Introduction: The Case of the Overrated Bum

Just as the 'real' blues was pillaged and bastardised by the likes of Presley and the Stones and T. Rex, so 'real' jazz is being replaced by a synthetic homogenised chemically modified version, and the Sinatra gene has pride of place. How and why are too complex for here, but it has a lot to do with maximising profits on a tested 'formula' and the tragic cultural stagnation that results. Enough policitical economy. The trouble is in capitalism, suffice to say, just as on any sinking Titanic, when the boat takes a slide all the hapless passengers, punters or musicians, run in the same direction. 'Jazz' in as much as it has a collective identity, and if it doesn't what does, sees a 'gap' in the 'market' which might 'popularise' their marginalised art-form, and shock-horror pay a few mortgages as well. But if this is to happen, we should really know what we're dealing with. If the 'jazz' of the next decade is to reek of Frank Sinatra, we don't know the damage we might be doing. Because history, especially in popular music, is a harsh judge. If music is to stand tests of time, it needs to relate to future generations on a sound basis involving simplicity of communication and shared values. Those values need to be both aesthetic and ethical. And Frank Sinatra fails on both counts. As a 'musician', he was a nonentity. The credit he gets for his "originality of phrasing" and "showmanship" are classic emperor's new clothes. The phrasing belonged to people who knew a bit more about jazz, like Crosby, Jack Teagarden and Louis Jordan, while contemporaries such as Ella Fitzgerald left more musicianship in the bottom of a glass than Sinatra ever swallowed in his life. As for showmanship: after the screaming died down around 1946, Sinatra's showmanship consisted of guzzling vodka between numbers while berating the sexual anatomy of the latest columnist who'd refused to sleep with him, and then telling you how to vote. And then there's the ethical issue. My guess is future generations will not believe how a man, whose music was so turgid and pedestrian, and whose personality was so reprehensible, could influence 'jazz' at all in the 21st century. Just as 'socialist' art was destroyed by the adoration of Stalin. Just as Nazi movies are forever tainted relics. Just as tap-dancing in black-face, or jokes about Irishmen, or fighting cocks (whatever that involved) are now unwatchable for simple cultural reasons, so Ol' Blue Eyes will be dumped in the dustbin for all the right cultural reasons. The time to denounce him is long overdue. We need to remember his real legacy: that legion of impersonators with delusions of social adequacy; the tales of grievous bodily injury and Mafia intrigue, and a stack of films so bad he had to force his best friends to watch them- with a couple of the Boys on each door.

I'm not saying there shouldn't be any balladeers. Not at all. Indeed balladeers doing it right, like Jamie Cullum does, involves a musical sensitivity we should all encourage; I just suggest the template is someone other than Frank. Nat Cole and Sam Cooke, both exponentially better technicians than Sinatra, have more to offer a curious jazz musician than may first appear. And the latest crop, hopefully, will encourage a new breed of songwriters, to replace those standards we're still clinging to. And it's the numbers, of course, that are the problem. So they want to hear 'Fly me to the moon'. Well, sod 'em, I say, unless you've got some new, reactive treatment, but then I ain't got a mortgage. It is a shame for all those great songwriters, like Bart Howard, but by the time the historical washing is done, we just won't want to know. That old black magic will soon sound as bizarre to us as Mussolini's speeches, or Dick Emery as a Pakistani, or Margaret Thatcher's greatest hits. It's the old Wagner argument: whatever a bastard the bloke we acknowledge the greatness of the music? Well, personally I don't. I think Wagner should be ignored in the calendar, replaced by all the stuff perfectly laudable men and women have written since, that barely saw the light of day. The singers should save themselves the effort. The conductors should do better autistically memorising something else. And for those who are curious I daresay there's a version, by the good Nazi Karajan, you can use as coasters when you're done. The fact is, though, as a bloke Richard Wagner was positively affable compared to Frank. And as a force for evil in his own lifetime, Wagner was a comparative saint.

Part One: Forces of Nature- the Individual as Societal Clay

Her only baby was born in December 1915. After a difficult delivery, which left the baby scarred and deaf in one ear, she was left unable to have any more. There's a story in popular lore of heroic grandma, saving the puny infant's life with the cold tap. It was made up. In truth, they hid the baby for several months. Eventually, they took him to be baptised. Breaking with ethnic tradition, Dolly asked an Irish newspaperman, Frank Garrick, to be godfather. On the day, the priest got the names mixed, and the baby was baptised: Francis Albert.

