Frank Sinatra Dies at 82; Matchless Stylist of Pop

by Stephen Holden

May 16 1998

Frank Sinatra, the singer and actor whose extraordinary voice elevated popular song into an art, died on Thursday night in Los Angeles. He was 82.

Sinatra performing at his 75th birthday concert. Photo: Bill Kostroun AP

The cause was a heart attack, said his publicity agent, Susan Reynolds. Ms. Reynolds said his fourth wife, Barbara, his son, Frank Jr., and daughters, Tina and Nancy, were at his side at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. She said he would be given a private funeral.

Widely held to be the greatest singer in American pop history and one of the most successful entertainers of the 20th century, Sinatra was also the first modern pop superstar. He defined that role in the early 1940's when his first solo appearances provoked the kind of mass pandemonium that later greeted Elvis Presley and the Beatles.

During a show business career that spanned more than 50 years and comprised recordings, film and television as well as countless performances in nightclubs, concert halls and sports arenas, Sinatra stood as a singular mirror of the American psyche.

His evolution from the idealistic crooner of the early 1940's to the sophisticated swinger of the 50's and 60's seemed to personify the country's loss of innocence. During World War II, Sinatra's tender romanticism served as the dreamy emotional link between millions of women and their husbands and boyfriends fighting overseas. Reinventing himself in the 50's, the starry-eyed boy next door turned into the cosmopolitan man of the world, a bruised romantic with a tough-guy streak and a song for every emotional season.

In a series of brilliant conceptual albums, he codified a musical vocabulary of adult relationships with which millions identified. The haunted voice heard on a jukebox in the wee small hours of the morning lamenting the end of a love affair was the same voice that jubilantly invited the world to ''come fly with me'' to exotic realms in a never-ending party.

Sinatra appeared in 58 films, and won an Academy Award as best supporting actor for his portrayal of the feisty misfit soldier Maggio in ''From Here to Eternity'' (1953). As an actor, he could communicate the same complex mixture of emotional honesty, vulnerability and cockiness that he projected as a singer, but he often chose his roles indifferently or unwisely.

It was as a singer that he exerted the strongest cultural influence. Following his idol Bing Crosby, who had pioneered the use of the microphone, Sinatra transformed popular singing by infusing lyrics with a personal, intimate point of view that conveyed a steady current of eroticism.

The skinny blue-eyed crooner, quickly nicknamed The Voice, made hordes of bobby-soxers swoon in the 1940's with an extraordinarily smooth and flexible baritone that he wielded with matchless skill. His mastery of long-lined phrasing inspired imitations by many other male crooners, notably Dick Haymes, Vic Damone and Tony Bennett in the 1940's and 50's and most recently the pop jazz star Harry Connick Jr.

After the voice lost its velvety youthfulness, Sinatra's interpretations grew more personal and idiosyncratic, so that each performance became a direct expression of his personality and his mood of the moment. In expressing anger, petulance and bravado -- attitudes that had largely been excluded from the acceptable vocabulary of pop feeling -- Sinatra paved the way for the unfettered vocal aggression of rock singers.

The changes in Sinatra's vocal timbre coincided with a precipitous career descent in the late 1940's and early 50's. But in 1953, Sinatra made one of the most spectacular career comebacks in show business history, re-emerging as a coarser-voiced, jazzier interpreter of popular standards who put a more aggressive personal stamp on his songs.

Almost singlehandedly, he helped lead a revival of vocalized swing music that took American pop to a new level of musical sophistication. Coinciding with the rise of the long-playing record album, his 1950's recordings -- along with Ella Fitzgerald's ''song book'' albums saluting individual composers -- were instrumental in establishing a canon of American pop song literature.

With Nelson Riddle, his most talented arranger, Sinatra defined the criteria for sound, style and song selection in pop recording during the pre-Beatles era. The aggressive uptempo style of Sinatra's mature years spawned a genre of punchy, rhythmic belting associated with Las Vegas, which he was instrumental in establishing and popularizing as an entertainment capital.

By the late 1950's, Sinatra had become so much the personification of American show business success that his life and his art became emblematic of the temper of the times. Except perhaps for Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy magazine, probably nobody did more to create a male ideal in the 1950's. For years, Sinatra seemed the embodiment of the hard-drinking, hedonistic swinger who could have his pick of women and who was the leader of a party-loving entourage.

