Sinatra

by Anthony Summers

  18 Dolly/adult FS: (“Yes, mama”) Look, Jun. 11, 1957; (“Okay, mom”) int. Peter Levinson; (“avoiding”) int. Peggy Connelly; (“She was a pisser”) Shirley MacLaine, My Lucky Stars, New York: Bantam, 1995, 85; (devastated) Sinatra, Legend, 252–, int. Rock Brynner; (only children) Robert Needham, MD, “Only Children,” Benjamin Spock, MD, “Spoiling, Why We Do It,” www.drspock.com.

  19 World War I/Hoboken: (troopships) Freedland, 8, The Official Record of the United States Part in the Great War, U.S. Government, chap. 3, 35–; (“Heaven, Hell”) “The Abridged History of Hoboken,” Hoboken Museum; (bars closed) Kelley, 13; (bars sprang up) M/G int. of Nick Sevano, Hoboken History, iss. 17, 1997, Hoboken Vigilance Committee to President Herbert Hoover, Jul. 1, 1929, Larson Papers, Box 21, Bk. 151, New Jersey State Archives.

  19 Marty’s bar: (money borrowed) New York, Apr. 28, 1980, Carpozi, 9; (“bar and grill”) FS int. by Zion, Hamill, 77; (bounce drunks) M/G int. of Nick Sevano, int. John Marotta, Hamill, 84; (Marty/horse) Sinatra, My Father, 3, int. Rose Paldino; (“a quiet, gentle guy”) int. Tony Oppedisano.

  19 Prohibition/Sinatras: (“new ball game”) Wolf with DiMona, 33; (key transit point) Sciacca, Sinatra, 93, Hoboken History, iss. 17, 1997, Wolf with DiMona, 48, Shaw, 9.

  19–20 “He aided”: FS int. by Zion. The timing of this incident is unclear. In his Yale interview, Sinatra indicated that it preceded the opening of his father’s bar, but the Sinatras are said to have opened the bar “before Prohibition.” That could mean before Prohibition came to New Jersey in 1917, or before national Prohibition, which began in January 1920.

  20 Marty/Waxey Gordon: (“one of the tough guys”) FS int. by Zion; (“rub elbows”) Sinatra, Legend, 22; (Luciano) Sciacca, Luciano, 65–, Sifakis, 143, Jonathan Van Meter, The Last Good Time, New York: Crown, 2003, 48, (Bologna, Italy) Il Resto del Carlino, Nov. 20, 1954; (“a regular”) Hamill, 80.

  20 FS in bar: (homework) int. Tony Oppedisano; (sing) Hamill, 87, and FS cited on cbsnews.com, May 19, 1998.

  20 Dominick/Lawrence: see chapter 2; (Dolly close) ints. Frank Monaco, Rose Paldino; (Lawrence selling liquor) Jersey Observer, Mar. 13, 1919.

  20 American Express murder: NYT, Feb. 1, 1922. Pete Hamill, at p. 73, and Kitty Kelley, at p. 14–, wrote that this incident involved a “Railway Express” driver. According to the New York Times of Feb. 1, 1922, it was an American Express messenger who was killed; (other holdups/murder) ibid.; (policeman shot) NYT, Feb. 4, 1922; (killer named) Jersey Journal, Jan. 31, 1922—the Gordon associate was Carl Rettich, ibid., and Providence Sunday Journal, Apr. 28, 1935, Providence Journal, Feb. 14, 1950; (trial) Hamill, 73, Kelley, 14–.

  20–21 Lawrence after prison: (lived with Sinatras) int. Frank Monaco; (FS adored) Jersey City Chronicle, Jul. 22, 1978, Star, Nov. 27, 1979; (shootout) Jersey Journal, Apr. 15, 1931—car was found at 415 Madison Street, while the Monaco family home was at 417/418 Madison; (FS/Josie) Look, May 28, 1957; (father-in-law/liquor violations case) int. Frank Monaco, Hudson Observer, Feb. 20, 1919; (gangster gunned down) Sinatra, Legend, 22—the gangster was Joe Miotta, Look, May 28, 1957; (Schultz used Italians) Jack Lait and Lee Mortimer, Chicago Confidential, New York: Crown, 1950, 169; (Luciano) Sciacca, Luciano, 113, Leonard Katz, Uncle Frank, London: W. H. Allen, 1974, 95—though eventually, in 1935, he was a prime suspect in Schultz’s murder.

