Frank Sinatra

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Frank Sinatra (1960)

Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra (born December 12, 1915 in Hoboken , New Jersey , † May 14, 1998 in Los Angeles , California ) was an American singer , actor and entertainer . His nicknames were Ol 'Blue Eyes and, because of his characteristic voice, The Voice . Sinatra was long considered the most influential artist in Las Vegas and was therefore half-jokingly but just as respectful as Chairman of the board among his colleagues(Chairman of the Board). He began his musical career in the swing era as a singer in the orchestras of Harry James and Tommy Dorsey . With fellow artists like Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. he belonged to the so-called Rat Pack . His internationally successful hits, including Strangers in the Night , My Way and New York, New York , brought Sinatra world fame; his albums have sold more than 150 million copies.

Frank Sinatra received the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for the film Damned in All Eternity and a nomination for Best Actor for The Man with the Golden Arm . He also played in other films, including in the musical The Upper Ten Thousand with Grace Kelly . His awards include numerous Grammys, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1985) and the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor, and important humanitarian honors.

Sinatra has been married several times and has three children, Nancy , Frank Jr. and Tina . The versatile artist is considered to be one of the most influential and well-known personalities in pop music and an outstanding figure in show business in the 20th century.

biography

Early years

Frank Sinatra with Alida Valli in an Armed Forces Radio Service interview (1944)

Sinatra was the son of Italian-American parents who had both come to the east coast of the United States as children with their parents around the turn of the century . His father, Anthony Martin Sinatra (1894–1969), came from Palermo , Sicily , was a professional boxer and worked as a fireman and pub. His mother, Natalina Dolly Sinatra (1896–1977), came from Lumarzo in northern Italy near Genoa , worked as a midwife and was the local chairman of the Democratic Partyin Hoboken. It can be assumed that Sinatra, as an only child, grew up in a modest but, compared to the situation of most other Italian-American immigrants, quite solid circumstances.

He dedicated himself to music at an early age and was already playing as a teenager with his ukulele , a small music system and a megaphone through the bars of his hometown Hoboken. From 1932 Sinatra had first small radio appearances; and since seeing his idol Bing Crosby in concert in Jersey City in 1933 , it had been his career aspiration to become a singer. After leaving high school without a degree, he worked part time as a sports journalist for a local newspaper during the recession in the 1930s. The cinema also found his great interest; one of his favorite actors was Edward G. Robinson, which at the time mainly appeared in gangster films.

With the vocal quartet The Hoboken Four, Sinatra won a talent competition on the then popular radio show Major Bowes Amateur Hour in September 1935 , and he went on his first national tour with him in the following months. From 1937 he worked for 18 months as an entertainer in a music club in New Jersey, which was frequented by stars like Cole Porter , and laid the foundation for his professional career there and with other radio appearances.

In February 1939 Sinatra married his childhood sweetheart Nancy Barbato (1917-2018). From this marriage in 1940 the daughter Nancy Sinatra emerged, later a successful singer herself. She was followed by Frank Sinatra Jr. in 1944 . (1988–1995 Sinatra's orchestra leader) and in 1948 Tina Sinatra , who worked as a film producer.

Career start

Frank Sinatra (1947)

The band leader Harry James , who was very popular at the time, discovered Sinatra shortly after his wedding in spring 1939 and hired him as the lead singer for his big band . Together they recorded the young talent's first records, including the track All or Nothing at All , which brought Sinatra to the top of the charts when it was re-released in 1943. Sinatra achieved his national breakthrough when he switched to the Tommy Dorsey orchestra at the beginning of 1940 as a singer and joined him after a few months with I'll Never Smile Againhis first number 1 hit was a success. His concert and radio appearances with Dorsey quickly made Sinatra known nationwide and encouraged him to plan for a solo career. At his request, Dorsey released him from his long-term contract in September 1942, initially in exchange for a share of future income.

From the summer of 1943 Sinatra had a permanent record deal with Columbia . His publications, mostly recorded with the arranger Axel Stordahl , brought him numerous top positions in the charts and soon made him the most successful singer in the country. For many years he could be heard on the radio several times a week, for example in the popular program Your Hit Parade (1943/1944 and 1947-49). In addition, there were own series such as Reflections (1942), The Broadway Bandbox (1943), Songs by Sinatra (1943 and 1945-47), The Frank Sinatra Programs and Frank Sinatra in person (1944), The Frank Sinatra Show(1945) and Light-Up Time (1949/1950). In the 1950s, the radio play series Rocky Fortune (1953/54) and the music show To Be Perfectly Frank (1953-55) followed.

His consistent use of the radio medium was a basis for Sinatra's popularity. He became the musical idol of the world war generation. The young girls in particular liked Frankie Boy , who triggered the first mass hysteria in pop history, known as the Columbus Day Riots . Sinatra also enjoyed success as an actor in musicals and comedies for RKO and MGM . In 1945 he conceived and realized the short film The House I Live In (RKO Radio Pictures, 1945), in which he, as the sole leading actor, made a plea for equality of all races and religions. For this, Sinatra himself, the producer Frank Rossand director Mervyn LeRoy was awarded a specially created Oscar for 1945 in early March 1946 . Sinatra later received two more Oscars, the Best Supporting Actor Award in 1953 and the Honorary Oscar / Jean-Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1970 ; in addition, there was a nomination for best leading actor in The Man with the Golden Arm in 1955.

