famous stars to grow up and date you both seems like a very far fetched idea, but it did happen and now I cherish those memories.
POSTSCRIPT: Years later, upon returning to Palm Springs as an ordained minister, I did many weddings in and around the Palm Springs area. One special wedding was for Frank Sinatra fans. The couple wanted everything in Sinatra taste. The bride said that your favorite color was orange, so we did orange flowers and decorations. Not only did I officiate their wedding, I did all the planning. We kept the cake, flowers, everything that we could create similar to the Sinatra image. They decided to have their wedding at the bar at Ingleside Inn on New Year’s Eve. I didn’t think they would allow it but they did. It was held under the Frank Sinatra photograph at the piano bar. A Frank Sinatra impersonator provided the music and the whole New Years evening was a huge success and memorable event. I spent days collecting titles of your songs, which I used in the vows: “Maybe This Time” “Love Walked In” and you found “Love and Marriage” is when “The Look of Love” was in your eyes. “More Than You Know” this IS a sacred commitment between the two of you. Maybe you think “You’re taking a Chance On Love” but “That’s Life.” “This is All I Ask” is “To Love and Be Loved.” “There Are Such Things” “Just In Time” “If” you use your “Imagination” always finding things to share and tell each other “It’s Always You” and “I Love You”. “Fairy Tales” begin with “Once Upon a Time” and I’ll bet you both thought “For Once in My Lifetime” it is “From Here to Eternity” and you’re both filled with “High Hopes.” “How Little We Know” of the real depth of the love between two people.
FRANK SINATRA’S WIVES:
Barbara Marx – (May 1976 – May 14th, 1998 (his death)
Mia Farrow – (19 July 1966 - 1968) (divorced)
Ava Gardner – (7 November 1951 - 5 July 1957) (divorced)
Nancy Barbato (4 February 1939 - 1951) (divorced) 3 children Nancy (b. 1940), Frank (b.1944), Christina (b.1948)
Hungarian-born actress Eva Bartok claimed that her daughter, Deana, born in 1957 and fathered by Sinatra during a brief affair after his Ava Gardner breakup. Hr never acknowledged paternity.
GENERAL INFORMATION:
Sinatra grew up poor in Hoboken, New Jersey. It gave him the determination to succeed. He was a saloon singer, then a band singer, first with Harry James, then Tommy Dorsey. In the early 1940s as a kid, I remember the bobbysoxer frenzy in the newsreels at the movies and radio. They swooned over him and all the silly stuff that continues with musicians today. After his years of performing as a singer, he had a natural ability for acting with no formal training. His singing career was almost ended in 1952 after a vocal cord hemorrhage. Fortune smiled on him with the role of Maggio in From Here to Eternity in 1953 that won him an Oscar. He also won a special Academy Award for the 1945’s The House I Live In, in 1971 the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award - Bob Hope, who hosted the Oscars that year, remarked, “It’s interesting how Sinatra announced his retirement, and they gave him a humanitarian award.” He was honored with a Lifetime Achievement award, named Humanitarian of the Year in 1983 by the Variety Clubs of America, an Academy Awards for his many contributions to charity over the years. He hosted or co-hosted the Academy Awards in 1963, 1969, 1975, and 1985. He was named Entertainer of the Century in 2000 and inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1980. I assume the “Rat Pack” was more or less an accidentally formed group of entertainers that all performed in Las Vegas consisting of Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop, plus Shirley MacLaine and probably a few others. Sinatra was referred to as “Chairman of the Board.”
The epitaph on Sinatra’s headstone reads “The best is yet to come.” At his funeral, friends and family members placed items in his coffin that include ten dimes, several Tootsie Roll candies, a pack of Black Jack chewing gum, a roll of wild cherry Life Savers candy, a ring engraved with the word “Dream”, a mini bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey, a pack of Camel cigarettes, and a Zippo cigarette lighter. A provision in Sinatra’s will stated that if anyone contests it, they are automatically disinherited.
