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These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated: 1 00:00:19,228 --> 00:00:21,522 Frank Sinatra, dead tonight at the age of 82, 2 00:00:21,606 --> 00:00:24,025 which brought to an end a remarkable life 3 00:00:24,108 --> 00:00:27,653 that was on one kind of stage or another for six decades. 4 00:00:27,737 --> 00:00:29,030 Idol of mine and millions, 5 00:00:29,113 --> 00:00:31,699 and a great Italian-American, a great American. 6 00:00:31,782 --> 00:00:33,910 And great actor, by the way. 7 00:00:33,993 --> 00:00:38,164 I think every American would have to smile and say he really did do it his way. 8 00:00:38,623 --> 00:00:41,542 They dimmed the lights on the Vegas strip in his honour. 9 00:00:42,793 --> 00:00:44,754 Here, and in dozens of cities across the country, 10 00:00:44,837 --> 00:00:47,798 radio stations have been playing nothing but Sinatra. 11 00:01:34,053 --> 00:01:38,224 My first recollection of frank's voice was coming out of a jukebox. 12 00:01:38,891 --> 00:01:42,061 It was in a dark bar on a Sunday afternoon 13 00:01:42,144 --> 00:01:44,772 when my mother and I went in searching for my father. 14 00:01:44,855 --> 00:01:49,193 And she said, I'll always remember, "listen to that. 15 00:01:49,777 --> 00:01:52,697 "That's frank Sinatra, he's from New Jersey." 16 00:01:57,743 --> 00:02:02,290 And while his music became synonymous with black-tie, good life, 17 00:02:02,373 --> 00:02:05,209 the best booze, women, sophistication, 18 00:02:05,293 --> 00:02:08,796 it was the deep blueness of frank's voice that affected me the most. 19 00:02:11,424 --> 00:02:14,885 He was the poet laureate of loneliness. 20 00:02:15,219 --> 00:02:17,221 His songs were haunted by it. 21 00:02:19,098 --> 00:02:22,601 For all his fame, he loved solitude. 22 00:02:27,356 --> 00:02:29,236 We don't know what he thought about his own life 23 00:02:29,317 --> 00:02:31,319 because he never wrote it down in a book. 24 00:02:31,402 --> 00:02:35,239 But there was one mysterious moment when he gave us all a clue. 25 00:02:35,323 --> 00:02:39,827 It was when, at the very peak of his career, he suddenly decided to retire. 26 00:02:52,256 --> 00:02:55,968 The beginning of march that year I was working somewhere in Florida 27 00:02:56,052 --> 00:03:00,097 and he called me and he said, "I think I'm gonna hang it up." 28 00:03:01,640 --> 00:03:04,769 One afternoon by the pool, 29 00:03:04,852 --> 00:03:07,855 dad was with his black flair pen, 30 00:03:07,938 --> 00:03:11,108 making his music list, his song list. 31 00:03:13,611 --> 00:03:16,322 He never showed the set list to anybody. 32 00:03:17,573 --> 00:03:21,452 But in the run-up to the show, at the ahmanson theatre in Los Angeles, 33 00:03:21,535 --> 00:03:23,704 he must have been thinking about it. 34 00:03:23,788 --> 00:03:26,290 Eleven songs to tell the story of a life. 35 00:03:29,126 --> 00:03:32,630 Ladies and gentlemen, frank Sinatra. 36 00:03:47,978 --> 00:03:49,146 And this was the beginning. 37 00:04:06,414 --> 00:04:10,418 The night itself was star-studded and exciting 38 00:04:12,253 --> 00:04:16,006 and sad and a lot of mixed emotions. 39 00:04:34,817 --> 00:04:39,530 What startled me about that film was that it has that rough, hand-held look to it. 40 00:04:39,613 --> 00:04:43,534 And how appropriate that it should be at this particular event, 41 00:04:43,659 --> 00:04:50,040 that we don't see the concert film of Sinatra where everything is perfectly controlled. 42 00:04:59,216 --> 00:05:03,471 You can hear the guy backstage kicking the chord out of the socket, 43 00:05:03,554 --> 00:05:05,431 and suddenly the mic goes bad. 44 00:05:09,518 --> 00:05:13,230 People holding those cameras were as swept up in the moment 45 00:05:13,314 --> 00:05:18,319 as everybody in the audience or the people on stage, the orchestra, Sinatra himself. 46 00:05:18,402 --> 00:05:22,406 They knew this was the end of the line for this great artist. 47 00:05:29,622 --> 00:05:32,666 These were some of the 48 00:05:32,750 --> 00:05:35,961 milestone points in his career, musically. 49 00:05:56,148 --> 00:05:58,150 Going back to the very beginning, 50 00:05:58,234 --> 00:06:03,364 there have been conflicting stories about your childhood in hoboken, 51 00:06:04,281 --> 00:06:06,742 quoted by people who've done interviews with you. 52 00:06:07,451 --> 00:06:11,789 There's this kind of general version of the near-slum conditions in hoboken. 53 00:06:13,916 --> 00:06:15,543 And then there are others. 54 00:06:15,626 --> 00:06:19,672 There was an article some years ago by a very good magazine writer 55 00:06:19,755 --> 00:06:21,715 who said that this isn't so. 56 00:06:21,799 --> 00:06:25,261 That all the toys you needed, that you even had a Chrysler at the age of 15. 57 00:06:25,553 --> 00:06:30,683 Most of the biographies I've read, or articles I've read, 58 00:06:31,684 --> 00:06:35,312 pardon me, about my young days or my childhood 59 00:06:35,980 --> 00:06:39,108 were rather dreamed up, rather fictitious. 