That personality and wardrobe, borrowed in part from his friend Jimmy Van Heusen, the talented songwriter and man about town who liked to insouciantly sling his raincoat over his shoulder, was, in turn, imitated by many other show business figures. It was a style Sinatra never entirely abandoned. Even in his later years, he would often stroll onto the stage with a drink in his hand.

On a deeper level, Sinatra's career and public image touched many aspects of American cultural life. For millions, his ascent from humble Italian-American roots in Hoboken, N.J., was a symbol of ethnic achievement. And more than most entertainers, he used his influence to support political candidates. His change of allegiance from pro-Roosevelt Democrat in the 1940's to pro-Reagan Republican in the 1980's paralleled a seismic shift in American politics.

By the end of his career, Sinatra's annual income was estimated in the tens of millions of dollars, from concerts, record albums, real estate ventures and holdings in several companies, including a missile-parts concern, a private airline, Reprise Records (which he founded), Artanis (Sinatra spelled backward) Productions and Sinatra Enterprises.

Sinatra left his imprint on scores of popular songs and was the background voice, it seemed, for the romances of most Americans, from the earliest to the second time around. Among the standards he recorded at least three times were ''All or Nothing at All,'' ''Angel Eyes,'' ''Autumn in New York,'' ''I Concentrate on You,'' ''I Get a Kick Out of You,'' ''I'll Be Seeing You,'' ''I'll Never Smile Again,'' ''I've Got a Crush on You,'' ''I've Got You Under My Skin,'' ''Nancy (With the Laughing Face),'' ''Night and Day,'' ''One for My Baby,'' ''September Song'' and ''Stormy Weather.''

His personal signature songs included ''Put Your Dreams Away'' (his 1945 theme) and later ''Young at Heart'' (1954), ''All the Way'' (1957), ''It Was a Very Good Year'' (1965), ''Strangers in the Night'' (1966), ''My Way'' (1969) and ''New York, New York'' (1980).

For decades, his private life, with its many romances, feuds, brawls and associations with gangsters, was grist for the gossip columns. But he also had a reputation for spontaneous generosity, for helping singers who were starting out and for supporting friends who were in need. And over the years he gave hundreds of millions of dollars to various philanthropies.

First published at The New York Times, May 16, 1998

Frank Sinatra Dies At 82 - Heart Attack Claims Balladeer

Saturday May 16, 1998

Photo: Adam Butler 1992 / PA / Getty Images

by Minerva Canto

May 15, 1998

LOS ANGELES - Frank Sinatra, the brash young idol who became the premier romantic balladeer of American popular music and the "Chairman of the Board" to millions of fans, has died of a heart attack. He was 82.

Sinatra, who had not been seen in public since a heart attack in January 1997, was pronounced dead at 10:50 last night in the emergency room of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, said his publicist, Susan Reynolds.

Earlier in the evening, Sinatra had been taken to the hospital by ambulance with an unspecified distress, said a source who requested anonymity. It was not immediately clear where he suffered the heart attack. But his wife, Barbara, was with him when he died and the rest of his family arrived a short time later, the source said.

A private funeral was planned, but details weren't immediately announced. The Sinatra family has a plot at Desert Memorial Park near Palm Springs.

"Ol' Blue Eyes" was a master craftsman and ranked as one of the most influential singers in U.S. history. With more than 200 records, he led the evolution from Big Band to vocal American music.

The blunt, often aggressive son of Italian immigrants communicated across generational lines with love songs filled with a rare mix of vulnerability and verve - from "Strangers in the Night" to "One for My Baby."

He refused to compromise - "I'm going to do as I please," he once said - and his trademark song was "My Way."

He made almost as much news offstage as on. Through his "Rat Pack" and organized-crime associations, he was a cultural phenomenon who endured setbacks and scandals to become a White House intimate.

Once, in the early 1950s, his career appeared to be over, but he came back with a movie performance in "From Here to Eternity" that brought him an Oscar for best supporting actor. He retired in 1971 but found himself unable to stay away from the microphone.

Sinatra had said he never took voice lessons except to extend his range, and never learned to read music.

He received the Kennedy Center honor in 1983 and was awarded the Medal of Freedom by his friend President Reagan in 1985.