  21 other gangsters: (“My dad grew up”) Hersh, 138; (Fischettis) ints. Matthew Donohue, Bob Buccino, Hoboken city directories 1915–62, U.S. Census, 1920 and 1930, int. and corr. Rocco Fischetti, “Joseph John Fischetti,” memo, Jul. 24, 1972, FBI 92-3024, 15, “Misc. Information Crime Survey,” Sep. 26, 1946, FBI 62-8861-531; (close to FS) int. Anthony Petrozelli; (Fischettis in touch) ints. David Fagen, Jack Clarke, “Biographical Summary,” Jul. 16, 1957, “Joseph John Fischetti,” memo, Jul. 24, 1972, FBI 92-3024, 15, Rocco Fischetti File, FBI 63-HQ-599-10, Chicago Field Office Report, Rocco Fischetti, Dec. 23, 1967, FBI 92-2915—1, Apr. 24, 1964, FBI 92-2915-48, Virgil Peterson, Barbarians in Our Midst, Boston: Little, Brown, 1952, 158; (Joe “Stingy”) Lait and Mortimer, 183; (“top hoodlum”) “Correlation Summary,” Feb. 25, 1969, FSFBI; (entertainmentindustry) Assistant Attorney General Herbert Miller to William Hundley, Jan. 22, 1964, Department of Justice, Organized Crime Division, 70A-3642-71; (close companion) Wall Street Journal, Aug. 19, 1968, ints. Peggy Connelly, Peggy Maley; (“youngsters”) “Joseph John Fischetti” memo, Feb. 28, 1963, citing interview of Fischetti, FBI 92-3024-58, p. 15; (Alo) Miami Herald, Apr. 8, 2001, int. Ken Roberts.

  21 Sinatras moved up: (apartment) Sinatra, My Father, 5.

  21 firefighter: “Sinatra Tour,” Hoboken Historical Museum, Freedland, 6, Fire Department records, Hoboken Fire Department Museum, (Newark, NJ) Sunday Star Ledger, Jan. 26, 1969, Esquire, Apr. 1966, New Yorker, Nov. 9, 1946. Marty Sinatra was promoted to captain at the Hoboken Fire Department in 1944; (joke) Hoboken History, issue 17, 1997.

  21 kept Marty O’Brien’s going: “Sinatra Tour,” Hoboken Historical Museum, Sinatra, My Father, 35–.

  22 FS childhood from age twelve: (“grand piano”) Photoplay, Sep. 1956; (“blendingsaxophones”) George Simon, The Big Bands, London: Collier-Macmillan, 1967, vii; (Marty’s mother) int. Rose Paldino, Rose Sinatra death certificate— the powerful earthquake was the same day, Feb. 28, 1925; (Francesco) Photoplay, Sep. 1956; (“sweet old gent”/exhortations) ibid., Aug. 1945; (“Pops’s whole life”) Photoplay, Sep. 1956; (clothes) Freedland, 13, Time, Aug. 29, 1955, Carpozi, 11; (gifts to friends) Shaw, 10, Shirak, 81, Look, May 28, 1957; (Silvers) ibid.; (car) Carpozi, 15, Wilson, 20, Kelley, 27; (“prince”) M/G int. Nick Sevano.

  22–23 schooling: (trouble) Shirak, 9; (cousin Sam) Sinatra, My Father, 5, int. Rose Ellman Sinatra; (certificate) Sinatra, Legend, 21; (“lazy”/“No talent”) Kelley, 27; (record card) Look, May 28, 1957; (“School was very uninteresting”) American Weekly, Jul. 27, 1952; (cut classes) Freedland, 15–; (Hudson Burlesque)int. Frank Monaco.