PERSONAL QUOTES:
“I’m trying to figure out, Chairman of what Board? People come up to me and seriously say ‘Well, what are you Chairman of?’ And I can’t answer them.” “I’m for anything that gets you through the night, be it prayer, tranquilizers or a bottle of Jack Daniels.” “A friend is never an imposition.” His last words: “I’m losing it”. After Dean Martin quit The Together Again Tour “You can’t put a gun to his head. He just didn’t want to do it.” “Nothing anybody’s said or written about me ever bothers me, except when it does.” “I’m next. I ain’t scared, either. Everybody I ever knew is already over there.” (After the deaths of Sammy Davis Jr., Ava Gardner, Jilly Rizzo, and Dean Martin.) On Elvis Presley’s early years: “His kind of music is deplorable, a rancid smelling aphrodisiac...It fosters almost totally negative and destructive reactions in young people.” Then on Elvis Presley’s death in 1977 “There have been many accolades uttered about his talent and performances through the years all of which I agree to whole-heartedly, I shall miss him dearly as a friend.” On Ava Gardner “I love her, and God damn me for it.”
FRANK SINATRA’S FILMS AND TV
(Mostly he appeared as himself):
Gene Kelly: Anatomy of a Dancer (2002), Nightclub Years, The (2001), “Jazz” (2001), All the Way... A Decade of Song (1999), Yours for a Song: The Women of Tin Pan Alley (1999),Off the Menu: The Last Days of Chasen’s (1998), Kennedys: The Power, Seduction and Hollywood (1998), Frank Sinatra: The Very Good Years (1998), Frank Sinatra: The Bobby Sox Years (1998), The Music of Kander and Ebb: Razzle Dazzle (1997), Judy Garland’s Hollywood (1997),L.A. Confidential (1997), Las Vegas: Gamble in the Desert and House of Cards (1996),Rodgers & Hammerstein: The Sound of Movies (1996), Sinatra: 80 Years My Way (1995), Television’s Greatest Performances (1995), The First 100 Years: A Celebration of American Movies (1995), Young at Heart (1995), Sinatra Duets (1994), Bob Hope: Happy 91st Birthday, Bob (1994), La Classe américaine (1993), In Person (1993), Fame in the Twentieth Century (1993), A Place of Dreams: Carnegie Hall at 100 (1991), Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio (1991), Frank Sinatra: The Best Is Yet to Come (1990), You’re the Top: The Cole Porter Story (1990), Listen Up: The Lives of Quincy Jones (1990), Sammy Davis, Jr. 60th Anniversary Celebration (1990), The 1950’s: Music, Memories & Milestones (1988), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), That’s Dancing! (1985), Salute to Lady Liberty (1984), Cannonball Run II (1984), The Kennedy Center Honors (1983), TheFirst Deadly Sin (1980), Sinatra: The First 40 Years (1980), Cinderella at the Palace (1978), Contract on Cherry Street (1977), All-Star Tribute to John Wayne, An (1976), That’s Entertainment, Part II (1976), John Denver and Friend (1976), The American Film Institute Salute to Orson Welles (1975), The World at War (1974), René Simard au Japon (1974), That’s Entertainment! (1974), Dirty Dingus Magee (1970), The 42nd Annual Academy Awards (1970), Frank Sinatra: Sinatra (1969), Frank Sinatra: Francis Albert Sinatra Does His Thing (1968), Lady in Cement (1968), “Dean Martin Presents the Golddiggers” (1968), The Detective (1968), Think Twentieth (1967), Movin’ with Nancy (1967), Tony Rome (1967), The Naked Runner (1967), Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music Part II (1966), The Oscar (1966), Assault on a Queen (1966), Cast a Giant Shadow (1966), Tribute to the Will Rogers Memorial Hospital, A (1965), Marriage on the Rocks (1965), Von Ryan’s Express (1965), None But the Brave (1965), Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964), Paris - When It Sizzles (1964), 4 for Texas (1963), A New Kind of Love (1963), Come Blow Your Horn (1963), The List of Adrian Messenger (1963), Sinatra in Israel (1962), Turn of the Tide (1962), The Manchurian Candidate (1962),
