Everyone knows that Frank Sinatra will always be a legend.
Ever since his heyday in the mid-20th century, Ol' Blue Eyes has captured the hearts of music
lovers around the world.
But few people realize just how tragic his life really was.
This is the real-life story of Frank Sinatra.
During his birth, Francis Albert Sinatra was almost ruled dead on arrival.
Born on December 12th 1915, in the kitchen of his parents' New Jersey apartment, Sinatra
weighed 13.5 pounds at birth and had to be removed from the womb with forceps.
Frank was originally thought to be stillborn, as he was blue and not breathing.
While the doctor was treating his mother, Frank's grandmother took the seemingly dead
infant, ran him under cold water and slapped him on the back, which suddenly revived him.
And the mishaps didn't end there.
Frank was actually supposed to be given the first name "Martin" after his father, but
a misunderstanding led the priest to baptize the baby after his godfather, Frank Garrick.
Frank's mother, probably a little exhausted by this point, decided to leave it alone and
keep the name as it was.
The forceps used during Frank's birth left him with facial scarring on the left side
of his face, neck, and jawline.
This led him to receive the punishing nickname of "Scarface" from his peers in adolescence.
During his singing career, Frank would endeavor to hide his facial imperfections with heavy
makeup.
In spite of his talent, Frank Sinatra actually had to grapple with loneliness during his
childhood.
Frank was the only child of Italian immigrants, who were both very active and prominent in
their Hoboken neighborhood.
His father, Antonino Martino, or "Marty," owned a local tavern and was a part-time prizefighter.
Frank's mother, Dolly, was a midwife who often helped desperate women to obtain illegal abortions.
Dolly was also involved in local politics and was elected Democratic Ward Leader in
their neighborhood.
His parents' work and activities meant they were often away, so young Frank was usually
left on his own, or with his grandmother.
Most children in Frank's predominantly Italian neighborhood came from large families, while
he grew up an only child, which was considered highly unusual at the time.
In a later interview with journalist Pete Hamill, Sinatra admitted that he longed for
a sibling when he was a child, saying:
"I used to wish I had an older brother that could help me when I needed him.
I wished I had a younger sister I could protect."
Sinatra didn't find it easy achieving the fame and success that he craved when he was
young.
His parents weren't entirely supportive of his desire to be a professional singer, viewing
it only as a hobby.
Instead, Marty wanted his son to attend the Stevens Institute of Technology and have a
steady job.
However, once Dolly Sinatra understood her son's talent and ambition, she tried to help
him wherever she could, from buying him sound equipment and sheet music to using her political
connections to secure singing gigs for him.
Dolly's pull even landed Frank a spot with the local singing group, the Hoboken Four,
which started him on the path of professional recognition.
It soon became obvious, however, that Sinatra was the only one of the group with genuine
ambition and drive, and once the Hoboken Four broke up, Frank started to wait tables in
between his singing gigs with local dance bands.
After landing a solid gig with trumpeter Harry James, Frank's biggest break came in 1940,
when he was discovered by renowned bandleader Tommy Dorsey, who offered him a much more
lucrative contract.
By 1942, Sinatra's reputation even eclipsed Dorsey's, which prompted him to seek out a
solo singing career.
Bing Crosby was Frank Sinatra's greatest inspiration for becoming a professional singer.
A huge fan of the celebrity crooner, the teenage Frank even had a picture of Crosby hanging
in his bedroom.
Crosby's warm, passionate, but laid-back singing technique was the foundation that Frank built
on, until he could develop his own unique style.
Frank even met his idol briefly in 1935 at a Newark Club, but they wouldn't meet again
for nearly a decade, when Frank was a huge star in his own right.
By the time the 1940s rolled around, Crosby was still popular, but Sinatra's fame was
skyrocketing.
Bing had fans, but he was never greeted by the hoards of screaming, swooning teenage
bobby soxer girls that made up Sinatra's fanbase.
Crosby took Frank's rising popularity in stride, however, once saying that Sinatra was a singer
that comes around once in a lifetime, and jokingly adding:
"But why did it have to be my lifetime?"
After that, a media-driven rivalry was born.
The two competing crooners would frequently trade barbs and insults at each other on public
radio broadcasts.
The rivalry was played up for media attention, but it was never really serious.
Later, they would perform duets together and co-star in movies, such as 1956's High Society.
Frank Sinatra didn't mind a good-natured rivalry with Bing Crosby, but he felt highly intimidated
by any new singers who could potentially knock him off his pedestal.
In the early 1950s, singer Eddie Fisher was on the rise, and this caused Sinatra to spiral
into a deep depression, believing that his career was over.
Another time Sinatra's fame came under threat was from a singer named Jimmy Roselli, who
was also known as, quote, "the other Sinatra."
Roselli was ten years younger than Sinatra, an Italian American, and grew up in the same
neighborhood of Hoboken.
Roselli was also incredibly popular with the Italian American crowd, even with Frank Sinatra's
friends and his own mother, Dolly.
Roselli's voice had an even greater range than Sinatra's, too.
When Dolly Sinatra asked Jimmy Roselli to perform at a benefit, but Roselli refused
to sing without receiving a fee, Sinatra used this as an excuse to blackball Roselli's career.
Although he always refuted it, Frank Sinatra absolutely had ties to the mob.
In fact, Sinatra's FBI profile reads like a guidebook to the Mafia.
Sinatra was known to be good friends with the infamous Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana
and his crew.