Career slump

Frank Sinatra and Eleanor Roosevelt (1960)

At the beginning of the 1950s, its star sank noticeably. In addition, he finally lost his reputation as a clean man, he had numerous affairs with some celebrity women, and finally his first marriage to Nancy was divorced in 1951. The second marriage to the movie star Ava Gardner , which was closed in 1951, lasted only a few years; The separation officially took place in 1953 and the divorce in 1957. Numerous other affairs with show colleagues followed. In the spring of 1950, Sinatra began to bleed his vocal cords , which temporarily disabled his voice. His first own television series, The Frank Sinatra Show (1950–52) was a commercial flop, and in the fall of 1952 he lost his recording contract with Columbia Records after his film company had not renewed the contract: his singing career seemed to be at an end.

comeback

In 1952 Sinatra had applied for a serious role in which he put all hopes to give his career a new impetus, that of Angelo Maggio in Damned For Eternity . The director of the film, Fred Zinnemann , was initially unwilling to assign the role to him, and was only convinced when Sinatra insisted on test recordings. According to rumors, he was only hired by Zinnemann after he was severely threatened by the mafia . This was later shown in a scene in the film The Godfather(1972) alluded to: The character of Johnny Fontane, a whiny punk singer who begs (and receives) support for his career from the “godfather”, is supposed to be modeled after Sinatra. ( Mario Puzo , the author of the novel, has always denied this connection). Sinatra not only got the role, but also the Oscar for best supporting actor .

With up to four films a year, including with audience favorites like Grace Kelly in The Top Ten Thousand , he cemented his reputation as a screen star during this time. Increasingly he was now on the concert stages of the gambling metropolis Las Vegas , and with his weekly program The Frank Sinatra Show (1957/58) as well as other specials and guest appearances he was also present on television again. Thus his comeback in the show industry was a success.

During the German dubbing of his films, Sinatra was mainly spoken by three main speakers: In the 1950s, this was mainly Wolfgang Kieling , while Gerd Martienzen and Herbert Stass alternated as the German voice of Sinatra from the 1960s .

In 1953 Sinatra had also signed a new record deal with the Capitol Records label . In the following years he recorded a number of albums there such as In the Wee Small Hours , Songs for Swingin 'Lovers , Come Fly with Me or Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely , many of them with arranger Nelson Riddle , as well as with Billy May and Gordon Jenkins .

From the 1960s onwards he was the entertainer par excellence in several respects, had multiple award-winning specials on television, went on numerous tours at home and abroad and was able to gain a foothold in the film business as an actor as well as a film producer and director. Because he was increasingly dissatisfied with his contractual terms with Capitol, he founded his own record company Reprise Records in 1960 , for which he exclusively produced his music recordings from 1962. In 1963 he sold the company to the Warner Music Group at a large profit , but retained full decision-making power for his own recordings and projects. In 1966 he succeeded with Strangers in the Night , a composition by Bert Kaempfert ,Charles Singleton and Eddie Snyder , the greatest commercial success of his musical career to date. This climax was accompanied by a Grammy win for the albums September of My Years and A Man and His Music and several Emmy wins for his A Man and His Music television specials (1965-1967). At the end of December 1968 he took part in My Way , an English adaptation of the French chanson Comme d'habitude written by Paul Anka (by Claude François , Jacques Revaux and Gilles Thibault), a song that from then on became a world hit and its own signature tune.

Farewell to the stage

In the spring of 1971 Sinatra announced his departure from the stage and show business, but after only two years of abstinence appeared again regularly from 1973 and then into the 1990s and continued to make recordings, mostly directed by Don Costa , as was the case in the late 1960s led. Sinatra not only limited himself to reinterpreting songs that had already been published, but also recorded a new hit in 1979 with the Theme from New York, New York , created in 1977 , which became his trademark. In the same year, The Future , a three-quarter-hour musical suite with autobiographical allusions, was written by Gordon Jenkinshad composed. With numerous other concert tours to all five continents , the 1980s became Sinatra's most commercially successful stage years both abroad and at home, where he set audience records, some of which still exist today, with his concert series in New York's Carnegie Hall . In the early 1990s he released two CDs (Duets I & II) on which he re-recorded his hits with various duet partners.

Sinatra had remained unmarried for a long time after his split from Ava Gardner. In 1962 he was briefly engaged to the dancer Juliet Prowse , but it wasn't until 1966 that he remarried: Mia Farrow , a very young actress. But this marriage did not last long either; In 1968 she was divorced. It wasn't until 1976 that Sinatra found personal happiness with his fourth wife Barbara , who had previously been married to Zeppo Marx . In addition to numerous love affairs, there were always rumors about alcohol problems . Especially with his friends Sammy Davis, Jr. , Dean Martin , Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford, with which he had legendary appearances at The Sands in Las Vegas (later referred to as The Rat Pack , they never used that name themselves and called their shows The Summit ), were supposedly downright revelers not uncommon. His entertainer appearance in an elegant tuxedo with the whiskey glass in his right hand and the microphone in his left was characteristic of him. Sinatra tried to hide the early retreat of his once plump hair away from the stage under his typical elegant hats; on stage he wore a toupee .

At the end of May and beginning of June 1993 Sinatra gave six concerts for the last time in Europe, five of them in Germany, where Sinatra had previously performed in 1951, 1961, 1975, 1989 and 1991. Four weeks later, Sinatra began recording for Duets , his penultimate studio project, followed by Duets II in 1994 . In 1994 Sinatra had more than 80 appearances and went on concert tours to the Philippines and Japan . In December 1994 he announced his final withdrawal after giving his last regular concerts in front of a home audience in Atlantic City .

Sinatra had his last vocal performance in February 1995 in Palm Springs on the sidelines of a benefit golf tournament he organized himself, and he was last on a stage at the recording date of the official gala for his 80th birthday on November 19, 1995. 1944 already Sinatra was from New Jersey to the west coast of California moved, where he held since 1948 Palm Springs living. In 1995 he sold his property there and spent his final years in Beverly Hills . Sinatra made his last public appearance on October 25, 1996 when he and his wife attended a charity event in Beverly Hills.

Sickness and death

Sinatra's grave in the Desert Memorial Park Cemetery in Cathedral City

On November 1, 1996, Sinatra was hospitalized for a week with mild pneumonia . On January 9, 1997, he suffered a heart attack , was able to leave the hospital after eight days, but has not appeared at public events since then and was increasingly confined to bed. The 1997 decision of the US Congress to award him the Gold Medal of Honor he experienced at home on screen.