Frank was always going on about coming from a tough neighbourhood. He left out that possibly the wealthiest people in that tough neighbourhood were his parents. His mother made money (not to mention the underworld contacts) from opening a bar during Prohibition. She also made $50 a time for her 'medical' expertise. Then there was all the blackmail: close to local political society, up to the minute on the latest pregnancies, friend to professional ladies. Her son was to perpetuate her subtle blend of political court and organised crime. As a kid, though, he was stupid and lazy and spoilt as an infanta. Money, clothes, toys, candy. Throughout his life he was to spend like he had a truckful.

By the time he was ten or eleven years old, he'd conceptually caught up with his mother's family planning enterprise, even if the scandal hadn't yet made the papers. After that his childhood took a different turn. To go with his ever-sharper suits he became obsessive about cleanliness: throughout his life he took up to six showers a day. Carl Jung might have had a thing or two to say. He took to buying friends and lavishing gifts. He also took to hiring bigger kids to fend off the catcalls. Later, he bought a great big plush radio and began to idolise Bing Crosby. Frank was slight, skinny, his ears stuck out. But he had cash to burn, and the girls like a guy with cash to burn, so he learnt to charm early on.

From the earliest he spoke with what can only be called a 'Mafia' accent. "D'ese" and "D'ose". "Broads" and "Goons". The semantic gradations between having someone "taken care of" and having someone "clipped". Whether by this time he was already cavorting with his gangland heroes or merely promising small fry, he was certainly ready to acquiesce to his Sicilian heritage. He grew up watching George Raft and the early bad-boy movies of Humphrey Bogart. Besides, what does an ambitious young Italian kid do? Make ice-cream?

Sinatra's criminal career predates his musical career by some years. His first actual brush with the law happened in 1938, on 'morals' charges. He'd been juggling girlfriends and one of them reported him for getting her pregnant. He got off. He was always going to get off. Already, his mother's pioneering networking was giving him above-the-law status afforded to very few. Capone. Prince Charles. Still, his mother didn't want any more female trouble, so hastily married him off, to a sweet young woman from the nouveau middle class named Nancy Barbato. Around this time he decides he wants to be a singer. He couldn't read music. He barely played the ukulele. He hadn't a clue what singing involved. He used to hire bands for venues in exchange for his sitting in for a couple of numbers. He would insist on singing at Italian weddings, and his mother got him gigs at political functions. He'd bribe his way onto any microphone in town. But everyone was pretty much agreed: he wasn't any good. He gate-crashed a three-piece vocal group in exchange for buying them suits, and he'd fake harmony singing while they would pick on him brutally. So he hired Hank Sanicola, the first and most appealing of his heavies: pianist, drinking buddy, boxer. They had the clothes. They had the ambition. But Frank still wasn't any good.

In 1938, Frank went for a job as a singing waiter. He failed the audition, but his mother still got him the job. He then paid for singing lessons, from a guy named John Quinlan, who knew crooning but taught bel canto, and here "the voice" is first forged. He studied carefully over the next few years, and after dispensing with Quinlan, he continued to work on his intonation and range. In one of those 'fortunate' breaks that characterised his career, he'd only been a singing waiter for a few weeks, when who walks into his life but Harry James. Fresh from idol-status as blazing lead trumpet with Benny Goodman, Harry James was running his own big band, planning it to be the loudest, blazingest, toughest yet. He'd hired the top of the Jewish crop, along with a mighty young drummer by the name of Buddy Rich. James' stock-in-trade had been thunderous instrumental numbers, replete with his own klezmer-flavoured blues. So quite why he suddenly signs this singing waiter, on a two-year contract at $75 a week, is one for the gossip-historians.