He outwardly socialized with the Fischetti Brothers, Joseph and Charles, who were known
to conduct illegal gambling operations.
He blatantly partied with Detroit mobsters Anthony and Vito Giacalone.
If Sinatra ever needed to get out of a contract or was simply ticked off about a perceived
insult, someone could expect to get a visit from a couple of goons, visits that might
or might not end with violence.
In return, Frank would often perform a few shows as favors for his mob buddies.
For all of Sinatra's denials of his Mafia ties, he didn't do much to conceal who his
friends were or his participation in their preferred activities, namely, gambling, women,
and money.
"I don't do those things to have anybody follow me in doing that same thing, is what I mean."
The FBI kept a close eye on Sinatra, but he was never charged criminally for his mob-related
activities or associations.
Sinatra's full FBI record wasn't released until after his death.
Sinatra was an ardent supporter of the Democratic Party, most notably, John F. Kennedy.
It's unknown how the two officially met, but Kennedy's sister, Pat, was married to Sinatra's
fellow Rat Packer Peter Lawford.
Kennedy appreciated Sinatra's glamour and rule-breaking attitude, and Sinatra greatly
admired the power that Kennedy represented.
When JFK announced his bid for the presidency, Sinatra publicly endorsed his candidacy and
avidly used his star power to generate votes.
He organized donor dinners, appeared in political radio ads, and lent Kennedy's aides his private
jet.
His hit song "High Hopes" even became the theme song of the Kennedy campaign.
It has been speculated that JFK's father, Joseph Kennedy, was hoping to use Sinatra's
mob connections and union ties to bring in the votes.
However, the Kennedy-Sinatra friendship crumbled shortly after the election, when an FBI wiretap
revealed that Sinatra was having an affair with JFK's married sister, Pat.
Sinatra made it clear on the recordings that he was only using Pat to influence her brothers
and steer the government away from his gangster friends' activities, but the Kennedys agreed
that Sinatra had to go.
Despite all that romantic crooning, Frank Sinatra was known to have an extremely short
fuse.
"Do you think your boiling point is low?"
"Not anymore.
It used to be."
Once, during a show in Hong Kong, a missed light cue prompted him to destroy his dressing
room and his hotel suite, breaking priceless antiques.
Another time, while in a drunken rage, he drove a golf cart through a shopping mall
window.
J. Randy Taraborrelli's biography Sinatra: Behind the Legend details how the singer once
threw a plate of pasta at the wall in an Italian restaurant because he deemed it too soggy.
Ol' Blue Eyes also had a habit of bullying venue employees and less famous entertainers,
and getting his mob friends to beat up people he didn't like.
He seemed to have a particular dislike for stand-up comedians, probably due to his many
insecurities and fears of being publicly humiliated.
Comic Shecky Greene once made a remark that angered Sinatra, and Greene was later mobbed
by a group of Sinatra's friends.
Comedian Jackie Mason made a series of jokes about the much older Frank Sinatra's marriage
to 21-year-old Mia Farrow, which resulted in the comic receiving anonymous death threats.
When Mason refused to stop making Frank Sinatra jokes, shots were fired into his hotel room.
He later had his nose and cheekbones broken by a complete stranger.
Out of his three children, Frank Sinatra had one son, Frank Jr., who had ambitions to become
a singer like his father.
His career was already budding at the age of 19.
However, Frank Jr. also started attracting more malicious attention.
According to the FBI, on December 8th 1963, Sinatra Jr. was performing a gig at Harrah's
Club Lodge in Lake Tahoe.
He was in his dressing room with a friend when someone knocked on the door, claiming
to have a package to deliver.
Instead, two men entered, tied up, and blindfolded the friend and then forced the singer out
a side door and into a waiting car.
The friend was able to free himself and notify the police.
The kidnappers contacted the elder Sinatra and demanded a ransom of $240,000 for his
son's safe return.
With the FBI's help, Sinatra Sr. paid the ransom and allowed the police to track down
the kidnappers.
After some trepidation on the part of the kidnappers, one of them eventually decided
to free Sinatra Jr., whom the police found in Bel-Air after he had been walking for miles.
The FBI later apprehended the three kidnappers and recovered the ransom money.
"I was scared.
I was a little bit nervous, naturally.
But the only thing I could do was hope for the best."
The kidnappers' defense tried to paint Sinatra Jr. as the perpetrator, claiming he masterminded
his own abduction for publicity.
The FBI's evidence proved contradictory to this claim, and all three kidnappers were
convicted.
Frank Sinatra died of a heart attack at the age of 82 on May 14th 1998, at Los Angeles'
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
His wife, Barbara Marx, and his three children were at his bedside.
Sinatra's last remaining years were filled with significant health problems, such as
heart and breathing problems, high blood pressure, pneumonia, and bladder cancer.
He had also been diagnosed with dementia, brought on by Alzheimer's.
As the end approached, Sinatra seemed to recognize that his time had arrived, as his last words
to his wife were:
"I'm losing."
Sinatra was buried with a pack of Camel cigarettes, a bottle of Jack Daniel's whiskey, a Zippo
lighter and a dollar's worth of dimes.
In a Rolling Stone interview, singer Bono of U2 spoke on the death of Sinatra, with
whom he once performed a duet, and the loss of an iconic performer.
He said:
"Frank Sinatra was the twentieth-century, he was modern, he was complex, he had swing
and he had attitude.
He was the boss but he was always Frank Sinatra.
We won't see his like again."
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