On May 14, 1998, Sinatra suffered another heart attack, the consequences of which he succumbed the same evening at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles . In his honor, the city lights were turned off for three minutes in Las Vegas , and the Empire State Building in New York City was bathed in blue light for three days , alluding to his nickname Ol 'Blue Eyes . Sinatra was buried in Cathedral City , California on May 20, 1998, following a funeral mass given in Los Angeles by Archbishop of Los Angeles Roger Cardinal Mahoney .

Organized Crime Link

Time and again, Frank Sinatra was and is said to have maintained closer ties to bullies , especially the Italian-American Cosa Nostra , in whose clubs he, like many of his professional colleagues, had sung in the 1940s. Involvement in criminal activities of his contacts was often said of him, but never proven.

In 1943, Sinatra was engaged for several weeks in the Riobamba in Manhattan, a nightclub run by the bully and gang leader Louis Buchalter , who at that time had already been sentenced to death for murder and was executed a year later.

As early as 1942 it was alleged that the gangster Willie Moretti or Sam Giancana had made Tommy Dorsey terminate his contract with Sinatra. According to his daughter Nancy Sinatra , it was Jules Stein, founder of the MCA , who bought Sinatra out of the contract for $ 75,000.

On December 26, 1946, Sinatra was also a committed entertainer at the Havana Conference of the Mafia and gangsters associated with them , to which Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky had asked.

The Chicago Mafia and their boss Sam Giancana campaigned for a positive result for Kennedy in the West Virginia primaries . The mobsters probably hoped to use Sinatra and his contacts to John F. Kennedy to avoid prosecution. Sinatra had sung Kennedy's official campaign song High Hopes in the American presidential election in 1960 . Historians, however, question the substantial effects of the campaign donation. Among other things, it is unclear whether Kennedy knew about the donations. In addition, there would also have been a victory for Kennedy's rival in Illinois, Richard Nixon, did not result in the latter winning the nomination. Sinatra had also invested part of his income in Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe , two gambling metropolises in the state of Nevada , in which the Cosa Nostra was undoubtedly active. Sinatra temporarily lost its license to operate its own casinos .

Sinatra's hotel casino The Sands , which Sinatra had regularly performed since it opened from 1952 to 1967 , and in which he temporarily owned shares (until it was taken over by Howard Hughes ), was founded with funds from Kosher Nostras Meyer Lansky, among others . This had the money with the help of dubious union leader Jimmy Hoffa from the Central States Pension Fund of the Teamsters worried. It was quite common at the time to provide artists with small shares in the casinos; so as held Harpo and Gummo Marx and Dean Martin minority interests in the Rivierain Las Vegas when they performed there regularly. Paul Anka claimed in his autobiography My Way , published in April 2013, that Sinatra tried to hire a killer via the mafia because after Howard Hughes took over the casinos in Las Vegas, he could no longer get the gaming chips for free and therefore killed a casino manager responsible wanted to.

In 1965 Sinatra is said to have helped Joseph Stacher , who was assigned to organized crime by the US authorities, with his officially approved emigration to Israel . From 1976 there is a group photo from the Westchester Premiere Theater in Tarrytown , New York, which was closed shortly afterwards , showing Sinatra with several high-ranking mafiosi (including Carlo Gambino and his later successor Paul Castellano ). In the 1970s and 1980s Joseph V. Bilotti, a brother of Thomas Bilotti , served as Sinatra's bodyguard ; the Bilotti brothers belonged to the Gambino familyat; Thomas was Paul Castellano's deputy and intended to be his successor. The official investigations have so far provided no conclusive evidence of Sinatra's direct involvement in criminal business and were therefore discontinued in 1978. In the early 1980s Sinatra was finally reassigned its casino license.

Political and social engagement

Frank Sinatra with Nancy and Ronald Reagan at the White House, 1981

Frank Sinatra's political and social engagement began in the 1940s when he supported the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt (for which parts of the Republican press called him the crooner of the New Deal ) and with his Oscar-winning short film The House I Live In (1945) spoke out against the racial segregation that still prevailed in his homeland at the time. In the 1960s, Sinatra supported the civil rights movement of Martin Luther King , undertook a world tour (1962), financed entirely at his own expense, for the benefit of various children's aid projects, and was heavily involved in youth work in Israel and the West Bank, where in 1964 in Nazareth he founded a still existing home for Jewish and Arab orphans. In 1978, he founded the Frank Sinatra International Student Center at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem , which was bombed in July 2002 and subsequently rebuilt.

Since the 1970s, Sinatra mainly supported republican politicians such as Spiro Agnew or Ronald Reagan , but remained a member of the Democratic Party throughout his life . From the beginning of his career, Sinatra performed regularly for charity. He has received numerous high national and international government awards for his commitment, including the President's Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal, the two highest civil orders in the United States. The sum of all the money he has raised and donated at charity events over the decades is estimated at over a billion dollars.

Significance and aftermath

Worldwide reputation

Frank Sinatra Park in Hoboken , New Jersey .

Sinatra was an extremely productive artist who recorded a total of almost 1300 songs in the studio in the 54 years between 1939 and 1993 and built his musical legacy between 1933 and 1995 with live interpretations of around 1900 different songs. He was often a man of superlatives. From 1940 to 2007, for example, not a year went by without at least one Sinatra title showing up on the Billboard charts (singles or albums). His Capitol album Come Dance with Me stayed on the Billboard LP charts for a full 140 weeks from January 31, 1959, nine more albums stayed there for more than a year.

Between January 1961 and August 1963, Sinatra released a total of 14 different completely newly recorded albums, 12 of which came into the top 30 of the Billboard charts. Sinatra herself won 18 Grammy awards from 1958 to 1995, and received a further 25 nominations (more awards and nominations were added posthumously). He won the Emmy four times for his musical television shows. With his concert at the Maracana football stadium in Rio de Janeiro in January 1980 in front of 175,000 spectators, Sinatra was represented in the Guinness Book of Records until 1988, when Tina Turner attracted more listeners to the same place .