  23 dropped out?/expelled?: NYT, Jun. 30, 1981, Photoplay, Sep. 1956, American Weekly, Jul. 27, 1952. Hoboken had a junior and senior high school system in those days. Students attended junior high school through the end of ninth grade. Sinatra began at Demarest High School in the tenth grade—apparently in February 1931 (NYT, Jun. 30, 1981, Shaw, 7, int. Frank Monaco).

  23 FS trouble in youth: (“Angles”/pigeons/cat) Time, Aug. 29, 1955; (firecrackers)Shirak, 103; (cherry bombs) ints. Rock Brynner, George Jacobs, Star, Feb. 17, 1976, citing Peter Lawford; (“a bunch of us”) Photoplay, Aug. 1945; (other stories) American Weekly, Jul. 27, 1952; (“All I knew”/“The kids”) Cosmopolitan, May 1956, American Weekly, Jul. 27, 1952.

  23–25 violence/fighting: (Klan) Photoplay, Oct. 1945; (“I would hear”) Hamill, 38; (“I skirted”) FS int. in CBS News special; (“A big kid”) Wilson, 17; (“bitter, bloody”) Ebony, Jul. 1958; (“everyone carried”) Freedland, 9; (“Sometimes”) Hamill, 49; (buck teeth) draft for Movieland, Aug. 15, 1946, MHL; (“a Coke bottle”) ibid.—another version of this story suggests it was a milk bottle, Don Dwiggins, 5; (bicycle chain?) Cosmopolitan, May 1956; (“I was hit”) draft for Movieland, Aug. 15, 1946, MHL; (Dominick) Sciacca, Sinatra, 102; (“used to show”) Hamill, 58; (“I was five”) Jersey Journal, Apr. 25, 1983; (“My favorite exercise”) draft for Movieland, Jun. 11, 1945, MHL; (publicity photos) New JerseyMonthly, Feb. 1982; (worked out/gyms) Shaw, 57; (“ownership” of heavyweights) draft Movieland, Jun. 11, 1945, draft for Blue Ribbon, undated 1943, MHL; (“Anybody hits you”) FS to Sammy Cahn, Oct. 29, 1991, courtesy of Tita Cahn; (“gang fights”/“plainclothesmen”) American Weekly, Jul. 27, 1952, Cosmopolitan, May 1956; (“Many of the kids”) Parade, Jan. 12, 1964; (“Everyonein my”) Kelley, 142; (reform school/jail) Photoplay, Aug. 1945; (Sevano) M/G int. of Nick Sevano; (“no gang fights”) Sciacca, Sinatra, 12.

  25 “never had a fight”: Westbrook Pegler column in New York Journal-American, Sep. 13, 1960—Pegler misidentified the speaker as “Frank Garavanti [sic].” According to Frank Monaco,
who was present during the conversation, he was in fact Lawrence “Buddy” Garaventa, Sinatra’s cousin; (“That stuff”) Look, May 28, 1957.

  25–26 parents’ career hopes: (“Her way”/“terribly upset”) int. Rose Paldino. Sinatra’s daughter Nancy, in her book Legend, ascribes a different response to Dolly. According to her, Dolly had wanted her son to become the family’s first college graduate. The authors, however, have accepted the account of Rose Paldino, Sinatra’s contemporary. In 1985, when Sinatra was almost seventy, he would receive an honorary doctorate in engineering from the Stevens Institute. Many undergraduates signed a petition objecting to the honor, noting that he had no distinction in the field of engineering and alluding to his recent run-in with the New Jersey Casino Control Commission (Dolly—Sinatra, Legend, 20; honorary doctorate —Jersey Journal, May 10, 1985); (drawing/father hoped) Star, May 6, 1986, draft for Movieland, Sep. 11, 1954, MHL, intro. by Tina Sinatra, A Man and His Art: Frank Sinatra, New York: Random House, 1991, viii; (FS had encouraged) Sinatra, Legend, 20–; (“I didn’t want”) ibid., 22, 21; (“If I had the chance”) ed. Guy Yarwood, Sinatra in His Own Words, London: Omnibus, 1982, 14, and see ints. Nick Sevano, Tony Oppedisano, Rock Brynner; (“cellophane”) int. Frank Sinatra Jr., undated, Arnold Shaw Collection, University of Nevada, Las Vegas; (“He craved”) int. Brad Dexter; (“that there was only”) Photoplay, Aug. 1945.

