Issue Date: May 4, 2008
Remembering Frank Sinatra
Has it really been 10 years since his passing? A look at the legend, and the man, from a who's who of admirers.
By Dennis McCafferty
He did not attend Juilliard or, for that matter, graduate from high school. His school of music was the saloon, where he first crafted his signature style -- the pinpoint yet elegant phrasing -- that sparked a sensation in the 1940s. Like many of those he sang for, Francis Albert Sinatra took his lumps in life. His temperament was legendary. His much-examined alleged associations with organized crime always will shroud his image. ("I didn't meet any Nobel Prize winners in saloons," he once said, as a means of explanation.) He was considered washed up in 1952, when he was dropped by his record companies. Then came the big comeback: an Oscar for "From Here to Eternity" in 1953; the release of "In the Wee Small Hours" in 1955; and a demand for live performances that would last for the rest of Sinatra's life.
"Hours" -- recorded in the middle of an emotionally draining, failing marriage to Ava Gardner -- remains one of the seminal works of his career, a unified string of sparse, melancholy songs, released well before "Pet Sounds" and "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" "pioneered" the concept album. The years had begun to finely age his voice, like whiskey in an oak barrel. He got to the soul of the music, and you could feel the sadness within Sinatra with every slow burn of his cigarette. With subsequent smash hits such as "Come Fly With Me," "It Was a Very Good Year," "My Way" and "Theme From New York, New York" -- Sinatra's legacy has influenced generations of musical talent. But he never forgot what it was like to be unwanted.
"If someone asked him to sign an autograph, he never said 'no,' " says Charles Pignone, once president of Sinatra's official fan club and now co-president of Frank Sinatra Enterprises, which oversees Sinatra's intellectual property. "A publicist would tell him he had to go, and he'd say, 'If it weren't for these people, I wouldn't have a job. And neither would you.' "
Nearly 10 years ago, on May 14, 1998, Frank Sinatra passed away at age 82 after a heart attack, having been in ill health for years. The anniversary will be marked this month with, among other products, the release of "Nothing but the Best," a 22-track CD collection; a commemorative stamp from the U.S. Postal Service; and five DVD collections of his films, including those he made with his pals in the legendary Rat Pack. Also, Turner Classic Movies is featuring more than 40 Sinatra movies and specials hosted by his three children -- Nancy, Tina and Frank Jr. -- throughout this month. Exclusively for USA WEEKEND Magazine, friends and associates recall their most cherished memories of the man and the artist:
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Bill Clinton
President of the United States, 1993-2001
He was very much at peace with himself and the life that he lived.
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I always loved "It Was a Very Good Year," which is about the stages of life. It's not the kind of song you'd think that a boy could appreciate, but for some reason, I always enjoyed listening to it. Of course, his singing had a lot to do with that.
After I became president, I had the pleasure of meeting him at a small dinner party in L.A. It was only a few years before he died. We talked about a lot of things. He knew about my admiration for the Kennedys, and he said he was proud to have been associated with that administration. He was also very happy to have released the album "Duets" at that stage in his life. It features him singing with many artists of the day, like Bono. I think he realized that his voice didn't have the range that it once did, so he was genuinely pleased that so many of the popular singers then wanted to record with him. I walked away that night thinking he was very much at peace with himself and the life that he had lived. That's always a nice thing to see.
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Joe Torre
Manager, Los Angeles Dodgers
Right in the middle of the chips and guacamole was his Oscar for "From Here to Eternity."
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My future wife, Ali, and I were at a restaurant in Palm Springs, Calif., in 1985 when Ali spotted Frank Sinatra. "We should send over some wine," she said to me. Well, I was a little shy. But I had shaken hands with him before because he was a baseball fan, so I sent over a bottle.
Barbara, Frank's wife, came right over to our table and thanked us for the wine. Then she invited us to a dinner they were having at a local restaurant with about a dozen people that Sunday night, as well as to their house on Monday for an Oscar party. That Monday, we went to his house -- on Frank Sinatra Drive, of course. We all sat around watching the Academy Awards. On a table in front of us were some chips and guacamole dip, and in the center of the spread was Frank's Oscar for "From Here to Eternity." During the entire broadcast, Frank explained to us what was going on. If someone was giving an acceptance speech, he'd say, "Right now the light is flashing, telling them to wrap it up." It was quite a night. Ali and I were the last couple to leave.
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Nancy Sinatra
Daughter, recording artist
Most never knew how silly and fun he could be.
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My dad offered just three bits of advice: Keep a journal, learn languages, and own your own master recordings. Aside from those gems, he never dictated my career direction. He wanted me to find my own way.
Most people never knew just how silly and fun my father could be. When we were performing together in Lake Tahoe and my very young daughters were along, Dad found a place where we could all go sledding, making jokes all the way down the hills.
Dad and Dean Martin were very close. Neither one of them had a real brother, so they thought of each other as brothers -- blood brothers. They actually pierced their fingers one day and mixed their blood. When Dean died, my dad's life changed. He had lost his parents and now his "brother." He didn't take any of his friends' deaths well, but Dean's death was especially painful. At the time, Dean was still grieving for his own son, Dean Jr., who died in a plane crash in 1987.
My dad may have been old school in certain ways, but he was on top of all the new technology. He stayed on the Internet until the end. He and I started his official website together (now franksinatra.com). He loved it. He'd read comments from fans all over the world and dictate his thanks to them through me. (I did the typing.) It made him happy to see people who were as young as 14 or 15, who had discovered his music, writing to him.
"Please keep this site going," he said to me. "It's really a great way to stay in touch." I'm so glad he was able to see that before he died.