What happened next has provoked more gossip-history. After less than six months with James, neither of them getting anywhere fast, Frank gets a card from Tommy Dorsey. Now Dorsey's band was an established force, cornering the market in the sweeter big band style, led by Dorsey's own limpid trombone. Dorsey signed Frank Sinatra in 1939 and spent the next three years recording with him, and getting him cameos in movies, often using a talented 'sweet' arranger named Axel Stordahl. It was Stordahl that gave them the blueprint for a new way to treat a featured vocalist: delicately framing the vocal choruses, and holding back the meat of the band but for eight bars here and four bars there; singing high over the coda. Sinatra was raw and fresh, with rough manners and diction, but he learnt songs phonetically, a phrase at a time, and so he managed to polish the New Jersey vowels. He also studied Tommy Dorsey's trombone playing, picking up what he could of projection, breath control, jazz phrasing, and the rights and wrongs of syncopation. Now, plenty of commentators have claimed that Dorsey gave Sinatra the job, literally with a gun to his head. Tommy Dorsey always denied it, but then you would, wouldn't you. The fact his, that throughout his entire life, Sinatra had all sorts of people, fair and foul, but mostly foul, getting things done Sinatra's way by threats, intimidation, blackmail, bribery, or what a mobster might call "a little persuasion". His records with Dorsey sold well, but there again, the story goes that the Mobs owned the juke boxes. What we do know for sure is that Sinatra left Dorsey in 1942, to try the unthinkable at the time and go solo. He took Axel Stordahl with him, to Dorsey's dismay, by offering the arranger $650 a month. Quite where Frank was getting a spare $650 a month wasn't clear, until a presumably reluctant Dorsey lent Sinatra $17000 to help him go solo. He cut his first 'solo' sets, including a lush 'Night and Day'. He hired a publicity man, George Evans, who'd been working with Glen Miller. It was Evans who created the legend.

Evans achieved two things straight away. First he gave Sinatra an image: the spoilt wide-boy became a home-loving, mother-loving boy-next-door. Then he did his best to get his man to conform to the chosen image, a process we'd thesedays call 'news management' or 'spin'. Sinatra was already twenty-seven, but they lied about that. His ma was 'a nurse'. His pa was a 'fire chief', and, he had a lovely wife and a lovely daughter, with another on the way. They left out Frank's already prodigious extra-marital activities and his working knowledge of street-crime. Evans did what he could to promote Sinatra's sex appeal: he taught him to carry himself like a movie star, to do provocative things with a microphone stand; he even encouraged the trainee vocalist to moan and murmur a little, the operant in 'crooning', similar to his idol Crosby but deeper and more sensual. Crosby's appeal was demographically generalised, and his style was a gentle jazz, warm and playful. Evans went straight for the youth market, and tailored Sinatra specifically for the girls. The trick that made it work was simple as soap: Frank wanted to be a heartbreaker, it was an extension of his projected self. The intimacy of his songs was borne of an honesty: he honestly wanted to shag every woman in the house.

There was nothing 'jazz' about Frank Sinatra, then or since. He couldn't play, never improvised. He learnt songs by rote, in one key, and relied on his sidemen, particularly in the early days, for what he learned of rhythm and feel. His art was strictly one-dimensional: the lyric, delivered with a weary cool. Even his '50s classics, so often hailed as 'jazz' masterpieces, were down to the sheer class of his arranger and the orchestra, and the supposed 'swing' of his vocals is in fact an innate squareness, which happens to be not unpleasing when contrasted with the opulent swing of his bands. He never had a harmonic sense to speak of, so he can never be classed with the best 'jazz' singers, like Billie Holiday or Nat Cole. At one time he tried to record 'Lush Life', a complex Ellington/Strayhorn composition heavily reliant on harmonic chromaticism. Sinatra couldn't hack it, and started a fight to deflect from his failings. He learned 'tunes'; he never learned 'changes'. In any event, while popular music in his early career was dominated by a jazz aesthetic, and performed by the best jazz players, they were, often for 90% of the time, playing written arrangements in rehearsed orchestrations; until, by the time of Glen Miller, even the solos were written down. It's only as time compresses whole worlds of music into a few landmarks here and there, that the Sinatra 'sound' has become equated with jazz. He was a balladeer, a crooner, and as he got older, his repertoire got ever smaller, until all he ever did were a few party pieces anyone could do in their sleep. In his early days he was young and keen. He was still a singing waiter.

But the boy from New Jersey was on his way to being a star, and while he didn't have looks or any particular ability, he did have George Evans on his case. In December 1942, on one of the biggest nights in the musician's calendar, Bob Weitman, of the Paramount Theatre in New York, booked Benny Goodman's clarinet and big band, still thought of as the best in the country. For reasons he never could explain, Bob Weitman also booked Frank Sinatra to sing with the band, despite the fact that Goodman was bringing Peggy Lee. Then George Evans made his move. He arranged for fans, young women, who were paid $10 a pop, to attend and make as much of a scene as possible. They didn't disappoint.