60 00:06:39,191 --> 00:06:40,359 I have read many of them, 61 00:06:40,442 --> 00:06:43,203 and I said to myself, "I don't remember this. This is really strange." 62 00:06:49,076 --> 00:06:53,163 I was born in 1915, on December 12th, 63 00:06:53,247 --> 00:06:56,041 and I weighed 12 and three-quarter pounds. 64 00:06:56,125 --> 00:07:01,171 And when I was removed from her womb by a midwife, there was a problem. 65 00:07:01,672 --> 00:07:03,424 I didn't wanna come out of there. 66 00:07:04,967 --> 00:07:08,846 And finally they sent up a flare for a doctor. 67 00:07:09,471 --> 00:07:12,558 And upon removing me, I was pretty well damaged 68 00:07:12,641 --> 00:07:15,019 at my left side of my neck and ear and face. 69 00:07:15,644 --> 00:07:17,187 And my grandmother, 70 00:07:18,355 --> 00:07:22,234 who had more sense than anybody in the room, as far as I'm concerned, 71 00:07:24,194 --> 00:07:26,655 because she knew what to do with me. 72 00:07:26,739 --> 00:07:31,619 And she stuck me under the ice-cold water in the cold water flat, 73 00:07:31,702 --> 00:07:36,790 and, apparently, got some blood moving around and whacked me around a little bit. 74 00:07:36,874 --> 00:07:40,919 And I have blessed that day, that moment, 75 00:07:41,587 --> 00:07:43,547 in her honour ever since. 76 00:07:44,048 --> 00:07:47,551 Hi, I've been able to contact mr and mrs Martin Sinatra. 77 00:07:47,718 --> 00:07:49,386 - Hello, mrs Sinatra. - Yeah, hello. 78 00:07:49,470 --> 00:07:50,790 Here's mr gardnerjust one moment. 79 00:07:50,846 --> 00:07:52,973 - Hello, mrs Sinatra. - Hello, mr gardner. 80 00:07:53,057 --> 00:07:56,310 It's certainly nice to talk to you and to have you come to the phone. 81 00:07:56,393 --> 00:07:59,313 I know the last time frank was in town you weren't feeling very well. 82 00:07:59,396 --> 00:08:01,357 And you fully recovered now? 83 00:08:01,440 --> 00:08:05,027 Well, yes. I feel pretty well now. 84 00:08:05,110 --> 00:08:10,574 And frank called me only recently while I was in the hospital. 85 00:08:18,624 --> 00:08:20,167 - I was an only child. - Yeah. 86 00:08:20,250 --> 00:08:21,919 And she was tough on me. 87 00:08:22,002 --> 00:08:24,963 I mean, she was very strict with me, my mother was always strict. 88 00:08:25,047 --> 00:08:26,900 She told me to stay away from the railroad tracks, 89 00:08:26,924 --> 00:08:29,510 because a kid, one time, one day, a kid lost an arm. 90 00:08:29,593 --> 00:08:32,805 About three years later, another guy, little guy lost his leg. 91 00:08:32,888 --> 00:08:35,474 And if she found out that I was down there, 92 00:08:35,557 --> 00:08:37,317 the railroad tracks, she'd whacked me around. 93 00:08:37,351 --> 00:08:39,019 Out of fear, only out of fear. 94 00:08:42,398 --> 00:08:44,692 I think the first thing that I was ever conscious of, 95 00:08:44,775 --> 00:08:46,860 was the drive that she had all the time. 96 00:08:46,944 --> 00:08:51,990 Her constant seeking, it was to do better, to constantly do better. 97 00:08:52,908 --> 00:08:55,661 Dolly Sinatra was an earth mother. 98 00:08:55,744 --> 00:08:58,038 Everybody became her son, her daughter. 99 00:08:58,122 --> 00:09:01,542 Everybody's problems became her problems. 100 00:09:01,875 --> 00:09:04,712 And that went from psychological problems to physical problems. 101 00:09:05,838 --> 00:09:10,134 Grandma had become a midwife in her neighbourhood. 102 00:09:10,300 --> 00:09:14,221 When there were families with children they couldn't afford to feed, 103 00:09:15,264 --> 00:09:20,477 then was it right to bring another child into that neediness? 104 00:09:20,561 --> 00:09:22,771 And she was a good catholic. 105 00:09:22,855 --> 00:09:27,651 I don't think she thought that abortion was a great thing. 106 00:09:27,735 --> 00:09:32,573 But I think, in those days, in that depression, it was necessity. 107 00:09:32,656 --> 00:09:34,992 She did what needed to be done. 108 00:09:37,244 --> 00:09:39,371 My father was withdrawn, he was a shy man. 109 00:09:39,455 --> 00:09:43,083 He spoke perfect English, but he couldn't put words together. 110 00:09:43,167 --> 00:09:44,727 He would still a "dees, dems and dose". 111 00:09:45,169 --> 00:09:49,798 Remember that he had to be intimidated by my mother's innate knowledge. 112 00:09:49,882 --> 00:09:52,009 She was innately bright, my mother was. 113 00:09:54,553 --> 00:09:58,098 They both came over, different families came over 114 00:09:58,182 --> 00:09:59,892 and they came into Ellis island. 115 00:09:59,975 --> 00:10:02,436 One from catania, and the other from genoa. 116 00:10:02,561 --> 00:10:06,398 The genoese were the original bankers, they were lawyers. 117 00:10:07,232 --> 00:10:10,778 And she used to say to me, "I think that I'm half Italian, half Jew." 118 00:10:10,861 --> 00:10:13,113 I said, "maybe you are, ma." She said, "well, I'm smart." 119 00:10:13,197 --> 00:10:15,699 She said, "that's where they came from, where I came from." 120 00:10:16,658 --> 00:10:19,161 And consequently she succeeded. 121 00:10:19,244 --> 00:10:22,748 She made her way in life, she did very well, considering. 