Sinatra has performed on every continent in the world and in more than three dozen countries; In over 90 different countries his records were sold in their own pressings during his lifetime. Eight years after his death, Frank Sinatra was still breaking records - even before it officially opened in March 2006, the Palladium Theater in London (where Sinatra made his concert debut in England in 1950) was selling tickets for a multi-month multi-month multimedia show for more than £ 1.5 million -Sinatra concert show. Sinatra set the previous record in November 1975 with a series of concerts together with Sarah Vaughan and Count Basie when there were almost 400,000 inquiries for a total of 15,000 tickets for ten shows in eight days.

Musical meaning

Sinatra, who never received professional vocal training and, according to his own admission, could only read rudimentary music in later years, is considered by many to be one of the most important song interpreters of the 20th century. Musicians outside of crooner entertainment, jazz and swing also valued Sinatra's outstanding role in this field - for example , songwriter Bob Dylan , who came from folk and rock and who released the concept album Shadows in the Night in 2015 with new recordings of Sinatra songs. Sinatra himself named Bing Crosby , Ruth Etting , Al Jolson , Rudy Vallee or Mabel Mercer as role models or style-forming influences for his work.

In addition, Sinatra, a great lover of classical music from his youth, drew a lot of inspiration for his work from bel canto , especially for his improvisational coloratura, which was pronounced from the beginning. He named Mario Lanza and Enrico Caruso as the ones he had studied from an early age through their recordings. The same applies to the songs by Franz Schubert . He has also performed with successful opera singers at the New York Metropolitan Opera such as Lawrence Tibbett , Carlos Ramírez , Lauritz Melchior , Robert Merrill and Luciano Pavarottifriends. He performed with all of them and they occasionally gave him tips on how to improve his singing technique.

Little is known that he studied those contemporary orchestras that broke new ground, such as that of Spike Jones , with whom he recorded several titles for the radio, or Stan Kenton with his experimental innovation orchestra of the early fifties, the Sinatra, his own radio special in 1955 (Biography in Sound: Sinatra on Kenton) . All of this strengthened his talent to immerse himself in the lyrical improvisation of a song beyond given notes and to make the text of a song an equal part of a recording alongside melody and rhythm. In the ballad field , but also in the area of swing , Sinatra set the tone.

Because of the effects it created in his audience, many of Sinatra's musical work in pop culture history equated with that of the Beatles and Elvis Presley . Sinatra was the first to trigger the phenomenon of mass hysteria in the 1940s . Thousands of young girls, the so-called “ Bobby soxers ”, overturned or screamed in rows (for example on the occasion of Sinatra's concert series at New York's Paramount Theater in October 1944, the famous Columbus Day Riots ) when they called their staradmired in concert on stage. He did nothing else than many other big band singers of the time, namely to sing romantic songs. But in contrast to many of his colleagues, he had “that certain something” right from the start and heralded a new era in the musical landscape. Above all, he made romantic ballads modern, where earlier the big bands had been decisive insofar as they did not assign a main musical role to their respective voices, i.e. the singers: Some say that Sinatra is in this sense “the death of the classic big” -Bands ”by placing the vocals in the foreground.

Vocally, with many of his albums, he has set standards in terms of phrasing , timing and lyrical depth. This applies not only to the ballads, but also especially to his rhythmic improvisations on songs at a faster pace. He never let himself be tied to a certain typical technique, "but it always sounds the way you spontaneously think it should have sounded forever", as Count Basie put it, as many other music listeners around the world have noticed to have. Dionne Warwick is said to have said about Sinatra:

"He could sing the phone book to people and they would still like it."

The jazz singer

As one of the earliest interpreters of popular music, Sinatra - who had often referred to Billie Holiday as one of his most important influencers - incorporated jazz elements into his singing. This characterized his personal style, while other performers like Bing Crosby remained foreign to such improvisations, and also set him apart from numerous other crooners . Sinatra's status as a jazz singer is controversial among jazz purists in audiences, but Sinatra's rank among professional jazz musicians is even higher. There is hardly a well-known jazz musician, from Oscar Peterson to Lester Young and Stan Getz tooMiles Davis , who has not commented on how much Sinatra's recordings have influenced her style - and it is mainly famous instrumental soloists who express this. Miles Davis in particular, who only met Sinatra once in person, summed it up: "What phrasing technique I have learned for my instrument, I owe a very large part to the recordings of Frank Sinatra."

Sinatra has worked with formative representatives of jazz for decades. In the beginning there were artists like Harry James , Joe Bushkin or Buddy Rich , later there was the intensive cooperation with Count Basie , with whom Sinatra went on several tours, including performing at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1965 and making three records and two television programs. Sinatra's work with Red Norvo is considered outstandingand his quintet considered (1959/60), with Sinatra proving himself to be a genuine jazz interpreter in a recording from Australia that was published on record and was able to adapt all the stylistic elements of established jazz singers for himself. Sinatra's talent for scat singing was also evident there. 1967 Sinatra played an album with Duke Ellington , where the singer proved to be a concentrated and disciplined interpreter as well as a congenial partner. Sinatra's work with Ella Fitzgerald , with whom he appeared together in concerts and television shows, also extended over many years . Fitzgerald should also be on Sinatra's Duets in 1993-Album participate, which failed because of their poor health. Other partners of Sinatra at concerts were Sarah Vaughan and George Shearing .

Sinatra's 1984 album LA Is My Lady brought the artist together again with important representatives of jazz. Under the direction of Quincy Jones , Sinatra has worked with Ray Brown , George Benson , Randy Brecker , Michael Brecker , Lionel Hampton , Jerome Richardson , Steve Gadd , Jon Faddis , Ralph MacDonald , Bob James , Frank Foster , Frank Wess , Buddy Collette , Major Mule Holley andUrbie Green together. Sinatra sang standards such as Teach Me Tonight , It's Allright with Me , Mack the Knife , Until the Real Thing Comes Along , Stormy Weather , If I Should Lose You and After You've Gone . In the context of the Sinatra discography, this album was viewed rather disparagingly for a long time, but Sinatra achieved great fame among jazz fans.