When Sinatra took to the stage, a small army of girls became hysterical, yelling, 'swooning', in a display that shocked even the tough-arsed Goodman, who'd seen a few crazes. Sinatra became the latest 'teen sensation' virtually overnight. He stayed at the Paramount for a couple of months. Evans coined the term 'bobby-soxers' to describe his nurturing fan base, and set about building Sinatra into a national force. They set up fan clubs everywhere, and ensured a loyal following at every show. Pretty soon Sinatra could write his own contracts with Columbia Records and RKO Pictures. On a return visit to the Paramount in 1944, the street ground to a halt at the mercy of screaming crowds, estimated at 25000. Monkey see; monkey do. It had happened this way for others: Al Jolson, Chaplin, the swing bands. It was to happen again for Presley, the Beatles, even Tom Jones, or the Osmonds. Evans, though, promoted a 'phenomenon', the voice that made them 'swoon'. And the newspapers lapped it up.

Between 1944 and 1950, Frank Sinatra recorded more than 50 hit records, and appeared in a dozen movies, including 'Anchors Aweigh' and 'On The Town' with Gene Kelly. In those days Sinatra played the game. He polished Evans' family-man image. He sat patiently for interviews and photographs. For Kelly he worked hard on his dancing, and in return picked up a few tricks of the trade. They had to work hard on his look. Already balding, they gave him a toupee. Too short even for Gene Kelly, they gave him elevated shoes. He was too scrawny, so they stuck a false backside in his slacks, to match Kellly's pert buns; and they covered his scars with layers of make-up, and pinned back his ears. He was to keep the wig and the shoes throughout his career.

Yet criticism was never far away. At the outset, some journalists poured scorn on the hysterical fans, and quoted psychiatrists on the mania. It was said that these women were an undignified spectacle, given that their husbands and boyfriends were away fighting a world war. Then they began to ask why Sinatra himself wasn't off fighting. Buddy Rich had joined the marines, while older men like Glen Miller and Artie Shaw, even Al Jolson, were risking their lives running forces bands. Sinatra missed the first drafts on account of his young baby, but later they changed the rules. Then they exempted him on account of his punctured eardrum, but there was some controversy. Eventually in May 1945, with the war pretty much over, he finally agreed to entertain the forces in Italy. To deflect what might have been a cool reception for the draft-dodger who was making wives and girlfriends wander, Sinatra got Phil Silvers to go with him, and Silvers wrote a nice self-deprecating comedy routine to break the ice. Still, Sinatra's idea of supporting the war effort involved booking into the plushest hotel in Rome, demanding an audience with the Pope, and going on a short tour of the Mediterranean. They were back in the US on July 6th. Still he wasn't a happy bunny. He harangued the press about appaling management. Obviously war-torn Europe lacked the luxuries the man was so accustomed. And to cap it all, the Pope had never heard of him, although he was a big fan of Bing Crosby.

Part Two: From Pin-ups to Punch-ups and Beyond

But behind the facade, the beast shone through. A procession of Hollywood starlets took the bedroom tour, while wife Nancy stayed in the dark and at home. Then there were the Boys. One of Sinatra's closest friends at this time was Joe Fischetti, cousin to Al Capone. Through Fischetti, Sinatra was introduced to some of the foremost Cosa Nostra, including Sam Giancana, who'd been Capone's driver, and was now head of the Chicago mob. Early in 1947, Sinatra bought a gun and met up with Fischetti in Miami. The two men visited a local casino, where the FBI were fairly sure they picked up $2 million in laundered cash. Then they flew to Havana for a meeting of crime bosses hosted by the notorious murderer, 'Lucky' Luciano. When questioned at the time and since, Sinatra always stone-walled, claiming that a successful entertainer meets all sorts of people. Still, for a mere singer who, so far as anyone knew hadn't murdered anyone, to be at a conference of top Mafiosi struck more than the FBI as curious. As far as anyone can tell, there were two items on the agenda. First was the continued co-operation of Italian-Americans with Jewish-Americans to further a healthy future for organised crime. Second was the Mafia master-plan: the money factory they'd been dreaming of, where no tax was paid, no questions asked, no end of rackets and laundry. This master-plan was the brain-child of 'Bugsy' Spiegel, a famed murderer from California who Sinatra held in the highest regard. Spiegel had a name for the master-plan: he called it Las Vegas.