Francis Albert Sinatra was born Dec. 12, 1915, in a tough, working-class neighbourhood of Hoboken, N.J. In the difficult delivery, his left earlobe was torn off and his throat was scarred by forceps; the doctor thought him stillborn. His grandmother shoved the 3-pound baby under cold running water and signs of life quickly emerged.

Sinatra's father, Martin, was a boxer and member of the fire department. His mother, Dolly, was a nurse who became a power in local Democratic politics.

Francis, their only child, spent much of his early life with his maternal grandmother but was spoiled by the entire family and lavished with gifts and fine clothes. He soon learned to fight off the envious children in the neighborhood and became the leader of a gang that specialized in petty thievery until they moved to a nicer neighborhood.

He picked up what jobs he could, and as a member of a quartet won the Major Bowes Amateur Hour in 1935. By 1939 he was singing with bandleader Harry James, for $65 a week, but soon joined trombonist Tommy Dorsey, who had the reputation of showcasing singers.

He began swimming and running to improve his lungs, and learned to breathe in the middle of a note without breaking it. He was the first popular singer to use breathing for dramatic effect, and learned to use his microphone to enhance his voice.

By the end of 1941, Sinatra replaced Crosby at the top of the "Down Beat" poll. He broke from the band in 1942 and, with a series of concerts at New York's Paramount Theater, burst into the nation's awareness in a way that was not matched until the arrival of Elvis Presley in the '50s.

His appearances created such hysteria and fits of swooning that newspapers turned to psychiatrists for explanations of "Sinatramania."

Sinatra, classified 4-F in World War II because of a punctured eardrum, kept piling up the hits, but before the '40s was over, Sinatra's career was spiralling downward.

His name became linked to mobsters when he visited Cuba at the same time organized-crime leaders were gathering there and spent time with Lucky Luciano. He suffered a vocal cord hemorrhage and was forced to remain absolutely silent for 40 days. His record sales declined. A romance with Ava Gardner led to the end of his marriage to longtime sweetheart Nancy Barbato, who married him in 1939 and bore three children - Nancy, Frank Jr. and Christina.

By the time he wed Gardner in 1951, the singer who had earned $1 million a year had been cut loose by his agents.

"From Here to Eternity," and the role of Pvt. Angelo Maggio, was his vehicle for a comeback. He fought for the part and took a screen test that impressed Columbia Pictures, but was paid only $8,000. He won the best supporting actor Oscar, was back on top of the charts by the end of 1954 and, by 1957, ABC guaranteed him $7 million on a three-year contract.

His tempestuous, on-again, off-again marriage to Gardner ended in 1953. He did not marry again until 19-year-old Mia Farrow came into his life more than a decade later.

Sinatra was once again breaking box-office records by the end of the 1950s and was firmly established at the head of the Rat Pack or the Clan, a group including Dean Martin, Joey Bishop, Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford.

Lawford's brother-in-law was John F. Kennedy, to whom Sinatra introduced Judith Campbell Exner in 1960. Exner said Sinatra also introduced her to Sam Giancana, then reputed head of the Chicago mob, and she allegedly dated both men at the same time.

In December 1963, Sinatra's son, 19-year-old Frank Jr., was abducted by two armed men from a motel in Stateline, Nev., where he was appearing as a singer. Sinatra's son was freed two days later after the payment of $240,000 ransom.

In 1966, Sinatra wed Farrow, a marriage that lasted just over two years. In 1971, saying he wanted room for reflection, he gave his "farewell concert" in Los Angeles.

His retirement ended two years later with an hourlong special, "Ol' Blue Eyes is Back." In 1976, Sinatra married for the last time, to Barbara Marx, former wife of Zeppo Marx.

Sinatra had organized Kennedy's inaugural gala, but later was frozen out of the Kennedy circle because of his reputed mob association. By 1966 and Reagan's California gubernatorial bid, he had switched his support to the Republican Party.

In addition to his music and film work, Sinatra oversaw a staff of 75, amassed collections of art, set up his own record label, Reprise, and had real-estate and financial holdings that included a missile parts company.

"Frank is a tiger - afraid of nothing, ready for anything," Robert Mitchum once said.

Ernest Borgnine, who learned of Sinatra's death while filming in Texas, said the world had lost one of its most precious commodities.

"In all memories, from childhood to romance to the mature years, Frank has been with us in all times," he said. "He gave so much of himself and much more than people realized. It is a sad day today, because Frank touched everyone in the world.”

First published in The Seattle Times, May 16, 1998