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| Birth Name(s) : Frank Sinatra |
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Full Frank Sinatra Biography
Francis Albert Sinatra (December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American jazz-oriented popular singer and Academy Award-winning actor.
In September 1951, Sinatra made his Las Vegas debut at the Desert Inn. A month later, a second series of the Frank Sinatra Show aired on CBS. On November 7, 1951, Sinatra married Ava Gardner. They had an extremely tempestuous relationship, and the ascent of Gardner's career seemed to coincide with the decline in Sinatra's career. They split up in 1953 and divorced in 1957.
By the end of the year, Billboard named "Young at Heart" Song of the Year, Swing Easy! (his second album for Capitol) was named Album of the Year and Sinatra was named "Top Male Vocalist" by Billboard, Down Beat and Metronome.
Released in 1955, Sinatra's first 12" LP In the Wee Small Hours was also his first collaboration with Nelson Riddle.
A second collaboration with Nelson Riddle, Songs For Swingin' Lovers, was a success, featuring a historic recording of "I've Got You Under My Skin"
Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely was a stark collection of introspective saloon songs and blues-tinged ballads, it was a mammoth commercial success, peaking at #1 on Billboard's album chart during a 120-week stay, whilst cuts from this LP such as "Angel Eyes" and "One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)" would remains staples of Sinatra's concerts until the very end.
In November 1970, Sinatra performed in London's Royal Festival Hall with the Count Basie orchestra, in a charity benefit for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. The shows were taped for a BBC special, Sinatra: In Concert at The Royal Festival Hall. Sinatra later said of this concert “I have a funny feeling that those two nights could have been my finest hour really. It went so well; it was so thrilling and exciting”.
In 1973 Sinatra came out of retirement with a television special and album, both entitled Ol' Blue Eyes Is Back. The album, arranged by Gordon Jenkins and Don Costa, was a great success, reaching number 13 on Billboard and number 12 in the UK. The TV special was highlighted by a dramatic reading of "Send in the Clowns" and a song and dance sequence with former co-star Gene Kelly.
In January 1974, Sinatra returned to Las Vegas, performing at Caesar's Palace. This, despite vowing in 1970 never to play Caesar's Palace again, after the manager of Caesar's, Sanford Waterman, had pulled a gun on him during a heated argument. With Waterman having been recently sacked, the door was open for Sinatra to return.
The following year, Sinatra built on the success of Trilogy with She Shot Me Down, an album that revisited the dark tone of his Capitol years, and was praised by critics as a vintage late-period Sinatra. Sinatra would comment himself that it was "A complete saloon album... tear-jerkers and cry-in-your-beer kind of things".
In 1984, for the first time in decades, Sinatra publicly returned to his birthplace in Hoboken, New Jersey, bringing President Reagan with him.
1990 saw Sinatra celebrate his 75th birthday with a national tour, and he was awarded the second "Ella Award" by the Los Angeles–based Society of Singers. At the award ceremony, he performed for the final time with Ella Fitzgerald.
After moving to Hollywood, Los Angeles, Sinatra's extramarital affairs with the actresses Lana Turner and Marilyn Maxwell were causing public embarrassment for Barbato, and she aborted a third child in 1946 . A third child, Tina Sinatra was born in 1948.
In 1976, Sinatra married Barbara Blakeley Marx (formerly married to Zeppo Marx), who converted to Catholicism to marry him. She remained his wife until his death, although her relations with Sinatra's children were consistently portrayed as stormy, something Nancy Sinatra confirmed when she publicly claimed that Barbara had not bothered to call Frank's children even when the end was near, although they were close by, and the children missed the opportunity to be at their father's bedside when he died.
Sinatra had three children with his first wife, Nancy Barbato: Nancy Sinatra (born June 8, 1940), Frank Sinatra, Jr. (born January 10, 1944), and Christina "Tina" Sinatra (born June 20, 1948). Although Sinatra did not remain faithful to his wife, he was by many accounts a devoted father.
He had associations with and did favours for Charles Fischetti, a notorious Chicago mobster dating back to 1946 (according to the FBI). Sinatra was also friends with Charles's brother Joseph who ran the Fontainebleau Hotel complex in Miami, who arranged work for him and introduced him to Charles Luciano in Havana. After Luciano's deportation to Italy, Sinatra visited him at least twice, singing at a 1946 Christmas Party and gifting the famed mobster with a gold cigarette case engraved "To my dear pal Charlie, from his friend Frank" the next year.
In the United States, Frank Sinatra has appeared in commercials for Steve Wynn's Golden Nugget casino, and for Michelob beer (singing "The Way You Look Tonight"). He posthumously appeared in a 2004 commercial for Visa. In Japan, Frank Sinatra appeared in commercials for All Nippon Airways. He also posthumously appeared in a 2002 commercial for the Special Edition Ford Thunderbird. |
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