Sinatra
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13. Frank stands with fellow actors Montgomery Clift (left) and Burt Lancaster between scenes on the set of From Here to Eternity. Sinatra’s performance won him an Oscar as best supporting actor in 1953.
14. Sinatra during a recording session at Capitol Records in 1954. “I like recording late at night,” he once said. “The later the better. My voice was not meant for daytime use.”
15. Classic Frank, 1954. “There was a tremendous level of excitement—an air of expectation—every time he recorded,” recalled his son, Frank Sinatra Jr.
16. Frank and his very good Rat Pack friend Sammy Davis Jr. at Ciro’s nightclub in Hollywood, August 1, 1955. Actress Lauren Bacall is visible in the background.
17. When Frank ended his engagement to Lauren Bacall in 1957, it broke her heart. “But Frank did me a great favor,” she would say. “He saved me from the complete disaster our marriage would have been.” The two are seen here at a party after the Academy Awards on March 30, 1955.
18. Frank and his best friend, Dean Martin, at a 1958 recording session at Capitol Records in Hollywood for Martin’s album Sleep Warm, which Sinatra conducted.
19. Frank in 1959, during the recording of his Come Dance with Me album at Capitol.
20. The legendary Rat Pack during filming of Ocean’s Eleven in 1960: (left to right) Sinatra, Dean Martin, Peter Lawford, and Sammy Davis Jr.
21. Sammy, Dean, Frank, and Joey Bishop during a playful moment in 1960.
22. Frank, in the middle, taking a steam at the Sands Hotel in 1960, flanked by Peter Lawford and Al Hart (Sinatra’s banker), with Sammy Davis Jr.
23. Frank and his friend President John F. Kennedy, at a Democratic Party fundraising dinner at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on July 10, 1960. Sinatra supported Kennedy’s run for the presidency in 1960 and sang the campaign’s theme song, “High Hopes,” with refashioned lyrics touting Kennedy’s candidacy.
24. Frank escorting the First Lady, Jackie Kennedy, to her box at the Inaugural Celebration gala in 1961.
25. A casual moment at the Santa Monica home of Peter and Pat Lawford in 1961: (left to right) Peter Lawford, Pat Kennedy Lawford, Frank Sinatra and his occasional lover Marilyn Monroe, May Britt (who was married to Sammy Davis Jr.), and Shirley MacLaine.
26. Frank Sinatra Jr. at age seventeen, 1961.
27. Eighteen-year-old Frank Jr. performing at Disneyland in 1962.
28. Frank, his daughter Nancy Jr., and first wife, Nancy, beam after Frank Jr.’s opening night at the Flamingo Hotel in 1963.
29. Frank in his dressing room (with his friend Jilly Rizzo) at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, 1964.
30. The Sinatras: Tina, Nancy Sr., and Nancy Jr. with Frank Jr., circa 1965.
31. Frank, flanked by Tina, seventeen, and Nancy Jr., twenty-five, arrive at the Beverly Hills Hotel for his fiftieth birthday in 1965. The party was hosted by Frank’s first wife, Nancy, and his daughters.
32. Frank and Mia Farrow in 1965. Frank’s second wife, the much-older Ava Gardner, would tell Mia, “You, my dear, are the child Frank and I never had.”
33. Fifty-two-year-old Frank takes a third wife, Mia, just twenty-one, on July 19, 1966, at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. Their marriage would last two stormy years.
34. Mia on her wedding day. She has said that the marriage was, in some ways, “more like an adoption.”
35. Though father and son had a difficult relationship, despite it all they had an abiding love for one another. Frank Jr. and Sr. at a taping of The Dean Martin Show in 1967.
36. Nancy Sinatra and Frank record their hit single “Something Stupid” in March 1967.
37. Nancy could always bring a smile to Frank’s face.
38. Posing for the cover of their 1968 Christmas album, The Sinatra Family Wish You a Merry Christmas: (left to right) Tina, Frank, Nancy, and Frank Jr.
39. Pals Frank and Dean in the late 1970s.
40. Photo session for the My Way album, 1969. “I think we all see now how timeless the music is,” observed Frank’s daughter Nancy. “His songs, hopefully the great American songbook, will live forever.”
41. Throughout his career, there was no separating the singer from the meaning of his songs.
42. Frank and his fourth bride, the former Barbara Marx, on their wedding day, July 11, 1976, at the home of Walter Annenberg, former U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s.
43. Frank and his proud mother, Dolly, on the evening Frank received the coveted Scopus Award from the Hebrew University of Israel in Los Angeles, November 14, 1976. Sadly, Dolly would die in a plane crash less than two months later, en route from Palm Springs to Las Vegas to see her son perform.
44. Though Barbara was always at odds with Frank’s daughters, Nancy and Tina, she did seem to make Frank happy during their twenty-two years of marriage.
45. Frank continued to perform all the way up until February 1995; here he is at the Long Beach Arena, in California. “May you live to be one hundred,” Frank would tell his audiences before leaving the stage, “and the last voice you hear be mine.”
Sinatra
J. Randy Taraborrelli is the internationally bestselling author of fourteen bestsellers including Michael Jackson: The Magic, the Madness, the Whole Story, Madonna: An Intimate Biography, The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth, Once Upon a Time: The Story of Princess Grace, Prince Rainier and Their Family and Call Her Miss Ross. J. Randy Taraborrelli, who is also a CBS-TV news analyst, lives in Los Angeles.
Also by J. Randy Taraborrelli
After Camelot:
A Personal History of the Kennedy Family,
1968 to the Present
Jackie, Ethel, Joan: Women of Camelot
Once Upon a Time:
The Story of Princess Grace, Prince Rainier
and their family
Elizabeth
The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe
Michael Jackson:
The Magic, the Madness, the Whole Story,
1958-2009
The Hiltons:
The True Story of an American Dynasty
Call Her Miss Ross
Madonna: An Intimate Biography
Becoming Beyoncé
First published 2015 by Grand Central Publishing
First published in the UK 2015 by Sidgwick & Jackson
This electronic edition published 2016 by Pan Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan
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Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan. com
ISBN 978-0-283-07207-9
Copyright © Rose Books, Inc. 1997, 2015
Cover image: © CinemaPhoto/Corbis
The right of J. Randy Taraborrelli to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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