Later in 1947, the real Frank Sinatra started to show himself publicly. By now, he was forever flanked by minders, even on the film set. His language was vicious, particularly at journalists, or "fucking parasites" as he called them. On an unguarded moment he professed similar hatred for the police. One night in Ciro's, a high-end pad in the high-end of Hollywood, Sinatra and his goon-squad bumped into Lee Mortimer, a fairly venerated journalist working for W. R. Hearst, who from time to time gave Frank a bad review. With apparently no provocation at all, Sinatra set upon Mortimer, yelling that he was a "fucking homosexual", and for the next ten minutes he pummelled the hapless hack while the minders held him. Ten minutes is a long time when someone's beating the crap out of you and Mortimer pressed charges. Sinatra stood in court and claimed Mortimer had called him "a Dago". He got off with a $9000 fine, despite allegations that Mortimer had received death-threats unless he dropped the charges.

This first stage of Sinatra's career was already past its best. His movies, characterised by increasing laziness from the star, were getting indifferent reviews. His records still sold well, but there were other kids on the block, like Billy Eckstine and Frankie Laine. And there was a growing number of people refusing to work with his goons. The only 'swing' he had left were his moods. He signalled his split from his wife by cavorting around at the other end of the country with Lana Turner. George Evans warned him divorce would hit sales, so he kept up a pretence as long as he could. Then he met Ava Gardner. She wasn't impressed by him at first: he was as coarse as she was, and similarly spectacular when he lost his temper. But she'd had enough of Artie Shaw and his would-be intellectualism. Gardner and Sinatra cemented their romance by grabbing a couple of revolvers, driving to Indie, California, and shooting up a small town. The sheriff was bribed. One person seriously hurt. Their relationship, for which the word 'tempestuous' could have been invented, was hidden for a couple of years. Sinatra lost George Evans over it in 1950, Evans finally sick of the coverups. The man most responsible for Sinatra's success, died from a heart attack a few weeks later. A pattern was emerging in Frank's social relationships. He would adopt you if you were useful to him, and lavish you with gifts, essentially as a way of having something over you. But as soon as you disagreed with him, however trivially, he simply never spoke to you again, ever. Since he spent most of his time being gratuitously offensive, he worked through friends at a fair rate. He found it easier to lavish gifts on complete strangers, prostitutes, charities, bell-boys. His proletarian largesse was his only honest charm.

Nancy finally divorced him in 1951, and shortly afterwards, in between fights, he married Ava Gardner. But he spent all his time chasing her across film sets, trying to talk her into giving up the day-job. MGM dropped him. His career was diving. He was making horrible novelty records. His moods ever worse. One night in Acapulco, a photographer snapped him only to find Sinatra's bodyguard threatening to shoot him if he didn't give up the film. Returning to Los Angeles, Sinatra drove his car straight into a crowd of reporters, screaming "next time i'll kill you". Much of the entertainment business was running the other way when they saw him approaching. By 1953, he was thirty-eight. And he hadn't had a hit record for three years. On top of it all, he kept cancelling gigs, with attacks of nerves.

If you believe Mario Puzo's thinly veiled tome, Frank Sinatra got his part in 'From Here To Eternity' thanks to a bed, a horse, and an offer no-one could refuse. The director wanted a bright Stanislawski graduate named Eli Wallach, and when Sinatra made enquiries they said they wouldn't work with "that bastard". He said he didn't even want paying: it made no difference. But several people, including Ava Gardner, made overtures on his account. And as far as we know there were no decapitated equines. To general astonishment, he behaved himself on set. Indeed, he polished his performance with the help of co-stars Burt Lancaster, and particularly Montgomery Clift. His marriage to Ava lasted until the end of shooting, when they were forced to endure each other's company once more. She eventually dumped him, and he promptly slashed his wrists.