Rolling Stone magazine selected his album with Antonio Carlos Jobim entitled Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim from 1967 in its list The 100 Best Jazz Albums at number 91.

Performances in Germany

Between 1951 and 1993 Frank Sinatra made six concert tours in Germany and gave a total of twelve concerts. For a long time , his relationship with Germany, where he made a guest appearance in Wiesbaden in December 1951 , was divided for a long time. On his first visit in 1951, on his 36th birthday, Sinatra was accompanied by his second wife, Ava Gardner, who was then newly wed. In 1961 Sinatra made a guest appearance in Frankfurt with Dean Martin . In addition, Sinatra was on a private surprise visit on June 20, 1968 in Munich , where his daughter Tina Sinatra was living as the partner of the director Michael Pflegehar .

The performances planned in 1975 as part of his European tour in Germany were not a good star. Advance ticket sales were slow, and his arranger and orchestra director Don Costa fell seriously ill after the second concert, so that a third gig planned in Berlin had to be canceled. Sinatra made his two appearances in Munich and Frankfurt without comment, but a few days later in London some derogatory remarks about the German audience followed.

It wasn't until 1989 that Sinatra came back to Germany for a concert with Liza Minnelli and Sammy Davis, Jr. as part of the Ultimate Event world tour. 1991 followed another appearance in Frankfurt as part of his Diamond Jubilee world tour. On his Germany tour at the end of May and beginning of June 1993, with concerts in Dortmund , Hamburg , Berlin , Stuttgart and Cologne , Sinatra, who had stayed in the Deutz district for ten days, said he felt very much at home. The five concerts were also his last concert appearances in Europe.

date Venue Orchestra direction program
Dec 12, 1951 Wiesbaden , casino (two shows at 4 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.)
0Aug 7, 1961 Frankfurt am Main with Dean Martin
May 23, 1975 Munich, Olympic Hall Don Costa You Are the Sunshine of My Life / Bad Bad Leroy Brown / But Beautiful / Didn't We? / Something / Nice'n'Easy / My Way / Saloon Medley: Last Night When We Were Young - Violets for Your Furs - Here's That Rainy Day / Cycles / Strangers in the Night / Let Me Try Again / If / The Lady Is a Tramp / I've Got You Under My Skin / My Kind of Town / Put Your Dreams Away
0May 2nd 1975 Frankfurt am Main, Jahrhunderthalle Don Costa You Are the Sunshine of My Life / Bad Bad Leroy Brown / But Beautiful / Didn't We? / Something / Nice'n'Easy / My Way / Saloon Medley: Just One of Those Things - It Never Entered My Mind - When Your Lover Has Gone / Cycles / Strangers in the Night / Let Me Try Again / If / The Lady Is a Tramp / I've Got You Under My Skin / My Kind of Town / Put Your Dreams Away
Apr 29, 1989 Munich, Olympic Hall Frank Sinatra Jr. with Liza Minnelli and Sammy Davis, Jr. (The Ultimate Event)

For Once in My Life / Come Rain or Come Shine / The Best Is Yet to Come / I Have Dreamed / Where or When / Bewitched / Strangers in the Night / Soliloquy / Mack the Knife / My Way / Medley with Liza Minnelli and Sammy Davis jr.

0Oct 5, 1991 Frankfurt am Main, Festhalle Frank Sinatra Jr. with Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé (Diamond Jubilee Tour)

Come Fly with Me / Where or When / You Make Me Feel So Young / Come Rain or Come Shine / For Once in My Life / The Lady Is a Tramp / Bewitched / The Best Is Yet to Come / Summer Wind / I've Got You Under My Skin / Mack The Knife / One for My Baby / Luck Be a Lady / Theme from New York, New York / "Sinatra A to Z" -Medley with Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé / My Way

May 31, 1993 Dortmund, Westfalenhalle Frank Sinatra Jr. I've Got the World on a String / All or Nothing at All / My Kind of Town / For Once in My Life / A Foggy Day / Come Rain or Come Shine / I've Got You Under My Skin / The Best Is Yet to Come / Luck Be a Lady / Strangers in the Night / What Now My Love? / My Heart Stood Still / Theme from New York, New York / Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out to Dry / Summer Wind / Mack the Knife / My Way
02nd June 1993 Hamburg, Derbypark (open air) Frank Sinatra Jr. Come Fly with Me / You Make Me Feel So Young / Where or When / I Get a Kick Out of You / For Once in My Life / Come Rain or Come Shine / The Lady Is a Tramp / Mack the Knife / Witchcraft / The Best Is Yet to Come / Strangers in the Night / Street of Dreams / Moonlight in Vermont / Theme from New York, New York / Angel Eyes / Summer Wind / My Way
03rd June 1993 Berlin, Germany Hall Frank Sinatra Jr. I've Got the World on a String / All or Nothing at All / My Kind of Town / For Once in My Life / A Foggy Day / Come Rain or Come Shine / I've Got You Under My Skin / The Best Is Yet to Come / Luck Be a Lady / Strangers in the Night / What Now My Love? / I've Got a Crush on You / Theme from New York, New York / Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out to Dry / Summer Wind / Mack the Knife / My Way
05th June 1993 Stuttgart, New Palace, Ehrenhof (open air) Frank Sinatra Jr. Come Fly with Me / You Make Me Feel So Young / Where or When / I Get a Kick Out of You / For Once in My Life / Come Rain or Come Shine / The Lady Is a Tramp / Mack the Knife / Witchcraft / The Best Is Yet to Come / Strangers in the Night / Street of Dreams / Ol'Man River / Theme from New York, New York / Angel Eyes / Summer Wind / My Way
0June 6, 1993 Cologne, Roncalliplatz (open air) Frank Sinatra Jr. I've Got the World on a String / All Or Nothing at All / My Kind of Town / For Once in My Life / A Foggy Day / Come Rain or Come Shine / I've Got You Under My Skin / The Best Is Yet to Come / Luck Be a Lady / Strangers in the Night / What Now My Love? / Barbara / Theme from New York, New York / Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out to Dry / Summer Wind / Mack the Knife / My Way

Performances in Austria

Sinatra performed three times in Austria during his career . All three concerts took place in the Wiener Stadthalle . Sinatra first made a guest appearance there on May 22, 1975 as part of his first European tour since 1962. The concert, at which Sinatra's orchestra was conducted by Don Costa, was followed by 10,600 spectators.