122 00:10:28,003 --> 00:10:29,588 When Sinatra was young, 123 00:10:29,671 --> 00:10:32,382 being an Italian-American was being the object of bigotry. 124 00:10:32,716 --> 00:10:34,760 You were part of a minority group, 125 00:10:34,843 --> 00:10:37,638 one that was stereotyped as being 126 00:10:37,721 --> 00:10:40,641 either comical and absurd, 127 00:10:40,724 --> 00:10:42,684 the organ grinder with the monkey, 128 00:10:42,768 --> 00:10:46,522 or dangerous and threatening, the guy with the submachine gun. 129 00:10:48,148 --> 00:10:53,654 And of course, Sinatra, growing up where he did, when he did, understood 130 00:10:53,737 --> 00:10:56,824 that that guy with the machine gun was real. 131 00:10:57,741 --> 00:11:00,661 My father at the time was rarely at home, 132 00:11:00,744 --> 00:11:03,831 because he was a protector for the bootlegging trucks. 133 00:11:03,914 --> 00:11:07,876 They used to have a car that would follow the trucks so it wouldn't get hijacked. 134 00:11:07,960 --> 00:11:13,340 During prohibition, my grandfather had taken a job as a lookout on a truck 135 00:11:13,423 --> 00:11:15,759 that carried 90 proof contraband. 136 00:11:16,927 --> 00:11:20,681 And, apparently, the truck was hijacked by a rival gang mob, 137 00:11:20,764 --> 00:11:24,142 and he didn't duck fast enough and somebody hit him on the head, 138 00:11:24,226 --> 00:11:27,312 and he had a skull fracture and he was bleeding everywhere. 139 00:11:27,396 --> 00:11:30,107 And my father, as a little boy, woke up and saw this. 140 00:11:35,487 --> 00:11:37,197 In those days there were sayings. 141 00:11:37,281 --> 00:11:40,576 In order to be an attorney, or an accountant, you had to be a Jew. 142 00:11:40,659 --> 00:11:43,537 In order to be a singer, you had to be an Italian. 143 00:11:43,620 --> 00:11:46,081 In order to be a prize fighter, you had to be Irish, 144 00:11:46,164 --> 00:11:49,334 which is why he took the name Marty o'brien. 145 00:11:54,464 --> 00:11:58,594 I was about eight or nine years old, the old man opened a saloon. 146 00:11:58,677 --> 00:12:01,388 It was called Marty o'brien's bar. 147 00:12:01,471 --> 00:12:05,392 The bar that they ran, they didn't run it as the sinatras. 148 00:12:05,475 --> 00:12:06,935 They took an Irish name. 149 00:12:08,145 --> 00:12:12,065 Because the Italians were lower than the Irish in hoboken, right? 150 00:12:12,149 --> 00:12:14,985 Dolly. He said she was the kind of woman 151 00:12:15,068 --> 00:12:17,487 who kept a little club behind the bar. 152 00:12:18,822 --> 00:12:22,242 If somebody gave her some shit, she hit them with the club, 153 00:12:22,326 --> 00:12:25,329 put it under the bar and kept talking. 154 00:12:27,664 --> 00:12:30,918 They had in the bar a piano with a roll in it. 155 00:12:31,001 --> 00:12:33,545 You put a nickel in it, it would play the songs. 156 00:12:33,629 --> 00:12:36,798 And occasionally, one of the men in the bar would pick me up 157 00:12:36,882 --> 00:12:39,593 and put me up on the piano and I'd sing with the roll. 158 00:12:39,676 --> 00:12:42,179 And it was a horrendous voice, terrible. 159 00:12:42,262 --> 00:12:44,139 I mean, it was like a siren. 160 00:12:45,015 --> 00:12:48,352 You know, "honest and truly I'm in love you." 161 00:12:48,477 --> 00:12:50,020 Way up there, like that. 162 00:12:52,648 --> 00:12:56,443 It's a wonder I ever got anywhere starting that way, is what kills me. 163 00:12:59,529 --> 00:13:03,158 So one day I got a nickel, or a dime, whatever it was. 164 00:13:03,241 --> 00:13:06,870 And I said, "this is the racket. 165 00:13:06,954 --> 00:13:08,747 "This is what you gotta be doing." 166 00:13:15,170 --> 00:13:17,631 In my hometown, the city was, as I said, 167 00:13:17,714 --> 00:13:21,009 the square mile was almost divided in quarters. 168 00:13:21,093 --> 00:13:25,472 One quarter was Italian, another quarter was of the Jewish families, 169 00:13:25,555 --> 00:13:29,226 except that we were also intermingled in the tenement houses. 170 00:13:30,227 --> 00:13:34,189 Then the other quarter was the Irish, who politically ran the city. 171 00:13:35,065 --> 00:13:37,651 They were out-voted any day of the week. 172 00:13:37,734 --> 00:13:40,278 But for some reason, when election time came, 173 00:13:40,362 --> 00:13:43,907 they would give coal and give some clothing to all of the other families, 174 00:13:43,991 --> 00:13:47,077 and they would vote for the irishmen all the time. 175 00:13:47,160 --> 00:13:49,788 And the blacks, of course, were kept in one part of the town. 176 00:13:49,871 --> 00:13:53,208 They were such a small matter that we never knew they were there at all. 177 00:13:53,291 --> 00:13:55,961 I don't remember too many black children in my classes. 178 00:14:00,590 --> 00:14:05,929 I think it's easy for us to forget that he was also a boy and a young man 179 00:14:06,013 --> 00:14:10,767 at a time when everybody's life was difficult, when everybody was at risk. 180 00:14:12,477 --> 00:14:17,107 The depression was an all-encompassing experience for anybody who grew up in it. 181 00:14:17,816 --> 00:14:20,027 And above all, 182 00:14:20,110 --> 00:14:23,405 it caused you to realise that life was hard. 183 00:14:23,864 --> 00:14:26,199 It was not just gonna be hard for you to make a living, 184 00:14:26,283 --> 00:14:28,577 it might actually be hard for you to survive. 