But by March 1954, Frank was on his way back to the bank. Winning an Oscar for Supporting Actor for 'From Here To Eternity' kicked him off again. Then he had hit records with his new arranger, Nelson Riddle. He signed lucrative movie deals and got himself a Nevada gambling licence, ploughing his cash into a lavish Las Vegas front called the Sands Hotel. He got himself a whole new bunch of friends in the Hollywood high-life, including Bogart and his wife Lauren Bacall. Bogart died in 1957, unaware of Sinatra's two-year affair with his wife. Eventually, Sinatra proposed to her: she accepted, and then he got on a plane and never spoke to her again for the rest of her life. Except to shout at. His voice was tougher, now. A velveteen brown, and more lived in. In these years he made the recordings his legacy is based on, that great soggy plethora of sleazy melodies so ingrained in our brains they must have injected them directly into our skulls at birth. But there's two good reasons why the Sinatra of this period has been so enduring. For one thing, having clawed his way back up the tree, Sinatra didn't just have first refusal on any decent number anyone wrote, he had the power to hire and fire the likes of Sammy Cahn, Jule Styne, and Jimmy Van Heusen to produce stuff catered specifically for his image. Second, he had a Hollywood celebrity, unmatched by any of his singing rivals up until Presley started making his candyfloss classics. Sinatra's movies might have been adverts for the Cosa Nostra public relations department. 'Guys and Dolls' says it all. He's rough, he's tough; he might even have killed a few people, but he's a kid with a heart and he sings only for you. He's rougher and tougher in 'Suddenly' and 'The Manchurian Candidate'; cuddlier in 'The Tender Trap' 'Oceans Eleven', and 'High Society'. I can't remember any of his best lines any more than he could, but I think he wears the same George Raft hat in every single one.

The insidious nature of gangster stereotypes in US culture this late on is often so close to the bone the Americans themselves don't even notice. Adapting the roaring twenties stereotypes with a positive spin, the '50s gangsters were still 'businessmen' who broke heads. Words like 'heist' and 'racket' invoked a playful caper, in which we all got wealthy and no-one got hurt. The cuddliness of the rogue betrays the admiration of the anti-hero, and Sinatra was more anti-heroic than most.

To us this culture seems crass, unbelievably sexist, and morally suspect. A bit like cruisin' wid yo bitch for some bling-bling. The inherent charm of the 'hoodlum' has its roots in the adoration of 'outlaws' like Jesse James. It was emphasised in early Italian-American culture amid the realities of 'opportunity' economics, in which everyone knew the only true route to social mobility was the racket. Coincidentally, the same social-economic assumption is made in much modern culture, from rap to Albert Square.

These were the Rat-Pack years. Since, of the Rat-Pack, only Joey Bishop is still alive, I can just about write what I like. Out in front of the counter were Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Peter Lawford; tucked behind the counter were Sam Giancana and Co.. They'd put on perpetual parties at places like Sinatra's Cal-Neva Lodge. They'd tour the Mafia-owned casinos to lend them sufficient legitimacy for the accountants. They'd hire prostitutes by the vanload. They'd smash things up, particularly when Sinatra started one of his fights. He was now beating up journalists on a regular basis, but when Dean Martin swears they weren't there, what jury is going to convict. Occasionally things did get to court, such as the occasion when Sinatra kicked down the wrong hotel door in search of Marilyn Monroe, but Dean Martin would swear they weren't there and Sinatra would get off, amid sundry reports of witness intimidation. Frank never used drugs: he drank spirits by the bottle to get from one mood to the next. This was the Dantesque embodiment of fun. Sex with several black prostitutes was a particular treat. Harassing passing innocents with cherry-bombs. Blowing $20000 at baccarat. Trashing restaurants, hotel bars, other peoples' weddings. When someone got hurt, they'd close ranks and let the Boys do the tidying up. And they'd get up in the morning, hair of the dog, and skip and smile and pose with a clean white cigarette; and pay off the cops as and when. Peter Lawford was married to Pat Kennedy. John Kennedy was a rising star Democrat. With his mother's sense for networking, Sinatra extended his hospitality. 'Jack' Kennedy thrived on the boys-together raucousness and sexual laxity of it all. We don't know whether he also thrived on the Boys-together criminal intrigue of it all. But whatever the truth about 'Jack' and Marilyn, or Giancana and the CIA/Mafia plot to kill Castro, there was a more direct connection between the mob and the White House.

Frank introduced 'Jack' to Judith Campbell, then introduced Judith to Sam Giancana, and, for most of 1961, Frank kept himself appraised of results. Sinatra campagned heavily for Kennedy, hosting one fund-raising all-star gala after another, but the favours didn't stop there. When the 'too-close-to-call' election came, it was Sam's boys in Chicago that 'convinced' a few swing wards to take Illinois for the Democrats. Sinatra was asked to stage and produce the inauguration do. Giancana was hoping for clemency, or at least an island in the sun. So, when Kennedy announced his brother Robert as Attorney General, they were both pissed off. Robert Kennedy had been at the forefront dealing with racketeering in the unions, and now he threatened to war on the mob. According to the FBI, Giancana was expressing personal displeasure with Sinatra over the whole business.