Sinatra's second stay was from September 30th to October 3rd, 1984 in the Danube metropolis - and he did it entirely at his own expense. His concert on October 2, 1984, at which Sinatra was accompanied by the orchestra of his companion from Dorsey times Buddy Rich under the direction of Joe Parnello , was a charity performance for the benefit of the disability aid project Licht ins Dunkel and was presented by the then US ambassador in Austria, Helene von Damm , initiated. The ORF interrupted its television program to broadcast three songs from the concert live. The subsequent auction of the stage microphone brought in another 250,000Schilling for the charity. The day before, Sinatra had been presented with the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art, 1st Class by Minister Herbert Moritz at the Ministry of Education in Vienna . On April 30, 1989, Sinatra traveled a third time to Vienna, where he appeared on the Ultimate Event world tour with Liza Minnelli and Sammy Davis, Jr.

date Venue Orchestra direction program
May 22, 1975 Vienna, city hall Don Costa You Are the Sunshine of My Life / Bad Bad Leroy Brown / But Beautiful / Didn't We? / Something / Nice 'n' Easy / My Way / Cycles / Strangers in the Night / Let Me Try Again / If / The Lady Is a Tramp / I've Got You Under My Skin / My Kind of Town / Put Your Dreams Away
0Oct 2, 1984 Vienna, city hall Joe Parnello Fly Me to the Moon , The Lady Is a Tramp, Come Rain or Come Shine, This Is All I Ask, LA Is My Lady, Pennies from Heaven , Luck Be a Lady, My Way, Here's to the Band, Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out to Dry, Don't Worry 'Bout Me, Theme from New York, New York, Strangers In the Night, Mack the Knife
Apr 30, 1989 Vienna, city hall Frank Sinatra Jr. with Liza Minnelli and Sammy Davis, Jr. (The Ultimate Event)

Among other things: For Once in My Life / Come Rain or Come Shine / The Best Is Yet to Come / I Have Dreamed / Where or When / Bewitched / Strangers in the Night / Mack the Knife / My Way / 'Style'-Medley with Liza Minnelli and Sammy Davis Jr.

Discography

Important songs (selection)

Albums (selection)

  • The Voice of Frank Sinatra (Columbia, released as album 1946, as LP 1948)
  • Songs by Sinatra (Columbia, album 1947, LP 1949)
  • Songs for Young Lovers (Capitol, 1954)
  • In the Wee Small Hours (Capitol, 1955)
  • Songs for Swingin 'Lovers (Capitol, 1956)
  • Come Fly with Me (Capitol, 1958)
  • Sinatra's Swingin 'Session (Capitol, 1961)
  • I Remember Tommy (Reprise, 1961)
  • Sinatra and Strings (recapitulation, 1962)
  • Sinatra-Basie: It Might as Well Be Swing: A Meeting of Giants (Reprise, 1964, with Count Basie )
  • September of My Years (Reprise, 1965)
  • My Kind of Broadway (reprise, 1965)
  • Moonlight Sinatra (recapitulation, 1966)
  • Strangers in the Night (Reprise, 1966)
  • That's Life (reprise, 1966)
  • Francis Albert Sinatra & Antônio Carlos Jobim (recapitulation, 1967)
  • Francis A. & Edward K. (reprise, 1968, with Duke Ellington )
  • My Way (reprise, 1969)
  • Ol 'Blue Eyes Is Back (Reprise, 1973)
  • The Main Event - Live (Reprise, 1974)
  • LA Is My Lady (QWest / Warner, 1984)
  • Duets (Capitol, 1993)
  • Duets II (Capitol, 1994)

Filmography (selection)

Awards

Academy Awards (Oscars)

Prices

  • 1945 Best Short Film ( The House I Live In , RKO)
  • 1954 Best Supporting Actor From Here to Eternity ( From Here to Eternity , Columbia)
  • 1971 Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award

Nominations

  • 1955 Best Actor ( The Man with the Golden Arm , United Artists)

Golden Globe Awards

Prices

  • 1953 Best Supporting Actor ( From Here to Eternity , Columbia)
  • 1957 Best Actor ( Pal Joey , Columbia)
  • 1970 Cecil B. DeMille Award

Nominations

  • 1963 Best Actor ( Come Blow Your Horn , Paramount)

Grammy Awards

Prices

  • 1958 - Best album cover ( Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely , Capitol)
  • 1959 - Album of the Year ( Come Dance with Me , Capitol)
  • 1959 - Best Male Vocal Performance ( Come Dance with Me , Capitol)
  • 1965 - Album of the Year ( September of My Years , Reprise)
  • 1965 - Best Male Vocal Performance ( It Was a Very Good Year , Reprise)
  • 1965 - Lifetime Achievement Award
  • 1966 - Record of the Year ( Strangers in the Night , Reprise)
  • 1966 - Album of the Year ( A Man and His Music , Reprise)
  • 1966 - Best Male Vocal Performance ( Strangers in the Night , Reprise)
  • 1978 - Trustee Award
  • 1981 - Hall of Fame Award ( I'll Never Smile Again 1940, RCA Victor)
  • 1982 - Best Historical Album ( The Tommy Dorsey-Frank Sinatra Sessions Vol.1-3 , RCA)
  • 1983 - Hall of Fame Award ( In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning 1955, Capitol)
  • 1994 - Legend Award
  • 1995 - Best traditional pop performance ( Duets II , Capitol)
  • 1997 - Hall of Fame Award ( The House I Live In 1945, Columbia)
  • 1997 - Hall of Fame Award ( I've Got You Under My Skin 1956, Capitol)
  • 1998 - Hall of Fame Award ( Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely 1958, Capitol)
  • 1998 (posthumous) - Hall of Fame Award ( September of My Years 1965, recap)
  • 1999 (posthumous) - Hall of Fame Award ( Songs for Swingin 'Lovers 1956, Capitol)
  • 1999 (posthumous) - Hall of Fame Award ( My Way 1969, reprise)
  • 2004 (posthumous) - Hall of Fame Award ( I've Got the World on a String 1953, Capitol)
  • 2004 (posthumous) - Hall of Fame Award ( Come Fly with Me 1957, Capitol)
  • 2005 (posthumous) - Hall of Fame Award ( One for My Baby 1958, Capitol)