185 00:14:33,290 --> 00:14:37,127 This was not theoretical for somebody like Sinatra, it was real. 186 00:14:37,210 --> 00:14:40,213 It shaped his whole idea of professionalism, 187 00:14:40,297 --> 00:14:44,217 of his feeling that he had to be the best performer, 188 00:14:44,301 --> 00:14:47,179 the best professional that he could possibly be. 189 00:14:47,262 --> 00:14:50,432 Because if you're going to survive in the '30s, 190 00:14:50,515 --> 00:14:53,727 you had to do it by working very hard and being very lucky. 191 00:14:55,020 --> 00:14:57,981 In Italy, there were 55 192 00:14:58,398 --> 00:15:02,027 discreet dialects of the Italian language. 193 00:15:02,319 --> 00:15:06,323 My grandmother spoke all 55. 194 00:15:06,448 --> 00:15:11,828 This put her in a position where people came to her as the neighbourhood interpreter. 195 00:15:12,496 --> 00:15:17,000 The next logical step in the '20s, she went into politics. 196 00:15:17,626 --> 00:15:22,839 Then, they wanted to reward my mother and give my father a job 197 00:15:23,340 --> 00:15:24,800 on the city payroll, right? 198 00:15:25,008 --> 00:15:27,636 A cop or a fireman, right? So she made him a fireman. 199 00:15:33,141 --> 00:15:38,230 Hoboken had about six movie theatres, in only one mile square. 200 00:15:38,313 --> 00:15:42,567 We had the lyric theatre, the us. Theatre, 201 00:15:43,235 --> 00:15:45,862 the vaudeville houses with the movie. 202 00:15:45,987 --> 00:15:49,116 We had the rialto, we had the city theatre 203 00:15:49,199 --> 00:15:51,618 and every time I saw somebody, I wanted to be them. 204 00:15:51,952 --> 00:15:56,540 I wanted to be a ventriloquist and then I sawjugglers and all that kind ofjazz. 205 00:15:56,623 --> 00:15:58,625 But I am still thinking about singing. 206 00:15:58,708 --> 00:16:01,294 I never lost that thing about singing back here. 207 00:16:03,088 --> 00:16:07,717 And iwent to see performers. I mean, not anybody famous, until I saw bing. 208 00:16:15,934 --> 00:16:19,187 Bing Crosby was the first great pop singer in america. 209 00:16:19,271 --> 00:16:24,401 And the first white singer to completely internalize 210 00:16:25,068 --> 00:16:29,489 the innovations ofjazz which he got directly from Louis Armstrong. 211 00:16:30,073 --> 00:16:34,870 Sinatra heard these things and he said, "that's what I want to do." 212 00:16:34,953 --> 00:16:36,913 "I want to be like that." 213 00:16:53,597 --> 00:16:57,976 I started singing more in school with the dances on Friday nights. 214 00:16:58,059 --> 00:17:00,379 Every other Friday night, we had to dance in the gymnasium. 215 00:17:00,478 --> 00:17:02,647 People would say to me, "hey, you're pretty good." 216 00:17:03,148 --> 00:17:05,567 And that began to register in my head. 217 00:17:08,612 --> 00:17:11,031 When iwent to the publishing houses, 218 00:17:11,114 --> 00:17:13,617 they would give away free orchestrations if they knew you, 219 00:17:13,700 --> 00:17:15,619 complete stock orchestration. 220 00:17:15,702 --> 00:17:20,290 And I built a library and then I saved enough money and I bought a public address system. 221 00:17:20,373 --> 00:17:22,253 Because before that, I sang through a megaphone. 222 00:17:22,334 --> 00:17:24,645 - You wouldn't know what that is. It's a... - Rudy vallee, yes. 223 00:17:24,669 --> 00:17:27,189 - That's what you sing through. - You actually used a megaphone? 224 00:17:27,339 --> 00:17:29,216 And guys would throw pennies, 225 00:17:29,299 --> 00:17:31,885 to try to see if they could get me to swallow the pennies. 226 00:17:31,968 --> 00:17:34,554 - A lot of fun, those days. - Try it with shot glasses. 227 00:17:34,638 --> 00:17:37,599 But I used to move a great deal. They couldn't hit it. 228 00:17:37,682 --> 00:17:40,393 Then came the microphone age and I thought, 229 00:17:40,477 --> 00:17:42,062 "geez, if I could save some money." 230 00:17:42,145 --> 00:17:44,314 So for $60, I bought a whole outfit. 231 00:17:44,648 --> 00:17:48,401 The microphone allowed for a new kind of singing 232 00:17:48,485 --> 00:17:51,488 because it magnified the voice 233 00:17:51,571 --> 00:17:53,573 so you didn't have to project. 234 00:17:53,657 --> 00:17:59,537 What Sinatra sang was this longing and passion 235 00:17:59,621 --> 00:18:02,666 that was controlled in song. 236 00:18:03,166 --> 00:18:06,753 When did you first discover that frank found out that he could sing? 237 00:18:06,836 --> 00:18:10,548 Well, I first discovered it when he didn't want to go to school any more 238 00:18:10,632 --> 00:18:13,969 outside of just going into these glee clubs all the time. 239 00:18:14,261 --> 00:18:18,181 - How old was he at that time? - At the time he was about 16. 240 00:18:18,431 --> 00:18:24,104 And naturally the principal sent for me and said he was just taking up space. 