CAIO, FRANK SINATRA

Ciao, Frank

I worked many Frank Sinatra concerts over the years. Heck, I even paid to see him, once prior to being a stagehand and once while I was in the business. I worked the Rat Pack Tour in 1988 just after Dean Martin pleaded sickness and was replaced by Lisa Minnelli. The tour was just two years after Sinatra was hospitalized with a serious intestinal malady. It hadn’t slowed him down. His road manager told me that Martin left, not because of illness, but because of the antics of Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr., like lighting firecrackers in the hotel corridors late at night.

But his age and past life caught up with him soon after. His heart, his lungs, his stomach began to slow him down. And he developed a form of dementia. One of his last concerts took place at the Met Ice Arena in Bloomington, MN., during the Super Bowl Week festivities in the Twin Cities in 1992. He had regressed greatly since I worked him in 88.

I got a hint of his problems during the stage set up. We put three very large video monitors across the front stage. In the test I saw the words to songs Sinatra had sung for years. The band was conducted, not by names like Nelson Riddle or Buddy Rich, but Frank Sinatra Jr., whose main concern was not so much the conducting as taking care of his father.

After sound check Jr. left to bring his father to the arena. I was there when he helped Frank out the limo in the corridor. Of all the times I worked Frank Sinatra he always pointed at me and said he remembered the hat. Always. He had always joked with the stagehands, but not this time. He looked only at his son.

I held a flashlight and walking backwards up the escape stairs to the stage shined it so Frank could see the steps, while Jr. followed, placing a reassuring hand on his father’s back.

He was breathing heavily as he struggled up the stairs. He paused midway up and spoke.

‘Hey, kid, where did you say we were?

‘Minneapolis, Pop.’

‘I’ve been here before, haven’t I?’

‘Couple years ago on the Rat Pack tour.’

‘They with me tonight?’

‘No, Pop. Just you. You’re the big act for the Super Bowl shindig.’

‘Super Bowl! Who won?’

‘It’s next Sunday, Pop. We’ll watch on TV at home’.

I tried to swallow the lump that was in my throat. We waited stage left as the band played the introduction. Stage lights to dim and Jr. brought his dad to the large glow tape X where the vocal mic stand stood. Frank took the mic, held it the right distance from his mouth and launched into his first song, Night And Day’.

His voice was raspy but he still pronounced the lyrics distinct as he always did. He gave a good performance, relying on help from the video monitors. A few times he went up searching for what was next in the song; but Jr. and the band covered until he was back on track.

His familiar music was working a transformation. With each song’s ending, he seemed to regain more and more of his personality. His old patter returned, the wise cracks, even his remembering that it was Super Bowl week. But his voice was sounding more and more tired. Near the hour mark of the concert, the band cut loose with ‘Come Fly With Me’. At the end of the song, the stage lights went down. The applause erupted. The lights came back full and Sinatra sang ‘My Life’.

‘Each time I find myself flat on my face,

I just pick myself up and get back in the race.’

The lights dimmed and the applause was louder than before. Sinatra’s encores always consisted of six or more song; but when the stage lights returned, Frank was at the top of the escape stairs with Frank Jr. and me and my flashlight.

‘Do I go back on, Kid?’

‘No, Pop. We’re going back to the hotel and then fly home tomorrow.’

‘Good. I’m tired.’

Thank goodness the set had not included Frank singing ‘My Way’; but each time I hear that song and the words

‘And now the end is near and I must face the final curtain’,

I think back on the last Frank Sinatra concert I worked.

Frank Sinatra died two years later.

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A VERY SPECIAL PERSON

When Frank Sinatra found out that the Will Maston Trio, with Sammy Davis Jr., could perform at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, but they could stay in the rooms there. They had to stay in a Hotel for black entertainers in North Vegas, Sinatra told the Sands management, either they are allowed the same privileges s white entertainers, he would never play at the Sands.

The Sands quickly gave in and before long every casino in Vegas gave in also.

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Kennedys

When Sinatra heard that JFK planned to have a short vacation in Palm Springs, CA, Sinatra invited him to stay at his home and even built a helipad for the visit. When Bobby Kennedy heard about it, he hit the roof. He said Sinatra was involved with Mafia figures, and Bobby as Attorney General, was trying to eliminate the Mafia. Bobby arranged for JFK to go to Bing Crosby’s house instead.

Sinatra never talked to Bobby Kennedy or Bing Crosby, that ‘wonderful father’, again.

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Sinatra was close with JFK. Through Sinatra. JFK met Marilyn Monroe and Judith Campbell, when JFK was just a senator. Peter Lawford, the actor, was married to JFK’s sister, Pat, and was also a member of Sinatra’s Rat Pack. Joseph Kennedy tried to become friends with Sinatra in order to use Sinatra’s association with some Mafia figures to help influence the unions’ votes, offering Sinatra a position in the JFK administration as a prize.

