Frank: The Voice (119 page)

  
7
“Dateline New York”:
Columbia Records Archive, Sony Music Corporation.

  
8
“On the golf course”:
Lyrics from “I Can’t Get Started,” words by Ira Gershwin, music by Vernon Duke (New York: Chappell, 1935).

  
9
“I’ll forget my sins”:
Lyrics from “San Fernando Valley,” words and music by Gordon Jenkins (New York: Mayfair Music, 1943).

10
framed quotation:
Shaw,
Twentieth-Century Romantic
, p. 71.

11
“When I arrived”:
Nancy Sinatra,
American Legend
, p. 61.

12
“It came to such”:
Cahn,
I Should Care
, p. 134.

13
“Frank thought Fred”:
Bud Yorkin, in discussion with the author, Feb. 2006.

14
“I was born with”:
Nancy Sinatra,
American Legend
, p. 61.

15
“quickly apologized”:
Ibid.

16
“Because I didn’t think”:
Ibid.

17
“We used to play”:
Silverman,
Dancing on the Ceiling
, p. 78.

18
“Listen, I’m not supposed”:
Wilson,
Sinatra
, p. 62.

19
“Pictures stink”:
Kelley,
His Way
, p. 98.

20
“Naturally he was tired”:
Ibid.

21
“It’s easy for a guy”:
Ibid.

22
“In Sinatra’s singing spot”:
Nancy Sinatra,
American Legend
, p. 63.

  
1
“Could I bring”:
Wilson,
Sinatra
, p. 63.

  
2
“Mac, imagine this guy”:
Ibid.

  
3
“Then let’s see”:
Kelley,
His Way
, p. 95.

  
4
“SINATRA HIT BY EGGS”:
Ibid.

  
5
“He may be famous”:
Ibid., p. 96.

  
6
“[It] was always jammed”:
Ibid., p. 95.

  
7
“Let’s go down”:
Shaw,
Twentieth-Century Romantic
, p. 80.

  
8
“Peg was inside”:
Ibid.

  
9
“I was in my room”:
Ibid.

10
“In the company of Orson”:
Kelley,
His Way
, p. 99.

11
“No indictment was found”:
Ibid., p. 100.

12
“Though she’d love to work”:
Lyrics from “(I Got a Woman Crazy for Me) She’s Funny That Way,” words by Richard A. Whiting, music by Neil Moret (San Francisco: Villa Moret, 1928).

13
“I fall in love”:
Lyrics from “I Fall in Love Too Easily,” words by Sammy Cahn, music by Jule Styne. From
Anchors Aweigh
(MGM, 1945).

  
1.
Nancy was clearly trying to butter Manie up by writing out Frankie junior’s middle name, but—fascinatingly—got her own son’s given first name (Franklin) wrong. It could have been that (just for a change) her husband was on her mind, but I think it more likely that she didn’t think of Frank as Francis, either. Ava Gardner, as we’ll see, would be the one who started all that.

  
2.
Still, it must be noted that the Sinatra of 1945 was a very different man from the one who had been a punching bag for his Hoboken Four partners back in the Major Bowes days. Fame, money, and power had pumped up his physical confidence and sense of entitlement (and would continue to do so until the onset of old age); it never hurt his confidence, either, that the beefy retainers with whom he surrounded himself jumped at his every command and flinched at each unkind word.

  
3
“They tell me you”:
Nancy Sinatra,
American Legend
, p. 66.

  
4
“What blazing new”:
Parsons,
Tell It to Louella
, p. 151.

  
5
“necessary to the national”:
Kelley,
His Way
, p. 101.

  
6
“IS CROONING ESSENTIAL?”:
Ibid.

  
7
“I miss the times”:
Lyrics from “Homesick, That’s All,” words and music by Gordon Jenkins (Columbia Records, 1945). V-Disc recording. 243
“MR. FRANK SINATRA”:
Columbia Records Archive, Sony Music Corporation.

  
8
Frank’s daughter Nancy has written:
Nancy Sinatra,
American Legend
, p. 58.

  
9
“There might be”:
George Benjamin, “Who Says Sinatra’s a ‘Sad Sack’? They Loved Him Overseas—and 150,000 GIs Can’t Be Wrong!”
Modern Screen
, Jan. 1946,
www.songsbysinatra.com/reprints/ms_0146.html

10
“Go away, boy”:
Ibid.

11
“The singer kidded”:
Kelley,
His Way
, p. 104.

12
“Are you a tenor”:
Wilson,
Sinatra
, p. 337.

13
“Shoemakers in uniform”:
Kelley,
His Way
, p. 104.

14
“Mice make women”:
Kahn,
Voice
, p. 114.

15
“joy ride”:
Kelley,
His Way
, p. 105.

16
“the Apollonian marvel”:
Bosley Crowther, “Anchors Aweigh,”
New York Times
, July 20, 1945.

17
“Sinatra came down”:
Summers and Swan,
Sinatra
, p. 111.

18
“George and I were”:
Kelley,
His Way
, p. 107.

19
“GARY HIGH SCHOOL”:
Edwardsville (Ill.) Intelligencer
, Nov. 2, 1945.

20
“outstanding efforts”:
Kelley,
His Way
, p. 109.

21
“You could reach”:
Summers and Swan,
Sinatra
, p. 110.

22
“What’s he got?”:
The House I Live In
(RKO, 1945).

23
“a darling of”:
Kuntz and Kuntz,
Sinatra Files
, p. 40.

24
“FRANK SINATRA, well known”:
Ibid., p. 45.

25
“they called Shirley Temple”:
Summers and Swan,
Sinatra
, p. 12.