241 00:18:24,688 --> 00:18:27,565 Was there a family crisis when you dropped out of high school? 242 00:18:27,691 --> 00:18:30,694 It was disastrous, absolutely disastrous. 243 00:18:31,695 --> 00:18:34,990 My dad, you know, who never had too much of a formal education 244 00:18:35,073 --> 00:18:36,408 was terribly disappointed. 245 00:18:36,491 --> 00:18:38,159 He just couldn't understand it. 246 00:18:38,660 --> 00:18:43,540 I pleaded with him, I said, "you got to give me a chance to work in what I want to do." 247 00:18:43,623 --> 00:18:46,918 And he said something about, "sure, a chance." 248 00:18:47,043 --> 00:18:50,588 He said, "ten years from now, you'll still be looking for a chance, you'll be a bum." 249 00:19:16,573 --> 00:19:18,992 Where did you first meet frank? 250 00:19:19,075 --> 00:19:21,786 In long branch, New Jersey, which is on the coast. 251 00:19:22,954 --> 00:19:26,458 I knew his family, his aunt and uncle and their children. 252 00:19:27,834 --> 00:19:31,588 Across the street, Nancy's father and mother had a house 253 00:19:31,671 --> 00:19:37,093 and I saw this very pretty little girl sitting on the front stoop. 254 00:19:37,344 --> 00:19:40,680 And he called across the street saying, "hi, what are you doing?" 255 00:19:40,764 --> 00:19:44,267 And I said, "I'm giving myself a manicure." 256 00:19:44,893 --> 00:19:47,812 He said, "would you give me one?" I said, "sure." 257 00:19:48,104 --> 00:19:51,399 And I gave him a manicure and that's how I met him. 258 00:19:52,734 --> 00:19:55,570 Well, I have a funny feeling that she may have had eyes for me 259 00:19:55,653 --> 00:19:58,782 because she was sitting there all alone, just staring across the street. 260 00:19:58,865 --> 00:20:05,663 He lived in hoboken which is 4 miles from Jersey city and I'd never been there. 261 00:20:06,581 --> 00:20:11,795 So he called me after we met and he started to come over. 262 00:20:16,257 --> 00:20:19,320 And we went together for four and a half, five years, or five and a half years, 263 00:20:19,344 --> 00:20:20,970 I can't remember exactly. 264 00:20:21,137 --> 00:20:24,516 I know that before major bowes we were going together. 265 00:20:25,308 --> 00:20:28,728 We are proud indeed of the brilliant careers that have been launched 266 00:20:28,812 --> 00:20:31,398 through the radio forum in New York City. 267 00:20:35,485 --> 00:20:39,697 To get a start, there was a man on the radio called major bowes, 268 00:20:39,781 --> 00:20:41,366 who had an amateur programme. 269 00:20:41,741 --> 00:20:43,535 And you went and you auditioned. 270 00:20:43,660 --> 00:20:47,247 I went over and I auditioned, and they said, "okay, 271 00:20:48,498 --> 00:20:50,166 "we'll put you on the radio." 272 00:20:51,418 --> 00:20:57,132 And there were three other kids from my hometown who made up a trio 273 00:20:57,674 --> 00:21:01,761 called the three aces, very intelligent title for a group. 274 00:21:02,303 --> 00:21:05,723 Three aces. Oh, boy, they took a lot of time to think that up. 275 00:21:06,683 --> 00:21:09,936 Major bowes loused that up by saying, "you're gonna be the hoboken four." 276 00:21:10,019 --> 00:21:12,188 That took care of that whole situation like that. 277 00:21:12,313 --> 00:21:14,566 We have now the hoboken four. 278 00:21:14,649 --> 00:21:17,527 They call themselves the singing and dancing fools. 279 00:21:17,610 --> 00:21:20,613 - Who'll speak for the group? - I will, I'm frank. 280 00:21:20,697 --> 00:21:22,907 We're looking forjobs, how about it? 281 00:21:24,576 --> 00:21:28,121 Everyone that's ever heard us, likes us. They think we're pretty good. 282 00:21:28,621 --> 00:21:31,833 All right, what do you want to sing, or dance or whatever it is that you do? 283 00:21:31,916 --> 00:21:34,294 - We're going to sing shine. - All right, let's have it. 284 00:21:34,377 --> 00:21:35,795 Hoboken four. 285 00:21:55,106 --> 00:21:58,860 We performed and we won the first prize and we went out on the road 286 00:21:58,943 --> 00:22:01,946 all over the united... Mostly over the United States, anyway. 287 00:22:02,030 --> 00:22:06,868 And we started out on the train, our first stop was Chicago, 288 00:22:07,035 --> 00:22:09,913 and I remember, I was getting 75 bucks a week. 289 00:22:10,371 --> 00:22:13,625 And I sent most of it home 290 00:22:13,708 --> 00:22:17,629 because we were living in the best hotels in the United States for a dollar a night. 291 00:22:19,130 --> 00:22:22,800 But then, when we got up around Seattle, 292 00:22:23,801 --> 00:22:25,762 I decided that I'd had enough. 293 00:22:25,845 --> 00:22:29,599 Well, I got homesick and also I wanted to go back to what I really started to do. 294 00:22:29,933 --> 00:22:33,186 To become a solo singer, I didn't want to be a part of it any more. 295 00:22:33,269 --> 00:22:35,438 And I told the guys and they stayed. 296 00:22:35,563 --> 00:22:39,526 Well, you know, he used to write me letters, he was lonely, I'll tell you that. 297 00:22:39,609 --> 00:22:43,029 - Did you keep those letters? - I tore them all up. 298 00:22:43,112 --> 00:22:44,447 Ikeptone. 