, released the year before he died. Up until now, this album has charted for 128 weeks, and has earned 5 platinum records.

Sinatra maintained a hugely successful singing career alongside his acting career throughout the 1950s and for several decades beyond. Although he “retired” in the early 1970s, he made a huge comeback in 1973, releasing a special album called “Ol’ Blue Eyes Is Back” and filming a TV special, to mark the occasion. He also resumed his singing career in Las Vegas, and toured extensively in the Far East, where he was phenomenally popular, especially in Japan. Sinatra toured right up until the 1990s, and was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammy Awards in 1994.

Failing health kept him out of the public eye after his 80th birthday, and he suffered a heart attack and stroke in 1996, and a further heart attack in 1997. After suffering his 3rd and final heart attack, Frank Sinatra died on May 14th 1998. His funeral in Beverly Hills was a star-studded occasion, with a list of mourners that included Liza Minnelli, Tony Curtis and Gregory Peck. Legend has it that he was buried in a blue suit, with a bottle of Jack Daniels, a pack of Camels cigarettes, a Zippo lighter - and a roll of dimes for good luck.

[i]Jane Bowles[/i]
Frank Sinatra biography



- Was a gifted amateur painter.

- Is alleged to have kept a picture of Ava Gardner on his mirror long after their break-up.

- Was named Entertainer of The Century in the year 2000.

- Was best friends with Dean Martin.

- Was the first choice to play the lead in “Dirty Harry”, but broke his finger before filming began, and had to pull out of the production.

- The Beatles song “Something” was one of his favourite songs.

- He and the other members of the Rat Pack were banned from Marilyn Monroe’s funeral by Monroe’s husgand, Joe di Maggio.

- In 1963, his son Frank Sinatra Jr. was kidnapped, and he was told to call the kidnappers from payphones. During one call, he ran out of coins, and was afraid that this had cost him his son’s life. He paid the $250,000 ransom, his son was returned, and the kidnappers were eventually caught. But Sinatra always carried a roll of dimes with him from that day forward; he was even buried with a roll of dimes!

- Is one of only five performers to have achieved both a Number One single and an Oscar for Best Actor or Actress: the others are Cher, Barbra Streisand, Bing Crosby and Jamie Foxx.

- Campaigned for Ronald Reagan during the 1980 and 1984 Presidential Elections.

- Is the godfather of Judy Garland’s daughter, Lorna Luft.

- According to Mia Farrow’s biography, he offered to have Woody Allen’s legs broken when it was discovered that he was having an affair with her adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn.

- To mark his 80th birthday in 1995, the Empire State Building glowed blue.

- The inscription on his tombstone reads, “The best is yet to come”.
Frank Sinatra biography



2004 - Frank Sinatra: The Man & The Myth

2004 - Great Entertainers: Frank Sinatra Singing With Friends

2003 - Sinatra Singing at His Best

2002 - Sinatra: The Classic Duets

1999 - Frank Sinatra Memorial

1999 - Harold Arlen: Somewhere Over The Rainbow

1991 - Listen Up: The Lives of Quincy Jones

1991 - Frank Sinatra: Francis Albert Sinatra Does His Thing

1990 - Best of The Soupy Sales Show

1989 - Frank, Liza & Sammy: The Ultimate Event

1988 - Who Framed Roger Rabbit

1986 - The Spencer Tracy Legacy

1985 - Frank Sinatra: In Japan - live At The Budokan

1985 - Frank Sinatra: Portrait Of An Album

1984 - Cannonball Run II

1980 - The First Deadly Sin

1977 - Contract on Cherry Street

1976 - That’s Entertainment Part II

1975 - AFI Lifetime Achievement Awards: Orson Welles

1974 - Frank Sinatra: The Main Event

1974 - Fred Astaire Salutes the Fox Musicals

1974 - That’s Entertainment!

1973 - Frank Sinatra: Ol’Blue Eyes Is Back

1971 - Frank Sinatra In Concert At The Royal Festival Hall

1970 - Dirty Dingus Magee

1968 - Lady In Cement

1968 - The Detective

1967 - The Naked Runner

1967 - Tony Rome

1966 - Assault On A Queen

1966 - The Oscar

1966 - Cast A Giant Shadow

1965 - Von Ryan’s Express

1965 - Dean Martin Show

1965 - None But The Brave

1965 - Marriage On The Rocks

1965 - Frank, Dean & Sammy: An Evening With The Rat Pack

1964 - Paris When It Sizzles

1964 - Robin and The Seven Hoods

1963 - Four for Texas

1963 - The List of Adrian Messenger

1963 - Come Blow Your Horn

1962 - Sergeants Three

1962 - The Road To Hong Kong

1962 - The Manchurian Candidate

1961 - The Devil At Four O’Clock

1960 - Ocean’s Eleven

1960 - Can-can

1960 - Pepe

1959 - Never So Few

1959 - A Hole In The Head

1958 - Some Came Running

1958 - Kings Go Forth

1957 - The Frank Sinatra Show (TV Series)