26
“I don’t like Communists”:
Kelley,
His Way
, p. 110.

27
“We’re bigger than”:
Moquin and Van Doren,
American Way of Crime
, p. viii.

28
“Phil and Frank were”:
Kelley,
His Way
, p. 111.

  
1
“August 1, 1945”:
Columbia Records Archive, Sony Music Corporation.

  
2
“Dear Frank. For the past six”:
Ibid.

  
3
“Dear Frank: I received”:
Ibid.

  
4
“They were tough-minded”:
George Avakian, in discussion with the author, Oct. 2006.

  
5
“These should be recorded”:
Friedwald,
Sinatra!
p. 176.

  
6
“We don’t have enough”:
Ibid.

  
7
“Sinatra gave us”:
Ibid.

  
8
“I don’t know the first thing”:
Ibid.

  
9
“That was a very strange”:
Avakian, discussion.

10
“Sinatra was then”:
Friedwald,
Sinatra!
p. 176.

11
“Sinatra wasn’t so bad”:
Avakian, discussion.

12
Frank Sinatra Conducts
:
Frank Sinatra Conducts the Music of Alec Wilder
(Columbia Records, 1946).

13
“If you don’t know”:
Columbia Records Archive, Sony Music Corporation.

  
1.
Although, as Will Friedwald points out, the long American Federation of Musicians strike, during which the big bands couldn’t record, deprived the bands of vital revenue.

  
2.
Technically, Sinatra was beaten to the punch by the great Lee Wiley, who, beginning in the late 1930s, made a series of limited-edition, one-composer (Gershwin, Porter, Rodgers and Hart) albums for New York’s Liberty Music Shops, which catered exclusively to Manhattan’s first-nighting and cabaret-going elite.

  
3.
The bureau continued watching the Mafia closely, but doing little about it, until J. Edgar Hoover’s death in 1972. Officially—since the Mob was aware that Hoover was a deeply closeted cross-dresser and a passionate racetrack bettor who may have financed his gambling habit in unorthodox ways—the director was of the opinion that the Mob was an exaggerated problem.

  
4
“How sweet the way”:
Lyrics from “One Love,” words by Leo Robin, music by David Rose (Sydney: Chappell, 1946).

  
5
“As Shaw put it”:
Friedwald,
Sinatra!
p. 155.

  
6
“I take great pride”:
Ibid., p. 156.

  
7
“I was working”:
Ibid., p. 153.

  
8
“The day after our marriage”:
Summers and Swan,
Sinatra
, p. 124.

  
9
“If I had as many”:
Kelley,
His Way
, p. 471.

10
“Yes, light an Old Gold”:
Songs by Sinatra
, radio broadcast, Jan. 2, 1946, transcript at
emruf.webs.com/sinatra.htm

11
“featured songs for the ages”:
Friedwald,
Sinatra!
p. 160.

12
“As a symptom”:
Kuntz and Kuntz,
Sinatra Files
, p. 25.

13
“I got a break”:
Kelley,
His Way
, p. 126.

14
“Company had early”:
Ibid., p. 127.

15
“Frank was born”:
Shaw,
Twentieth-Century Romantic
, p. 74.

16
“The New York Office”:
Kuntz and Kuntz,
Sinatra Files
, p. 28.

  
1.
Pablo Picasso felt much the same way: see John Richardson’s superb biography.

  
2.
This unique but completely successful meeting with jazz immortals occurred at a particularly significant juncture in the history of America’s single indigenous art form, while the young titans Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker were in the process of creating jazz’s version of cubism, bebop. A few months later, twenty-one-year-old Mel Tormé, having heard Ella Fitzgerald sing scat syllables on “Lady Be Good,” would begin trying it out himself, with great success. Sinatra, however, would keep being Sinatra (he could do nothing else), developing in parallel to jazz, never in its thrall. He was a representational artist to his core: abstraction never tempted him.

  
3.
A recent biography quotes Avakian as saying the singer and his henchmen walked down the hall “like five diamonds” (Summers and Swan,
Sinatra
, p. 86). Which makes no sense at all until you realize what the producer was actually saying: that they resembled the playing card the five of diamonds.

  
4.
Hilliard would also later co-write the great Sinatra anthem about the other end of the day, “In the Wee Small Hours.”

  
5.
He had acquired the nickname after surviving a 1929 “ride” in which he had been stabbed in the face.

  
6
“I haven’t much”:
Summers and Swan,
Sinatra
, p. 127.

  
7
“Sinatra arrived”:
Kelley,
His Way
, p. 127.

  
8
“an over-festive vacation”:
Wilson,
Sinatra
, p. 66.

  
9
“You get word”:
Lyrics from “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” words and music by Irving Berlin (New York: Irving Berlin, 1946).

10
“Sinatra telephoned in”:
Columbia Records Archive, Sony Music Corporation.

11
“Good evening, ladies”:
Wilson,
Sinatra
, p. 66.

12
“SINATRA’S STOOGERY”:
Shaw,
Twentieth-Century Romantic
, p. 101.

13
“Bobby Burns phoned”:
Kelley,
His Way
, p. 127.

14
“Called Sinatra for rehearsal”:
Columbia Records Archive, Sony Music Corporation.

15
“Sinatra only worked part”:
Ibid.

16
“many times”:
“Sinatras Split; Frankie Turns to Lana Turner,”
Chester (Pa.) Times
, Oct. 7, 1946.

17
“It’s just a family”:
“Sinatra ‘Hiding’ in Marital Rift,”
Oakland Tribune
, Oct. 7, 1946.

18
“He did not report”:
Kelley,
His Way
, p. 127.

19
“Let me welcome you”:
Havers,
Sinatra
, p. 115.