299 00:22:44,864 --> 00:22:47,116 I had enough money and I bought a plane ticket. 300 00:22:47,200 --> 00:22:49,160 When I landed in Newark, 301 00:22:49,536 --> 00:22:53,373 Nancy's brother borrowed a car and they came out and met me at the airport. 302 00:22:53,540 --> 00:22:57,544 Then, of course, that's when I began to have trouble with my family. 303 00:22:57,627 --> 00:22:59,879 Iwasn't doing well because, you know, 304 00:22:59,963 --> 00:23:02,215 if an orchestra got a job on a Saturday night to play, 305 00:23:02,298 --> 00:23:04,551 they had four men or six men, 306 00:23:04,634 --> 00:23:07,136 they didn't have enough money to hire a singer. 307 00:23:07,262 --> 00:23:10,473 But a lot of guys I knew, they'd say, "hey, listen, come on over and sing 308 00:23:10,557 --> 00:23:12,618 "if you want to sing, but we can't give you anything." 309 00:23:12,642 --> 00:23:13,977 So I did. 310 00:23:14,769 --> 00:23:18,231 Shortly following that was when my old man, one morning, woke me up 311 00:23:18,314 --> 00:23:19,983 when he came off the night shift 312 00:23:20,066 --> 00:23:23,736 and he, at this particular morning, said to me, 313 00:23:23,820 --> 00:23:26,531 "why don't you just get out of the house and go out on your own?" 314 00:23:26,614 --> 00:23:28,908 It's really what he said, "get out." 315 00:23:28,992 --> 00:23:33,830 And I think the egg was stuck in here for about 20 minutes. 316 00:23:33,997 --> 00:23:36,291 I couldn't swallow it or get rid of it, anyway. 317 00:23:36,374 --> 00:23:39,168 My mother, of course, was nearly in tears, 318 00:23:39,961 --> 00:23:42,213 but we agreed that it might be a good thing. 319 00:23:42,297 --> 00:23:45,341 And then I packed up a small case that I had and I came to New York. 320 00:23:50,013 --> 00:23:56,394 When frank Sinatra was young, New York was the centre of American popular music. 321 00:23:57,478 --> 00:24:02,275 The radio networks at that point were centred in New York. 322 00:24:02,859 --> 00:24:07,488 The music business itself, tin pan alley, these were centred in New York. 323 00:24:08,114 --> 00:24:12,994 As a young man, in New Jersey, New York would have been oz. 324 00:24:14,287 --> 00:24:18,541 The magic city that he looked at from a distance and say, 325 00:24:18,708 --> 00:24:22,837 "this is the place that I have to go in order to become 326 00:24:22,920 --> 00:24:24,547 "what I want to become." 327 00:24:29,260 --> 00:24:30,553 I just kind of bummed around. 328 00:24:30,637 --> 00:24:35,516 I had about $60 in a savings account, and I just hung around, I got odd jobs. 329 00:24:42,899 --> 00:24:45,610 I used to hang up at publishing houses, the music publishing houses 330 00:24:45,693 --> 00:24:49,322 and I got to know Jimmy Van heusen, Sammy cahn 331 00:24:49,405 --> 00:24:52,825 Saul chaplin, and all those guys, that's how far back we go. 332 00:24:53,743 --> 00:24:55,745 Jimmy Van heusen was a piano player 333 00:24:55,828 --> 00:24:58,164 who would teach the singers the company's new songs 334 00:24:58,247 --> 00:24:59,558 so that they could do it on the radio. 335 00:24:59,582 --> 00:25:02,001 But I wasn't a big enough of artist 336 00:25:02,085 --> 00:25:04,212 to be taught the song by a guy like Van heusen. 337 00:25:05,171 --> 00:25:08,257 Couple of times, when I was really kind of short, 338 00:25:08,341 --> 00:25:12,470 I bunked with a musician of one of the bands in the forrest hotel. 339 00:25:14,430 --> 00:25:16,015 About that point 340 00:25:17,100 --> 00:25:19,852 was the Christmas that came that I went home. 341 00:25:20,311 --> 00:25:24,691 And I thought my old man was on 24-hour shift but I had the day screwed up. 342 00:25:24,774 --> 00:25:27,402 He was off 24 hours and he was at home. 343 00:25:27,568 --> 00:25:29,696 And I brought two presents over to leave them there, 344 00:25:29,779 --> 00:25:32,657 because he didn't speak to me for a long time, he wouldn't talk to me. 345 00:25:32,740 --> 00:25:34,951 And he met me at the door, 346 00:25:35,118 --> 00:25:36,828 and of course, it was a great homecoming. 347 00:25:36,953 --> 00:25:40,456 He started to cry and I was teary and it was just marvellous. 348 00:25:57,932 --> 00:26:00,560 But several months after the Christmas incident, 349 00:26:00,643 --> 00:26:04,230 a musician friend of mine told me there was a joint called the rustic cabin 350 00:26:04,313 --> 00:26:07,900 and they were forming a new band and they were looking for a boy singer. 351 00:26:07,984 --> 00:26:10,737 I went up and auditioned in englewood cliffs, 352 00:26:10,820 --> 00:26:14,323 up near the George Washington bridge. I got the job at the rustic cabin. 353 00:26:15,032 --> 00:26:17,410 Shortly after that, we got word 354 00:26:17,493 --> 00:26:21,372 that the wnew dance parade was going to pick up the rustic cabin. 355 00:26:21,456 --> 00:26:24,083 Every night of the week, 11:00 to 11:15 356 00:26:24,167 --> 00:26:26,502 or 11:15 to 11:30, whatever it was. 357 00:26:26,586 --> 00:26:30,965 Suddenly my dad became the proudest man in the world. 