  26 first jobs: (Casey Jones School) New Jersey Monthly, Feb. 1982; (Drake) Shaw, 7, Goldmine, Mar. 22, 1991; ( Jersey Observer) New Yorker, Nov. 9, 1946, Metronome, May 1943, Sinatra’s Diamond Jubilee World Tour program, Look, May 28, 1957 (citing Mrs. Charles Brody, editor’s widow), Kelley, 28, 500, and see FS entry in Who’s Who in America, 1948.

  26 desirable part of town: “Sinatra Tour,” Hoboken Historical Museum, author’s visit, int. Frank Monaco, Sarah Vowell, Take the Cannoli, New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000, 74—the address was 841 Garden Street.

  26–27 FS yearnings: (“Be proud”) Wilson, 17; (resented) Photoplay, Aug. 1945; (la via vecchia) Gambino, 3–, and see excellent analysis at Hamill, 50; (“shoemakers”) Newsweek, Jul. 23, 1945; (“an affinity”) int. Tony Oppedisano; (“mudhole”) Philadelphia Inquirer, May 6, 1984; (“sewer”) Vowell, 73; (“just wanted”) Hamill, 51; (trains as child) A Man and His Art, x, Taraborrelli, 489, USA Weekend,Dec. 18, 1988; (train room) int. Jackie Jordan, Architectural Digest, Dec. 1998, Jacobs and Stadiem, 247; (ferries) transcript, FS int. for Larry King Live, CNN, May 19, 1998, rerun of 1988 program; (photograph) Shirak, first picture section.

  27 FS meets Nancy Barbato: FS twice said early on that “the year I met Nancy” was “the summer I was fifteen,” which would date their meeting as summer 1931. Passages in his daughter Nancy’s book Frank Sinatra: An American Legend have placed the meeting later. This quotes her mother as saying she and FS had dated for four and a half years before their marriage in 1939, a reference perhaps to when the relationship became serious rather than to their initial meeting. We have used Sinatra’s own early recollection as to their meeting (draft for Movieland, Oct. 1945, MHL, Photoplay, Sep. 1945, Sinatra, Legend, 22, 33).

  27–28 Nancy Barbato: (dance) Kelley, 27; (fourteen) Nancy was born Mar. 25, 1917; (Long Branch) int. Frank Monaco, Photoplay, Sep. 1945; (“The first time”) ibid.; (“That summer”) draft for Movieland, Oct. 1945, MHL; (snow) Redbook, Oct. 1951; (background) U.S. Census, Jersey City, NJ, 1915, 1920, and 1930; (Barbatos’ welcome) Sinatra with Coplon, 18, Redbook, Oct. 1951, Sinatra, Legend, 24; (“I was a poor”) American Weekly, Jul. 20, 1952.