1957 - The Joker is Wild

1957 - The Pride & The Passion

1957 - Happy Holidays With Bing and Frank

1957 - Pal Joey

1956 - Around The World in 80 Days

1956 - High Society

1956 - Johnny Concho

1956 - Meet me In Las Vegas

1955 - Not As A Stranger

1955 - Guys and Dolls

1955 - The Tender Trap

1955 - The Man With The Golden Arm

1954 - Young At Heart

1954 - Suddenly

1953 - From Here To Eternity

1949 - Take Me Out to The Ball Game

1949 - On The Town

1948 - The Kissing Bandit

1948 - The Miracle Of the Bells

1947 - It Happened in Brooklyn

1946 - Till The Clouds Roll By

1945 - The All-Star Bond Rally

1945 - A Thousand And One Nights

1945 - The House I Live In

1945 - Anchors Aweigh

1944 - Higher & Higher

1944 - Strictly G.I.

1944 - Step Lively

1943 - Show Business At War

1943 - Reveille with Beverly

1942 - Ship Ahoy

1941 - Las Vegas Nights

Frank Sinatra biography



[h3]Albums[/h3]

2006 - Voice

2006 - Very Best of Frank Sinatra (Mastersong)

2006 - Too Romantic

2006 - Sings 25 Great Swinging Jazz Songs

2006 - I Haven’t Time To be A Millionaire

2006 - Here’s Frank Sinatra

2006 - Frank and Bing Christmas

2006 - Essential Frank Sinatra (Essential Gold)

2006 - Boys from the Rat Pack

2004 - Happy Holidays from Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby

2003 - Live Melbourne Australia ’55

2002 - Voice Of The Century

2002 - Sharing The Holidays With Frank Sinatra

2001 - Christmas Legends

1998 - Screen Sinatra

1994 - Duets II

1993 - Duets

1989 - Plus Beau Succes De Frank Sinatra

1984 - L.A. Is My Lady

1981 - She Shot Me Down

1979 - Trilogy

1976 - Frank Sinatra Conducts The Music of Alec Wilder

1974 - Main Event - Live

1973 - Some Nice Things I’ve Missed

1973 - Ol’ Blue Eyes Is Back

1972 - Frank Sinatra Conducts Music From Pictures

1972 - Academy Award Winners

1971 - In Concert At The Royal Festival Hall

1969 - Watertown

1969 - Sinatra and Company

1969 - My Way

1969 - Man Alone & Other Songs of Rod McKuen

1968 - Sinatra Family Wish You A Merry Christmas

1968 - Cycles

1967 - Frank Sinatra and the World We Knew

1967 - Frank Sinatra and Frank and Nancy

1967 - Francis Albert Sinatra and Antonio Carlos Jobim

1967 - Francis A. Sinatra & Edward K. Ellington

1966 - That’s Life

1966 - Strangers In the Night

1966 - Sinatra At The Sands

1965 - Sinatra ’65

1965 - September of My Years

1965 - My Kind Of Broadway

1965 - Moonlight Sinatra

1964 - Sings Days Of Wine and Roses, Moon River & Other Academy Winners

1964 - Robin and the Seven Hoods

1964 - It Might As Well be Swing

1963 - Softly, As I Leave You

1963 - Concert Sinatra

1963 - Sinatra’s Sinatra

1963 - Come Blow Your Horn

1962 - Sinatra-Basie

1962 - Sinatra sings songs from Great Britain

1962 - Sinatra and Swingin’ Brass

1962 - Sinatra and Strings

1962 - Sinatra & Sextet: Live in Paris

1962 - Saloon Singer

1962 - All Alone

1961 - Swing Along With Me

1961 - Sinatra’s Swingin’ Session!!! & More

1961 - Point of No Return

1961 - I Remember Tommy

1961 - Come Swing With Me!

1961 - All the Way

1960 - Ring A Ding Ding!

1960 - Reflections

1960 - Nice N’Easy

1960 - Can-can

1959 - No-one Cares

1959 - Broadway Kick

1958 - Only The Lonely

1958 - Come Dance With Me!

1957 - Where Are You

1957 - Swingin’ Affair

1957 - Pal Joey

1957 - Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra

1957 - Come Fly With Me

1957 - Close To You and More

1956 - High Society

1956 - Frank Sinatra Conducts Tone Poems of Colour

1955 - Swing Easy

1955 - Songs for Swingin’ Lovers

1955 - Frankie

1954 - In The Wee Small Hours

1953 - Requested By You

1950 - Songs by Sinatra, Vol. 1

1950 - Songs by Sinatra

1950 - Sing and Dance with Frank Sinatra

1950 - Voice

1946 - Voice of Frank Sinatra

1945 - Voice of Frank Sinatra (Bonus Tracks)

1944 - Swing & Dance with Frank Sinatra

THE ROLE THAT CHANGED MY LIFE: I Got Buff Thu 20th Nov - 6:00PM

Ricky Martin Thu 20th Nov - 4:30PM

PARANORMAL STATE: Sixth Sense Thu 20th Nov - 10:00PM