By March 1962, the Kennedys were trying to extricate themselves from some of their less respectable friends, and the President cancelled a weekend stay with Sinatra, who'd built an extension on his estate for such occasions. In June of the same year, a Deputy, Dick Anderson, got in a fight with Sinatra at Cal-Neva, and Sinatra threatened to have him killed. Two weeks later, Anderson died in a suspicious road accident. In 1963, Sinatra was summoned by the Nevada Gaming Board to talk about mob-involvement and money laundering at Cal-Neva. The day before the hearing, Sinatra gave in and sold Cal-Neva and his other casinos, and bought himself a slice of Warner Brothers. His people told him he needed an image-makeover, and he went on a charity tour of Europe. The papers were filled with shots of Sinatra kissing babies, Sinatra talking to nuns, Sinatra greeting crowds of grateful children. When John F Kennedy was assassinated, Sinatra was in the studio working on 'Robin and the Seven Hoods'. His response was to withdraw two of his films: 'Suddenly' and 'The Manchurian Candidate'.

Part Three: The Original Gangster Rap/

Late in 1965, Sinatra went on a cruise with Mia Farrow, then twenty years old. He took her to meet Joe Kennedy, the ailing patriarch, amid reports they'd become engaged. She talked glowingly of him to reporters, though she remained adamant she'd continue her acting career. In June 1966, Frank and Dean Martin and friends were out in the Beverly Hills Hotel when Fred Weisman, 54, asked them to keep the noise down. Frank and his friends stomped off, but then Frank came back, ripped the telephone out of the wall and beat Weisman half to death with it. Weisman required major surgery for a fractured skull, and was critical for days. Dean Maritn denied everything. Weisman's family were threatened. No charges were brought.

In July 1966, Sinatra and Mia Farrow were married in a private ceremony, to the strains of his latest hit, 'Strangers in the night'. They honeymooned in London. Early in 1967, comedian Jackie Mason, who'd been shot at weeks previously, was beaten up as he sat in his car: broken nose, fractured cheek. The assailant told him it was for his routine about Frank and Mia. He promptly dropped it from his act. Later in 1967, Sinatra was subpoenaed over a Mafia ruse called the Fontainbleu Hotel in Miami. Under oath, Sinatra denied knowing the Fischettis and denied all knowledge of the numerous beatings his bodygaurds handed out at the hotel. The marriage didn't last long. Mia Farrow accepted a tv movie as well as the lead in 'Rosemary's Baby'. When shooting was due to start on the tv movie, 'someone' had her beaten up. They spared her face. In Autumn 1967, Sinatra contacted Mia Farrow telling her to stop working on 'Rosemary's Baby' and join him in New York. She refused, and instead went out dancing with Robert Kennedy of all people. Sinatra saw the pictures of them in the papers, and sent his lawyer to Farrow's trailer with divorce papers. She walked out of his life in the clothes she'd arrived in, pretty much. As a psychological horror, Polansky's 'Rosemary's Baby' is perhaps a testament to this oddest of Hollywood matches. Substitute Satanists for the black lace and ritual of the Cosa Nostra; Farrow's own marihuana habit for the hallucinogenic blurry dreamscapes. Sinatra himself appears as a construct: the smiling avaricious husband, Cassavetes, who'd sell his own bride, and; the avuncular, nattily-dressed doctor, whose airy charm belies the depths of evil, who deals with the worst deceit with a passive pragmatism and impish good humour. The closing shot of Farrow rocking the baby with "his father's eyes" (a line uttered by a dead ringer for Dolly Sinatra), was, fortunately for her, just a cautionary tale.

Senator Robert Kennedy was shot dead on June 5th 1968. Sinatra was campaigning hard for Humphrey. Humphrey lost. Nixon won. But for his Vegas appearances demand was dropping, and even there his bouts of violence were becoming embarrassing, until he finally became uninvited. In 1969 he caused a rumpus trying to beat up Mario Puzo, or, as Sinatra put it, "that fucking pimp". In 1970, he made his last movie of any substance, a pointless farce western called 'Dirty Dingus Magee'. Movies, even gangster movies, had moved on, in the form of 'Bonnie and Clyde' and 'The Godfather'. Sinatra's acting style, which was, more or less, not acting at all, was no longer desirable when a whole new crop of actors schooled on Brando's naturalism added new dimension to a movie. In March 1971 he played the first of his 'retirement' concerts. He was fifty-five, and in decent health; but for all the plaudits the voice had gone.