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Steve Wynn
Casino/resort owner
He told me, "You sing the song. If the take is good, you're done."
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I used to pick him up from his home in Palm Springs so we could take him on my plane to Atlantic City, where he performed at my casino, the Golden Nugget. We had a lot of time to talk then. One time on the plane, I asked him, "How do you do it?"
He had a Jack Daniels in his hand, and he turned to me and said, "Do what?"
"How do you record a song?" I asked. I wanted to know how the magic was created.
He resisted at first, but then he told me: "I take a sheet with just the lyrics. No music. At that point, I'm looking at a poem. I'm trying to understand the point of view of the person behind the words. I want to understand his emotions. Then I start speaking, not singing, the words so I can experiment and get the right inflections. When I get with the orchestra, I sing the words without a microphone first, so I can adjust the way I've been practicing to the arrangement. I'm looking to fit the emotion behind the song that I've come up with to the music. Then it all comes together. You sing the song. If the take is good, you're done."
Did you know he only recorded "My Way" once and then walked out of the studio?
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Tony Bennett
Singer-entertainer
Frank taught us how to make art seem effortless. It looks easy. But it takes years to learn.
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In the 1950s, I was brand new in this business. But I was given a summer replacement TV show to fill in the slot that Perry Como had. The network gave me a bad stage, a small orchestra and very few guests. I thought I was going to fail. This was in New York, and Frank happened to be playing at the Paramount at the time. Now, he's 10 years older than me, and he's a star. But I wanted to take the chance to meet him and ask him for advice. People told me not to, that he could be temperamental. But I did it anyway.
I got to his dressing room, and he turned to me and asked, "What is it, son? What do you need?" I told him what I was going to be doing and how full of panic and nervousness I was. His advice changed my life. "The public likes it when you're nervous," he told me. "They'll see that you care, and they'll want to help you out. They'll applaud you to make you feel more comfortable."
He asked me if I watched the horse races. Frank loved horse racing. "On a racetrack, nervousness is the sign of a great thoroughbred," he said. "He's got all kinds of butterflies. He's the hardest horse to get into the gate, and he's the fastest horse out of it." From that moment on, Frank was always looking out for me.
He invited me out to his home for a party in California once. At first, I was a bit miffed. I was seated in this room in front of a little card table, like I was a kid being sent to the playroom. I could hear Frank and the Rat Pack guys laughing in the kitchen. So I turn to this man that I'm sitting next to and introduce myself. That man turns to me and says, "I'm Mario Giannini. I run Bank of America." I couldn't be mad any longer, right? Frank was looking out for me again, getting me in a good social situation with a top executive.
Today, I'm proud of the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts, which my wife and I founded in his memory in my hometown in Queens. It's a place where kids learn all about the arts and hopefully go on to college and then Broadway and other places to hone their craft. Frank taught us all how to make great art seem effortless and what to leave in and what to leave out. It looks easy. But it takes years to learn.
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Gay Talese
Author ("A Writer's Life") who wrote "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold" -- one of the most influential works in magazine writing -- for "Esquire" in 1966
I didn't want my fond impression to be crushed.
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I didn't want to meet him. Sinatra allowed Italian-Americans like me to take pride in ourselves. I didn't want my fond impression to be crushed. My editors at "Esquire," however, insisted.
An interview in Los Angeles was arranged. But I got a call at my hotel from his publicist, who said Frank Sinatra had a cold and he wouldn't be doing any interviews. I didn't go home. I spent three months going to places in L.A. and Vegas where he showed up. He never gave me the interview. After it was published, I thought it was a complimentary piece. But he never told me what he thought of it.
Years later, I was invited to the home of Bennett Cerf, co-founder and publisher of Random House. Sinatra was there. He knew who I was. He was sitting at a table, saw me and then moved to a farther end of the table and mainly focused on listening to a baseball game on the radio. He never said a word to me, positive or negative, the entire time. I didn't know what to make of that.
Then, after he died, I was invited to speak at an event for him. His daughter Tina was there. She came up to me and said, "My family really appreciated and enjoyed your article. You were one of the only writers who got who my father really was." Then, I guess the fact that he didn't speak to me made sense. When someone gets too close to the reality of who you are, it's best to not comment at all about it. You don't criticize it. You don't praise it. You just let it lay there.
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Douglas Brinkley
Historian ("The Reagan Diaries")
My parents always played a lot of Frank Sinatra's records. One that always resonated with me was "Cycles," about life's ups and downs. I'd play it over and over again, even though I was only 9 years old at the time. Even at that age, I could appreciate how the sense of melancholy and the songwriting and singing all came together.
When his songs come on, he's there with you.
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As I got older, I gravitated toward the Bob Dylans and Neil Youngs of the world. But at Ohio State, I worked at a record store, and the hippest guy I knew -- a guy with cool dreadlocks -- played and discussed all the great music, like reggae and new wave and punk. But he was always talking about how great Sinatra was. "Sinatra never goes out of fashion," he'd say. "He is always cool."
That's when I realized that Sinatra's music didn't have generational limitations. And it didn't matter that he got conservative politically, or that he had tabloid run-ins, or that he didn't dress like the rock stars. He transcended all of that. His music was timeless. His voice conveyed all the sadness in all the midnight bars in every city in America. When you're eating in a steakhouse and one of his songs come on, you feel like he's right there with you. The 20th century would have been much less without him.
How did Sinatra's music affect you? Leave us your comments.
Back in the day: Frank Sinatra on the cover as part of a 1988 USA WEEKEND cover story.
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