Nominations

  • 1958 - Best Male Vocal Performance ( Come Fly with Me , Capitol)
  • 1958 - Best male vocal performance ( Witchcraft , Capitol)
  • 1958 Album of the Year ( Sinatra Sings For Only the Lonely , Capitol)
  • 1958 - Record of the Year ( Witchcraft , Capitol)
  • 1959 - Record of the Year ( High Hopes , Capitol)
  • 1960 - Record of the Year ( Nice 'n' Easy , Capitol)
  • 1960 - Album of the Year ( Nice 'n' Easy , Capitol)
  • 1960 - Best Male Vocal Performance Album ( Nice 'n' Easy , Capitol)
  • 1960 - Best Male Vocal Performance Single ( Nice 'n' Easy , Capitol)
  • 1960 - Best vocal performance in a pop single ( Nice 'n' Easy , Capitol)
  • 1961 - Record of the Year ( The Second Time Around , Reprise)
  • 1967 - Record of the Year ( Somethin 'Stupid , Reprise, with Nancy Sinatra)
  • 1967 - Album of the Year ( Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim , recap)
  • 1967 - Best Male Vocal Performance ( Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim , recap)
  • 1969 - Record of the Year ( My Way , Reprise)
  • 1980 - Record of the Year ( Theme from New York New York , Reprise)
  • 1980 - Album of the year ( Trilogy: Past, Present, Future , Reprise)
  • 1980 - Best Male Vocal Performance Popsingle ( Theme from New York New York , Reprise)
  • 1986 - Best Historical Album ( The Voice: The Columbia Years 1943-52 , Columbia)
  • 1986 - Best Music Video Long Form ( Portrait of an Album , Warner, with Emil G. Davidson)
  • 1993 - Best Historical Album ( The Columbia Years 1943–1952: The Complete Recordings Columbia / Legacy)
  • 1994 - Best traditional pop performance ( Duets , Capitol)
  • 1994 - Best Historical Album ( The Song Is You , RCA)
  • 1996 - Best Pop Duo ( My Way , Capitol, with Luciano Pavarotti)
  • 1996 - Best Historical Album ( The Complete Reprise Studio Recordings , Reprise)
  • 2000 (posthumous) - Best Pop Duet ( All the Way Reprise, with Celine Dion)

Other awards (selection)

Ronald Reagan awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Frank Sinatra

The asteroid (7934) Sinatra was named after him.

literature

bibliography

Discography

  • Luiz Carlos do Nascimento Silva: Put Your Dreams Away. A Frank Sinatra Discography . Greenwood Press, Westport 2000, ISBN 0-313-31055-6 .

Filmography

  • Daniel O'Brien: The Frank Sinatra Film Guide . Batsford, London 1998, ISBN 0-7134-8418-7 .
  • Scott Allan Nollen: The Cinema of Sinatra. The Actor, on Screen and in Song . King Printing, Lowell 2003, ISBN 1-887664-51-3 .

Basic biographies and studies

Selection of further literature

  • John Collins: The Complete Guide to the Music of Frank Sinatra . Omnibus Press, London 1998, ISBN 0-7119-6624-9 .
  • Deborah Holder: Frank Sinatra - I did it my way . Heyne, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-453-09103-5 .
  • Chris Ingham: The Rough Guide to Frank Sinatra . Penguin Group, London 2005, ISBN 1-84353-414-2 .
  • Kitty Kelley: His Way . Bantam, New York City 1986, ISBN 0-553-26515-6 ; German edition: Frank Sinatra: An amazing life. Blanvalet, Munich 1986, ISBN 3-7645-7363-5 .
  • Johannes Kunz : Frank Sinatra and his time , LangenMüller, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-7844-3384-4 .
  • Karen McNally: When Frankie Went to Hollywood. Frank Sinatra and the American Male Identity . University Of Illinois Press, Chicago / Illinois 2008, ISBN 978-0-252-03334-6 .
  • Anthony Summers, Robbyn Swan: Sinatra. The Life . Alfred A. Knopf, New York City 2005, ISBN 0-375-41400-2 .
  • Bill Zehme: The Way You Wear Your Hat. Frank Sinatra and the Lost Art of Livin . HarperCollins Publishers, New York City 1997, ISBN 0-06-018289-X ; German edition: Frank Sinatra - My Way or the art of wearing a hat . dtv, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-423-24149-7 .

documentary

  • Sinatra - Star of the Mafia or The Double Life of Frank Sinatra. (OT: Sinatra: Dark Star. ) Documentary, France, Germany, Great Britain, 2005, 89 min., Documentation in two parts, 1. From ascent and abyss , 2. From myth and power , written and directed by Christopher Olgiati, production : Paladin InVision Ltd., BBC , ZDF , ARTE , German first broadcast, October 10, 2006 by Phoenix .
  • Frank Sinatra - The Voice of America or Frank Sinatra. The Voice of America . Documentary, Germany, France, 2015, 90 min., Script and director: Annette Baumeister , production: Broadview TV, ZDF , ARTE , German premiere, December 13, 2015 by ARTE .