  Chapter 4: “I’m Going to Be a Singer”

  29–30 music in childhood: (“Sometimes I think”) Hamill, 98; (parents’ bar) FS address, Zion Lecture Series; (family and music) Sciacca, Sinatra, 103, int. Rose Paldino; (Dolly/guitar) Frank, 13; (cousin) Sinatra, My Father, 17—cousin was Fred Tredy, int. Frank Monaco; (Ray Sinatra) Variety, Nov. 7, 1980; (St. Francis’s)Freedland, 15, int. Rose Paldino, Metronome, May 1943, Chicago’s American, Sep. 25, 1966; (“at some hotel”) Life, Jun. 25, 1971; (Lawrence) Jersey Dispatch, Jun. 23, 1977; (Dominick/ukulele) Sciacca, Sinatra, 103, and see Variety, Jan. 27, 1989, int. Tony Oppedisano; (“He was the only”) Carpozi, 22; (serenaded Nancy) Dwiggins, 9, Sinatra, Legend, 22; (“The cheers kept”) Chicago’s American,Sep. 25, 1966; (baby grand/phone) Sinatra, Legend, 21; (society page) Kelley, 31; (a few jobs) Sinatra, Legend, 21–.

  30–31 first appearances: (“In exchange”) Kelley, 33–, and see draft for Movieland, Jun. 11, 1945, MHL; (Marty allowed) M/G int. of Nick Sevano; (Madison Street) Chicago’s American, Sep. 25, 1966; Sciacca, Sinatra, 104; (social clubs/women’s groups) Dwiggins, 7, Wall Street Journal, May 19, 1998, New Jersey Monthly, Feb. 1982, Look, May 28, 1957; (parties/meetings) “Old Blue Eyes at 75!” Starlog Communications, 1990; Chicago’s American, Sep. 25, 1966; (“I performed”) Sinatra’s Diamond Jubilee World Tour program; (Fabian’s Follies) “Sinatra Tour,” Hoboken Historical Museum; (Cockeyed Henny’s) New Jersey Monthly, Feb. 1982; (“Frankie would sneak in”) int. and corr. Rocco Fischetti; (Catholic Union) Michael Immerso, Newark’s Little Italy, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press; 1997, 118; (“People began”) FS int. by Zion; (“monologist”) Life, Apr. 23, 1965.

  31–32 Bing Crosby: (“A short time”) Sciacca, Sinatra, 104. Sinatra’s Aunt Josie, who said she remembered it “like it was yesterday,” placed the Crosby concert as having occurred at the Paramount in New York City, “in the summer he was seventeen”—which was 1933. The singer’s early biographer, Arnold Shaw, dated the Crosby appearance to March 1933. An article drawing on a 1943 interview of FS suggests it took place in 1935, as did a later quotation of his wife Nancy. E. J. Kahn of the New Yorker, writing in 1946, suggested it was in 1936. Several sources place the concert in a Jersey City vaudeville house, while FS, in a 1948 interview, referred to having made the decision after seeing a Crosby movie (Josie—Sciacca, Sinatra, 104; Shaw—Shaw, Sinatra, 13; 1943 interview—Blue Ribbon; Nancy— Sinatra, Legend, 25; Kahn—New Yorker, Nov. 9, 1946, and see Cosmopolitan, May 1956; Crosby movie?—Silver Screen, Mar. 24, 1948); (Most people”) Saturday Evening Post, Aug. 24, 1946; (“Someday”) Sinatra, Legend, 25; (FS recalled) Murray Frymer article, Sinatra Society of Las Vegas, undat., Feb. 1980, corr. George Giacomini, University of Santa Clara; (“From the time”/“Will Rogers”) Chicago’s American, Sep. 25, 1966, Billboard, Nov. 20, 1965; (songs to make love to) Sheilah Graham, My Hollywood, London: Michael Joseph, 1984, 44; (“the biggest thing”/“Bing was my first”) Hamill, 100, unid. clip, ?Variety, Aug. 1943, MHL; (“standing on street corners”) Freedland, 16, and see Sciacca, Sinatra, 105; (“My father said”) int. James Petrozelli; (publicity photo—1938) Star, May 6, 1986; (rehearsals) E. J. Kahn, The Voice: The Story of an American Phenomenon,New York: Harper, 1946, 11; (“sang so easily”/“He was so relaxed”) Blue Ribbon, ca. 1943, MHL, Hamill, 88.

