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"My laptop was completely ruined when my office flooded. Even the hard disk was wrecked; but I didn't lose a single document."
 | Frank sinatra News - 9-July-2002 |  |
 Biography by DMICG at - www.sinatra.clanpage.de
Born Francis Albert Sinatra, in Hoboken, New Jersey, on December 12, 1915, the only child of Dolly and Anthony Martin Sinatra.
Sinatra is considered by many to be the greatest entertainer of the twentieth century. His recordings came to epitomize American popular singing at its finest, with a style that maintained fidelity to a song’s lyric and mood while imbuing it with subtle elements of jazz beat and phrasing.
As a teenager, Sinatra worked unloading trucks for the Jersey Observer newspaper. He became a copy boy with an aspiration to be a journalist, but when told by the editor that copy boys “don’t know enough to be reporters,” Sinatra enrolled in secretarial school, studying English, typing, and shorthand. He was eventually promoted to cub sports reporter by the newspaper’s editor.
In his spare time, Sinatra appeared on Major Bowes Amateur Hour, a popular radio talent show. A self-taught singer, he was matched with three other aspirants to sing “Shine.” After the program, the quartet was sent out on tour by Bowes as the “Hoboken Four.” His first professional contract was for $25 per week as a singer, head waiter, master of ceremonies, and a comedian at The Rustic Cabin, a country roadhouse in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, in 1938. It was here in 1939 that Sinatra was discovered by Harry James, who signed him to sing for his new swing band.
After touring with James in 1939, Sinatra rose to prominence as lead singer with Tommy Dorsey’s orchestra (1940-42), with whom he recorded more than ninety songs. In 1943 he began working solo and served as emcee on the popular radio program The Lucky Strike Hit Parade. Sinatra soon became a teen idol, with hysterical “bobby-soxer” fans rioting outside his performance at New York’s Paramount Theater on Columbus Day in 1944. He recorded numerous hits for Columbia Records between 1943 and 1952, but moved to Capitol Records in 1953. In 1960 he co-founded Reprise Records, where he recorded exclusively after 1963.
Sinatra married his childhood sweetheart Nancy Barbato, in February, 1939. They had three children: Nancy Sandra (1940), Franklin Wayne Emmanuel (Frank Jr.) (1944), and Christina (Tina) (1948).
Sinatra experienced a career crisis in the late 1940s, which coincided with the beginning of a tempestuous romance to actress Ava Gardner. 1949 was arguably the worst year of Sinatra’s career. He was fired from his radio show, and six months later his New York concerts flopped. He and his wife were divorcing, and his affair with Ava Gardner had become an open scandal. Columbia Records wanted him out. In 1950, he was released from his MGM film contract, and his own agent, MCA, dropped him. Sinatra seemed to have become a has-been at age 34. Sinatra and Gardner married in 1951, but separated a few years later and divorced in 1957.
Things got worse when Sinatra lost his voice due to a vocal cord hemmorhage, and he was rumored to have attempted suicide. Fortunately his voice problems were temporary, and he helped pick himself back up by resuming his recording career, and making an important re-entry into films. Sinatra landed the role of Maggio in From Here to Eternity (1953), which earned him an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor. Considered a natural actor, Sinatra turned in top-notch performances in many more films, most notably The Man With the Golden Arm (1955), The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and The Detective (1968).
Sinatra’s work brought him into the Hollywood community in the late 1940s, where he became a member of the “Rat Pack,” a group of up-and-coming entertainers that included Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford. The group performed together in Las Vegas in the 1950s and co-starred in several movies, including Ocean’s Eleven (1960), Sergeants Three (1962) and Robin and the Seven Hoods (1964). The Rat Pack also staged concerts to raise money for John F. Kennedy’s bid for the presidency in 1960.
Soon after his Oscar-winning appearance in From Here To Eternity, Sinatra made a comeback as a recording artist. He had been recording for Columbia, where he fell out of step when changes were made to the company's musical policy, and in 1953 he was signed by Capitol Records. Sinatra's first session at Capitol was arranged and conducted by Axel Stordahl whom Sinatra had known in the Dorsey band. For the next session, however, he was teamed with Nelson Riddle. Sinatra had heard the results of earlier recording sessions made by Nat 'King' Cole at Capitol on which Riddle had collaborated. Sinatra was deeply impressed by the results and some sources suggest that on joining Capitol he had asked for Riddle. The results of this partnership set Sinatra's singing career firmly in the spotlight. Over the next few years classic albums such as Songs For Young Lovers, This Is Sinatra, A Swingin' Affair, Come Fly With Me, Swing Easy!, In The Wee Small Hours and the exceptional Songs For Swingin' Lovers set standards for popular singers that have rarely been equalled and almost never surpassed. The two men were intensely aware of one another's talents and although critics were unanimous in their praise of Riddle, the arranger was unassumingly diffident, declaring that it was the singer's 'great talent that put him back on top'. For all Riddle's modesty, there can be little doubt that the arranger encouraged Sinatra's latent feeling for jazz, which helped to create the relaxed yet superbly swinging atmosphere that epitomized their work together. On his albums for Capitol, his own label Reprise, and other labels, sometimes with Riddle, other times with Robert Farnon, Neal Hefti , Gordon Jenkins , Quincy Jones , Billy May or Stordahl, Sinatra built upon his penchant for the best in American popular song, displaying a deep understanding of the wishes of composer and lyricist.
In 1966, Sinatra married the diminutive actress Mia Farrow, when he was 51 and she was 21. The couple divorced a little over a year later, in 1967. He married Barbara Marx, the former wife of Zeppo Marx, in 1976.
Sinatra announced his retirement in 1971 but returned for various concert tours and recordings during the next two decades, although his famous voice had begun to waver. His 1980 recording of “New York, New York” made him the only singer in history to have hit records in five consecutive decades. Later Sinatra chose to continue working, making frequent comebacks and presenting a never-ending succession of 'farewell' concerts, which, as time passed, became less like concerts and more like major events in contemporary popular culture. In 1988-89, Sinatra teamed up with his old Rat Pack cohorts, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Dean Martin for a multi-city tour, and he last performed in concert in 1994 at age 78. He continued to attract adoring audiences and in the late 80s and early 90s, despite being in his mid- to late seventies, could command staggering fees for personal appearances. In 1992, a two-part television biography, Sinatra, was transmitted in the USA, produced by Tina Sinatra, and starring Philip Casnoff in the leading role. Almost inevitably, it topped the weekly ratings. In 1993 Capitol Records re-signed Sinatra after 30 years with Reprise Records and announced a new album as 'the recording event of the decade'. Duets was a brilliant piece of marketing: it had Sinatra teamed with a varied all-star cast, including Aretha Franklin, Carly Simon, Barbra Streisand, Tony Bennett, Natalie Cole, Kenny G. and U2 's Bono. A subsequent volume, Duets II, featuring artists such as Stevie Wonder, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Chrissie Hynde, Willie Nelson, Lena Horne, Gladys Knight and Patti LaBelle, was released in 1994. However, rumours of ill health persisted through 1996 and 1997, and although it was not confirmed, Alzheimer's disease was cited as the most likely condition. The voice of the century was finally silenced on 14 May 1998 - Sinatra died of a heart attack at age 82.
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