Web links

Commons : Frank Sinatra  - album with pictures, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Frank Sinatra  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Antony Summers, Robbyn Swan: Sinatra: The Life . Doubleday, 2005, ISBN 0-552-15331-1 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h Joy Williams: Frank Sinatra. In: JoyZine. Retrieved December 13, 2014 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h Frank Sinatra - Awards. In: imdb.com. Retrieved December 13, 2014 .
  4. ↑ Will Friedwald: Frank Sinatra - A man and his music. Hannibal Verlag, 1996, ISBN 3-85445-121-9 , p. 128.
  5. ^ Charles L. Granata: Sessions with Sinatra . A Capella Books, 2004, ISBN 1-55652-509-5 , p. 85.
  6. ^ Frank Sinatra in the German dubbing index
  7. ^ Charles L. Granata: Sessions with Sinatra . A Capella Books, 2004, ISBN 1-55652-509-5 , pp. 99-100.
  8. ^ Charles L. Granata: Sessions with Sinatra . A Capella Books, 2004, ISBN 1-55652-509-5 , p. 199.
  9. ^ Charles L. Granata: Sessions with Sinatra . A Capella Books, 2004, ISBN 1-55652-509-5 , p. 192.
  10. ↑ Thomas Erlewine: Review of duets. In: allmusic.com. Retrieved January 4, 2015 .
  11. ↑ Thomas Erlewine: Review of Duets II. In: allmusic.com. Retrieved January 4, 2015 .
  12. ^ Concerts 1984. In: The Main Event. Retrieved January 4, 2015 .
  13. ↑ Public Law 105-14. In: gpo.gov. Retrieved January 4, 2015 .
  14. ↑ Stephen Holden: Frank Sinatra Dies at 82. In: The New York Times. May 16, 1998, accessed January 4, 2015 .
  15. ↑ Leave Frank's paws off! In: Der Spiegel . No. 21 , 1975, p. 129-132 ( online ).
  16. ^ Spencer Leigh: "Frank Sinatra: An Extraordinary Life". Retrieved December 4, 2015 .
  17. ^ Nancy Sinatra: Frank Sinatra, My Father. Doubleday, 1986, ISBN 0-385-23356-6 .
  18. ↑ Claire Suddath: A Brief History of Campaign Songs - John F. Kennedy. In: time.com. Retrieved December 13, 2014 .
  19. ^ Edmund F. Kallina: Courthouse over White House: Chicago and the Presidential Election of 1960 . University Press of Florida, Orlando 1989; David Kaiser: The Road to Dallas. The Assassination of John. F. Kennedy . Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA 2008, pp. 88 ff. And 145.
  20. ↑ Frank Sinatra obituary. In: BBC.co.uk. May 16, 1998, accessed December 13, 2014 .
  21. ^ Burton Hersh: Bobby and J. Edgar: The Historic Face-Off Between the Kennedys and J. Edgar Hoover That Transformed America. Basic Books, 2008, ISBN 978-0-465-00607-6 , p. 199.
  22. ^ Paul Anka , David Dalton: My Way: An Autobiography. Saint Martin's Press, 2013, ISBN 978-0-312-38104-2 .
  23. ↑ About Frank Sinatra. Retrieved December 21, 2014 .
  24. ↑ Luiz Carlos Do Nascimento Silva: Put Your Dreams Away: A Frank Sinatra Discography. Greenwood Pub, 2000, ISBN 0-313-31055-6 , p. Xi.
  25. ^ Frank Sinatra biography. Retrieved December 21, 2014 .
  26. ^ William Ruhlmann: Frank Sinatra - Biography. In: billboard.com. Retrieved December 13, 2014 .
  27. ↑ Jon Savage: The Columbus Day riot: Frank Sinatra is pop's first star. In: theguardian.com. June 11, 2011, accessed December 21, 2014 .
  28. ^ Matt Zoller Seitz: Frank Sinatra, 1915-98. (No longer available online.) In: nj.com. Archived from the original on July 6, 2014 ; accessed on December 14, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@2Vorlage:Webachiv/IABot/www.nj.com
  29. ^ Sinatra and the Jazz Connection. (No longer available online.) In: thejazzman.com.au. February 16, 2012, archived from the original on December 21, 2014 ; accessed on December 21, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@2Vorlage:Webachiv/IABot/www.thejazzman.com.au
  30. ^ Benjamin Schwarz: His Second Act. In: theatlantic.com. July 1, 2006, accessed December 13, 2014 .
  31. ^ Bret Primack: Frank Sinatra - Through The Lens Of Jazz. In: JazzTimes Magazine. May 1998, accessed December 21, 2014 .
  32. ^ Richard S. Ginell: Sinatra-Basie: An Historic Musical First. In: allmusic.com. Retrieved December 13, 2014 .
  33. ↑ Thomas Erlewine: Frank Sinatra - LA Is My Lady. In: allmusic.com. Retrieved December 21, 2014 .
  34. ↑ Rolling Stone: The 100 Best Jazz Albums . Retrieved November 16, 2016.
  35. ↑ Hanns-Georg Rodek: Tina Sinatra: "A project of true patriotism". In: welt.de. November 10, 2004, accessed December 21, 2014 .
  36. ↑ Concerts 1950s. In: the-main-Event.eu. Retrieved December 21, 2014 .
  37. ↑ a b Concerts 1975. In: the-main-Event.eu. Retrieved December 21, 2014 .
  38. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Past Winners Search - Frank Sinatra. In: grammy.com. Retrieved December 14, 2014 .
  39. ^ Grammy Awards 1966. In: awardsandshows.com. Retrieved December 14, 2014 .
  40. ↑ a b c d e f g h stations of Sinatra. In: the-main-event.de. Retrieved December 13, 2014 .
  41. ^ Frances Romero: Brief History of The Presidential Medal of Freedom. In: time.com. August 12, 2009, accessed December 14, 2014 .
  42. ↑ JPL Small-Body Database Browser - 7934 Sinatra (1989 SG1). In: nasa.gov. Retrieved December 13, 2014 .
personal data
SURNAME Sinatra, Frank
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sinatra, Francis Albert (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American actor, singer and entertainer
DATE OF BIRTH December 12, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Hoboken, New Jersey , USA
DATE OF DEATH May 14, 1998
Place of death Los Angeles , California, USA