Later Sinatra was lazier than ever, having to read even the most memorable lyrics, and his patter had become a string of cheap insults and racial and sexual slurs, to the boredom of all. By this time his repertoire was a few worn signature tunes. One thing about melodies like 'My Way', 'Strangers in the night', 'New York', 'Chicago' and the rest is they are easy and comfortable to sing. They are all thoroughly diatonic. This is a major reason why so many would-be singers of all ages are always having a go. Professionally, he'd become the spoilt brat of old. He'd insist on the colour of the hotel suite and his goons had taken to beating you up if you asked for an autograph. Politically, the '70s Sinatra was a convert, a stauch Republican, a crusader for hundreds of charitable causes, throwing his homes open to the likes of Vice-President Spiro Agnew. In fifteen years he'd moved 180 degrees while remaining directly adjacent to the White House. Agnew was later investigated for extortion and bribery. Frank must have detected a kindred spirit.

It was Australia that finally gave him what for. During a show in Melbourne in 1974, he called the women of Australia's press "half a buck hookers". The Journalists union created uproar. The Stagehands union walked out and his tour was cancelled. The Transport union walked out, preventing Sinatra from flying anywhere. And the Waiters union stopped all service to his hotel room. After an embarrassing climbdown he was allowed to leave the country.

In 1976, after the usual affair and subterfuge, he married Barbara Marx, ex-wife of Zeppo. He was a statesman now. Awards from charities all over the world. Renowned for his philanthropy, he could still take time out between shows to be photographed with the Gambino family, heads of the gangs of New York. His mother, Dolly, hated Barbara Marx and had her down as a gold-digger. In January 1977, though, a chartered plane carrying Dolly and a friend to a Sinatra show crashed into mountains in California. There were no survivors. Frank Sinatra became increasingly religious. Not tv preacher quoting the Bible religious, but; more shady conflabs with visiting Cardinals religious. To his kids dismay, he got a Papal Order annulling his first three marriages, in order to annul the divorces in the eyes of the church.

When Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980, he immediately received a telegram from Sinatra advising him to bomb Iran. Sinatra hosted his inauguration gala, singing torch songs to Nancy Reagan at a Republican slime-fest. i'm not aware how many George Bushes were present. An inquiry into reinstating his gambling licence served as a gloss of public vindication, featuring Gregory Peck as a character witness. In 1985, Reagan awarded Sinatra the Presidential Medal of Freedom, along with James Stewart, Chuck Yeager and Mother Theresa, amid rumours about Sinatra and Nancy Reagan.

Sinatra died, after a heart-attack, in 1998. Now, i'm not one for conspiracies, particularly. It seems to me though, that the criminal underworld has a secret weapon when it comes to making someone die from a heart attack. It ain't some poisonous herb grown only in Sicily. It ain't no sudden shock involving jumping out of a wardrobe. No, all you do is: you shoot the guy twice in the head, and then you hold the gun at the doctor's head while he pronounces "heart attack". Kirk Douglas led the funeral service. He left undisclosed sums to his widow and children. It's been estimated he left $150 million to childrens' charities. He'd outlived all his peers. He'd outlived all his enemies. No-one talks of the Mafia any more. It's all crack gangs and towel-headed demons. Thesedays, elections and sporting events are fixed by 'businessmen', while Rupert Murdoch charges us all to watch. You might think a man as crooked as Frank would never pass muster in these days of scrutiny; but look at Dick Cheney.

Conclusion: "In Other Words"

As for his musical legacy? It's what Des O'Connor does with a handkerchief. It's Robbie Williams groaning his feeble baritone in front of a band who wishes it was somewhere else. It's Rod Stewart's latest reincarnation, as the fruity laryngitis has turned into sandpaper belch, less lounge-lizard as lounge-Celtic fan. It's every over-fifties Karaoke, and every pub that has a 'real' band to boot. And it's Harry Connick and Jamie Cullum, squandering youth, style and musical talent (both are fine pianists), on an image that, in time, will be about as appealing as Michael Jackson's theme park.

Ol' Blue Eyes might have cut it when the competition was Johnny Ray and Eddie Fisher. It might still appeal if you're into the amphetamine-addled performances of poor old Judy Garland (stop fiddling with that little dog, you freak!), or Shirley Bassey, or Lloyd-Webber's derivative dirges. But to us he should be non gratis, a thing of mockery.