  32 parents’ reaction: (“threw a shoe”) Carpozi, 18; (“obsessed”) M/G int. of Nick Sevano; (“I remember”) A Conversation with Frank Sinatra, Bill Boggs, Metromedia TV, 1975, and see LAHE, Sep. 27, 1975; (“He didn’t speak”) FS int. by Zion.

  32 FS left home: Douglas-Home, 21. In her book Legend, Sinatra’s daughter Nancy dates her father’s eviction to early 1932, when he was sixteen. In an earlier interview, however, Sinatra himself recalled having left home when he was seventeen—which means the very last days of 1932, or in 1933 (Sinatra, Legend, 21–, Douglas-Home, 21); (“They call me”) New York Post, Apr. 11, 1947; (sound system) Redbook, Oct. 1951, Carpozi, 18, Shaw, 14.

  32–33 megaphones/microphones: (Vallee) Simon, 501; (“like it was part”) Freedland, 22, citing John Marotta; (“Guys would throw”) Bill Boggs int.; (Crosby/microphone) Steve Schoenherr, “Recording Technology History,” http://history.acusd.edu; (“I discovered very early”) Hamill, 97–; (“tightly gripping”) Kahn, 14; (left the stage) Granata, x; (secret weapon) ed. Leonard Mustazza, Frank Sinatra and Popular Culture, Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998, 119; (“speech-level singing”) Gene Lees, Singe
rs and the Song II, New York: Oxford University Press, 1998, 97; (“with great economy”/“black one”) ed. Yarwood, 37; (With a microphone/Vidal) cbsnews.com, May 15, 1998; (“To Sinatra”) John Lahr, Sinatra: The Artist and the Man, New York: Random House, 1997, 14; (room in NYC) Sinatra, Legend, 21; (“I went around”) Douglas-Home, 21; (Macy’s) Larry King int.; (Roseland) FS int. by Arlene Francis, Sep. 25, 1981, WOR (NY).

  33–34 52nd Street: (described) Arnold Shaw, 52nd Street: The Street of Jazz, Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 1977—first published as The Street That Never Slept; (Crosby) Shaw, Sinatra, 6, ed. Ethlie Ann Vare, Legend: Frank Sinatra and the American Dream, New York: Boulevard, 1995, 154; (“jazzmen”) Ebony, Jul. 1958; (“Talent”) ibid.; (heard Holiday/When he first/accolade) ibid., FS cited in Melody Maker, Oct. 18, 1958; (“shading”) New York, Apr. 28, 1980, Donald Clarke, Wishing on the Moon, New York: Viking, 1994, 225; (“lived inside”) Hamill, 115; (female Sinatra) Freedland, 66; (Goodman/Onyx/Dorsey) Shaw, 52nd Street, 19, 61, 68–; (speakeasies) ibid., x; (gangsters’ penetration) int. NJ State Organized Crime Division investigator Bob Buccino, Clarke, Wishing on the Moon, 93; (nightspots/Luciano) Gosch and Hammer, 153—he favored Dave’s Blue Room, and see Shaw, 52nd Street, references to Dave’s Blue Room; (Costello) Irving Lazar with Annette Tapert, Swifty, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995, 49, Wolf with DiMona, 97, and see Collier’s, Apr. 12, 1947; (Moretti) Evanier, 45, Gosch and Hammer, 48–, Richard Hammer, The IllustratedHistory of Organized Crime, Philadelphia, PA: Courage Books, 1989, 86; (Schultz) int. Marie Marcus, Lazar with Tapert, 48, “Marie Marcus Biography,” www.reostudios.com, Peterson, Barbarians, 216, Gosch and Hammer, 187.

  34 “a kind of”: FS int. by Zion.

  35 efforts to get work: (sheet music) Shaw, Sinatra, 14, Kelley, 34; (stage fright/“I swear”) New Yorker, Nov. 9, 1946, Larry King int. of FS, May 19, 1998 (rerun); (amateur contests) Shaw, 13–, Dwiggins, 14; (WAAT) Sciacca, Sinatra, 105, Friedwald, 63.