b. Francis Albert Sinatra, 12 December 1915, Hoboken, New Jersey, USA, d. 15 May 1998, Los Angeles, California, USA. After working for a time in the office of a local newspaper, The Jersey Observer, Frank Sinatra decided to pursue a professional career as a singer. Already an admirer of Bing Crosby, he was impelled to pursue this course after attending a 1933 Crosby concert, and sang whenever and wherever he could, working locally in clubs and bars. Then, in 1935 he entered a popular US radio talent show, Major Bowes Amateur Hour. Also on the show was a singing trio, and the four young men found themselves teamed together by the no-nonsense promoter. The ad-hoc teaming worked, and the group, renamed ‘The Hoboken Four’, won first prize. Resulting from this came a succession of concert dates with the Major Bowes travelling show, along with club and occasional radio dates. By 1938 Sinatra was singing on several shows on each of a half-dozen radio stations, sometimes for expenses - often for nothing. The experience and, especially, the exposure were vital if he was to be recognized.
Among the bands with which he performed was one led by songwriter Harold Arlen but in 1939, shortly after he married his childhood sweetheart, Nancy Barbato, he was heard and hired by Harry James, who had only recently formed his own big band. James recognized Sinatra’s talent from the beginning and also identified the source of his determination to succeed, his massive self-confidence and powerful ego. During their brief association, James remarked to an interviewer, ‘His name is Sinatra, and he considers himself the greatest vocalist in the business. Get that! No one’s even heard of him! He’s never had a hit record, and he looks like a wet rag, but he says he’s the greatest.’ In 1939 and early 1940 Sinatra made a number of records with James and began to develop a small following. His records with James included ‘My Buddy’ and ‘All Or Nothing At All’.
In 1940 Sinatra was approached with an offer by Tommy Dorsey, then leading one of the most popular swing era bands. Only some six months had expired on Sinatra’s two-year contract with James, who must have realized he was parting with a potential goldmine, but he was a generous-spirited man and let the singer go. Sinatra had many successful records with Dorsey including ‘Polka Dots And Moonbeams’, ‘Imagination’, ‘Fools Rush In’, ‘I’ll Never Smile Again’, ‘The One I Love’, ‘Violets For Your Furs’, ‘How About You?’ and ‘In The Blue Of Evening’, some of which became fixtures in his repertoire. One record from this period became a major hit in 1941 when the USA entered World War II. This song, recorded at Sinatra’s second session with Dorsey in February 1940, was ‘I’ll Be Seeing You’, and its lyric gained a special significance for servicemen, and the women they had left behind. Sinatra’s popularity with the young female population, achieved despite, or perhaps because of, his gangling, unheroic and rather vulnerable appearance, prompted him to leave Dorsey and begin a solo career. In spite of the tough line taken by Dorsey over the remaining half of his five-year contract (Dorsey allegedly settled for 43% of the singer’s gross over the next 10 years), Sinatra quit.
Within months his decision proved to be right. He had become the idol of hordes of teenage girls, his public appearances were sell-outs and his records jostled with one another for hit status. In the early 40s he had appeared in a handful of films as Dorsey’s vocalist, but by the middle of the decade he began appearing in feature films as an actor-singer. These included lightweight if enjoyable fare such as Higher And Higher (1944), Anchors Aweigh (1945), It Happened In Brooklyn (1947), The Kissing Bandit (1948) and Double Dynamite (1951).
By the 50s, however, Sinatra’s career was in trouble; both as a singer and actor, he appeared to have reached the end of the road. His acting had suffered in part from the quality of material he was offered, and had accepted. Nevertheless, it was his film career that was the first to recover when he landed the role of Angelo Maggio in From Here To Eternity (1953) for which he won an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor. Thereafter, he was taken seriously as an actor even if he was rarely given the same standard of role or achieved the same quality of performance. He continued to make films, usually in straight acting roles, but occasionally in musicals. Among the former were The Man With The Golden Arm (1955), one of the roles that matched his breakthrough performance as Maggio, Johnny Concho (1956), Kings Go Forth (1958), A Hole In The Head (1959), The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Von Ryan’s Express (1965), Assault On A Queen (1966), Tony Rome (1967) and The Detective (1968). His musicals included Guys And Dolls (1955), High Society (1956), Pal Joey (1957), The Joker Is Wild (1957), Can-Can (1960) and Robin And The 7 Hoods (1964).