With good reason, Jacky despised Sinatra. But since Sinatra was one of the first to endorse JFK to run for the Presidency, she held back on her criticism. (Years later her and Sinatra went on a dinner date.)

Another Sinatra hater was J. Edgar Hoover, the little pervert that ran the FBI and blackmail so many celebrities. When he tried his blackmail on Sinatra, Sinatra just laughed and said, go ahead, you can’t tell anyone anything they don’t know already.

Sinatra and his Pack worked their tails off for the election of JFK, and Sinatra held a big party the night before the inauguration with Sinatra and friends entertaining, except for one…Sammy Davis Jr.

The reason being Davis had married a white woman.

Sinatra exploded and told JFK where to go. Sinatra switched alliance, became a Republican and worked for Republican candidates up until Hubert Humphrey ran. From then on, Sinatra endorsed and worked hard for the Democrats.

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My wife and I went to a big concert to raise money for Sinatra. There were some great entertainers on the bill. Sinatra, Buddy Rich, 5^th Dimension, Dean Martin. But true to form, Martin canceled at the last minute. Sinatra sang five songs but the audience wouldn’t let him go during his encores.

It was estimated he sang close to twenty songs to please the audience.

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Sinatra on the screen

Documentary: The House I Live In – 1945

The song came from a musical, Let Freedom Sing, and Sinatra sang it in concerts and on the radio. Mervin LeRoy and others got together and wrote script for a ten minute short starring Frank Sinatra, to combat anti-Semitism at the end of WWII.

It received an honorary Academy Award and in 2007 was inducted into the Library of Congress to preserve it for prosperity. It is in public domain and can be viewed :https://www.nypl.org/blog/2015/06/29/house-i-live

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Musicals

Naturally, his start in pictures would involve singing and he sang and Gene Kelly danced in a series of films such as On The Town. His big budget films were movies like Pal Joey, Guys and Dolls, High Society.

In almost all of them, he played second fiddle, not the lead.

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Dramatic Movies

Who would have thought, back in the 40’s, that ‘The Voice’ would be a critically acclaimed dramatic actor. When 1950 came, Sinatra found himself in a bad fix, he had no recording or movie contract. Work on the radio and singing in concerts was also nil. One rumor had it that when he ditched his wife, Nancy, and married Ave Gardner, he ticked off ticked off some of the ‘family’ that helped him along the way, like threatening Tommy Dorsey to release Sinatra from his contact.

Sinatra, and possibly only Sinatra, thought he was perfect for the role of Maggio, the wise cracking private, who gets beaten to death, in the to-be-made film version of From Here To Eternity. He campaigned to get the role.

One version has it that the ‘family’ that had backed him, came to his rescue by terrorizing the producer. Another version is Ava Gardner got him the part. He took the role for peanuts, $8,000.

He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Within weeks, he signed a lucrative seven year recording contract with Columbia.

The first song he recorded under the contract was I Got The World On A String.

He was back, baby, he was back.

Some say his best dramatic acting came as the drug addict in The Man With The Golden Arm. Others say it was in The Manchurian Candidate. Others contend that playing the role of the presidential assassin in Suddenly, was his best. It was certainly not his favorite because he felt the theme was too much like The Manchurian Candidate

and after JFK in Dallas, just too much to stomach.

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Rat Pack aka The Clan

Oceans Eleven, Robin and the Seven Hoods are good examples of Rat Pack movies. Although, it contained Frank, Dean Martin, and Shirley MacClain, and no others from the Rat Pack, Some Came Running, falls in this category. It was based on the novel by James Jones, who also wrote From Here To Eternity. While it wasn’t the best of Sinatra, who was in a constant battle with the director, Minnelli, it is perhaps Dean Martin’s best work.

(Even though Sinatra didn’t like Minnelli, when Dean Martin walked off the Rat Pack Tour, Sinatra replaced him with Liza Minnelli. Vince’s daughter. That was the second time Martin quit befoer he played the Twin Cities. It was also the second time I had the privilege of working the very talented ‘Liza with a Z’)

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Detective Movies

Frank Sinatra played the role of a detective in many movies like his Tony Rome series, and movies based on Lawrence Sander’s novels. He played the lead in The Detective, an above average police movie.

An accident during the filming of The Manchurian Candidate caused him to turn down a role written with him in mind. He had hurt his wrist and passed on Dirty Harry because he felt he would have a hard time handling Harry’s gun.

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AWARDS

Grammys: Even though the Grammys weren’t around for the peak Sinatra years, he still amassed 11, plus The Grammy Trustees Award, The Grammy Legend Award, The Grammy Lifetime Award.

Emmys: Never won but was nominated 4 times

Radio – The Peabody Award for Excellence In Radio

Multi nominations and wins in The Golden Globes. etc

Academy Awards, one win, several nominations, The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award

Other Very Special Awards ;

Kennedy Center Honor

Presidential Medal of Freedom

Congressional Gold Medal

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Not Bad For

Hoboken’s Favorite Son

FRANK SINATRA

CIAO, FRANK