358 00:26:32,467 --> 00:26:35,762 He couldn't wait to tell everybody or anybody that I was on 359 00:26:36,053 --> 00:26:38,389 a 15-minute dance remote programme 360 00:26:38,473 --> 00:26:40,516 from New Jersey in some roadhouse somewhere. 361 00:26:41,559 --> 00:26:45,062 And they'd all sit around the radio to listen at 11:00 at night for 15 minutes. 362 00:26:45,605 --> 00:26:48,316 And in those days, I couldn't sing my way out of a paper bag 363 00:26:48,399 --> 00:26:50,359 but they thought I was a big star, you know. 364 00:26:50,693 --> 00:26:54,489 Anybody who got on the radio in the early days of radio was a very big star. 365 00:27:07,168 --> 00:27:09,545 On my night off at the rustic cabin 366 00:27:09,670 --> 00:27:12,256 was when I would take Nancy out and we would go to see somebody. 367 00:27:12,381 --> 00:27:15,718 I was always going out to see somebody else work. 368 00:27:16,761 --> 00:27:21,015 That's when I ran into one of the men in the music business, said to me, 369 00:27:21,098 --> 00:27:24,018 "listen," he said, "why don't you take some lessons?" 370 00:27:24,268 --> 00:27:26,312 And I said, "what kind of lessons?" 371 00:27:26,395 --> 00:27:28,815 He said, "vocal lessons, you know, guys do that." 372 00:27:28,898 --> 00:27:30,942 I said, "well, where do you find these guys?" 373 00:27:31,025 --> 00:27:34,779 He said, "there's a guy up over the brass rail restaurant." 374 00:27:34,862 --> 00:27:36,823 He said, "his name is quinlan, he's an old drunk." 375 00:27:36,906 --> 00:27:39,626 He said, "he used to be at the met and he got kicked out of the met." 376 00:27:40,076 --> 00:27:42,996 He said, "you ought to go and talk to him." So I went up and he was surly. 377 00:27:43,079 --> 00:27:44,664 I think he was hungover anyways. 378 00:27:44,747 --> 00:27:47,124 He said, "who are you, and how long you've been singing? 379 00:27:47,208 --> 00:27:49,608 "Why do you want to be a singer?" And all that kind of stuff. 380 00:27:49,961 --> 00:27:54,215 I said, "well, I'd like to be a singer because I feel that I have an idea about singing." 381 00:27:54,298 --> 00:27:56,259 "Oh," he said, "you already got an idea?" 382 00:27:56,342 --> 00:27:59,262 He said, "then why do you need me?" I said, "what I mean is, 383 00:27:59,637 --> 00:28:03,558 "I just need some direction." He said, "I'll tell you what we'll do. 384 00:28:03,683 --> 00:28:07,144 "If you can handle $3 a week, I'll give you three lessons a week." 385 00:28:07,228 --> 00:28:11,607 I started three lessons a week and I couldn't wait to get there, every time I had a lesson. 386 00:28:12,191 --> 00:28:14,986 I couldn't wait because I knew that I was learning something. 387 00:28:15,820 --> 00:28:18,364 He was teaching me the proper way to sing. 388 00:28:18,948 --> 00:28:22,577 I still use the same exercises and I've developed some of my own. 389 00:28:23,035 --> 00:28:26,330 Matter of fact, I once put out a book with him. We put out a paperback, 390 00:28:27,206 --> 00:28:29,667 vocal calisthenic book, after I made it. 391 00:28:29,792 --> 00:28:33,296 And we had drawings made of the mouth formation. 392 00:28:33,421 --> 00:28:36,215 The "ee" sound and the "00" sound and the "uh". 393 00:28:36,549 --> 00:28:38,634 There's no such thing as the "ah", it's wrong. 394 00:28:38,718 --> 00:28:42,221 Never sing "ah", you sing" uh". U-h. "Uh". 395 00:28:42,346 --> 00:28:45,474 That's up the roof of the mouth into the mask. 396 00:28:45,683 --> 00:28:50,271 If you sing "ah", it goes back into the throat and it can break. It can snap. 397 00:28:50,605 --> 00:28:53,024 - Now, that's my first vocal lesson with you. - I am ready. 398 00:28:53,107 --> 00:28:54,387 And you'll get a bill next week. 399 00:28:54,650 --> 00:28:58,821 I worked with him for a long time and then I began to get the jobs. 400 00:28:58,946 --> 00:29:04,160 I got a couple little jobs, I went to wnew, I didn't get any money but carfare. 401 00:29:04,243 --> 00:29:08,873 And dinah shore and I split a half-hour. She had 15 minutes, I had 15 minutes. 402 00:29:08,956 --> 00:29:12,793 Don't you remember the early, early, early, early show we used to do on wnew? 403 00:29:12,877 --> 00:29:15,463 Do I? Every time I think about them, I get tired. 404 00:29:15,546 --> 00:29:18,132 Imagine having to sing love songs at 6:00 in the morning? 405 00:29:18,257 --> 00:29:20,009 - Yeah. - And not even finishing the chorus. 406 00:29:20,092 --> 00:29:22,487 - There was never enough time. - And put all the emotion into it. 407 00:29:22,511 --> 00:29:24,430 - Yeah. - We were lucky, though, 408 00:29:24,513 --> 00:29:26,325 - 'cause they used to give us free coffee. - Yeah. 409 00:29:26,349 --> 00:29:28,109 And who could afford breakfast in those days? 410 00:29:41,364 --> 00:29:43,240 Now I was on the air, twice. 411 00:29:43,741 --> 00:29:45,701 Once at night and one in the morning. 412 00:29:47,703 --> 00:29:49,372 And then I got fan mail. 413 00:29:49,580 --> 00:29:52,249 And I'd get little postcards, two postcards, three postcards. 414 00:29:52,333 --> 00:29:54,752 Girls would write to me, you know, penny postcards. 415 00:29:54,835 --> 00:29:57,105 And I'd go and look in there right away and see how much mail, 416 00:29:57,129 --> 00:29:59,799 if it'd get any bigger and it never got any bigger. 417 00:29:59,882 --> 00:30:01,592 People began to hear me. 418 00:30:01,759 --> 00:30:03,528 And they were saying, "Jesus, you're getting better. 419 00:30:03,552 --> 00:30:05,952 "You're really... We see the difference in what's happening." 420 00:30:09,850 --> 00:30:13,479 He's singing about youthful, essentially naive romance. 421 00:30:13,562 --> 00:30:17,066 And he's doing it in a voice that is distinctly different 422 00:30:17,149 --> 00:30:19,443 from what anybody else was doing back then. 423 00:30:19,527 --> 00:30:22,446 It is so clearly the voice of a young man. 424 00:30:23,906 --> 00:30:29,328 The ambition of being the greatest pop singer of his time, of his generation, 425 00:30:29,745 --> 00:30:34,750 was an ambition that couldn't have existed in Sinatra's imagination when he was young. 426 00:31:33,851 --> 00:31:36,145 Do you remember when he asked you to marry him? 427 00:31:38,481 --> 00:31:42,401 See, he was supposedly involved with other girls while we were going together, 428 00:31:42,485 --> 00:31:45,196 and I really don't know if that was true. 429 00:31:45,863 --> 00:31:49,658 But he, believe me, wanted to get married. 430 00:31:50,993 --> 00:31:54,914 When Nancy and I got married... The Italian custom is to... 431 00:31:55,873 --> 00:31:59,668 The bride has a satin, a white satin bag with a drawstring on it. 432 00:31:59,752 --> 00:32:01,879 And you give envelopes, 433 00:32:01,962 --> 00:32:04,107 which is the most sensible thing, by the way, in the world. 434 00:32:04,131 --> 00:32:07,009 Instead of a whole bunch of phoney gifts you can never use. 435 00:32:07,843 --> 00:32:12,264 And all the song guys chipped in. I think there were almost 30 of them. 436 00:32:12,348 --> 00:32:14,850 And they put like $2 apiece or something, 437 00:32:14,975 --> 00:32:18,312 and they gave us $60 for our wedding, $50 or $60. 438 00:32:18,395 --> 00:32:20,272 Sweet, you know, really touching. 439 00:32:21,857 --> 00:32:25,277 I got married in '39, 1939. 440 00:32:25,361 --> 00:32:28,656 I took a course in secretarial work. 441 00:32:28,739 --> 00:32:30,324 Think I was earning... 442 00:32:31,367 --> 00:32:33,452 I don't remember, very little a week. 443 00:32:33,536 --> 00:32:37,373 She was making $22 a week and I was at the rustic cabin making $15 a week. 444 00:32:37,456 --> 00:32:39,458 And the minute we married, 445 00:32:40,376 --> 00:32:43,546 the career started to get better all the time. 446 00:33:04,024 --> 00:33:06,264 We finished our last show at the Paramount and went home. 447 00:33:07,319 --> 00:33:08,904 And I turned the radio on. 448 00:33:08,988 --> 00:33:12,825 And I heard this remote coming from the rustic cabin and I heard a singer. 449 00:33:12,908 --> 00:33:14,952 So I said, "well, gee, this kid really sounds great. 450 00:33:15,035 --> 00:33:19,665 "Maybe I'll take a run out there, and see if I can see him and listen to him." 451 00:33:48,861 --> 00:33:52,406 Harry James is listening to me all the time and I don't know this, you see. 452 00:33:52,489 --> 00:33:55,117 He was with Benny Goodman, he was the first trumpet player. 453 00:33:56,118 --> 00:33:59,163 He said to me, "we're all gonna start our own band. 454 00:33:59,246 --> 00:34:01,165 "How soon can you get out of here?" 455 00:34:01,707 --> 00:34:04,376 I said, "I have no contract here." I said, "how about tomorrow?" 456 00:34:04,460 --> 00:34:05,502 "How about tonight?" 457 00:34:08,339 --> 00:34:11,425 So, now I leave and I go with Harry. We go on the road. 458 00:34:15,512 --> 00:34:19,308 When you're on the road with a dance band, you're moving all the time. 459 00:34:19,433 --> 00:34:21,685 I mean, you're actually going all the time, you know? 460 00:34:23,187 --> 00:34:24,563 And you could try things. 461 00:34:24,647 --> 00:34:26,565 And nobody's saying, "well, what are you doing?" 462 00:34:26,649 --> 00:34:29,609 Harry knew what I was doing, he knew I was reaching, trying to find things. 463 00:34:29,652 --> 00:34:32,071 Like a pitcher, you're trying a new curveball. 464 00:34:33,322 --> 00:34:36,242 He had no arrangements laid out for me yet, so we were faking things. 465 00:34:36,325 --> 00:34:40,829 And we would do embraceable you and the band would kind of fill in with notes, 466 00:34:40,913 --> 00:34:43,415 and Harry would noodle with the trumpet. 467 00:34:43,499 --> 00:34:46,502 And stardust, which I hated, 'cause everybody used to sing it 468 00:34:46,585 --> 00:34:47,920 and I had it up to here. 469 00:34:50,256 --> 00:34:52,508 And a lot of the wives was like baseball wives. 470 00:34:52,591 --> 00:34:55,177 They all came across the country in the car. 471 00:34:57,554 --> 00:35:00,808 I met him in Chicago, that's where Nancy was conceived. 472 00:35:03,060 --> 00:35:06,355 Our plan was not to get pregnant that fast. 473 00:35:06,605 --> 00:35:11,277 In those days, there wasn't much money, and we were paying off a new car. 474 00:35:11,360 --> 00:35:14,321 And I'm pregnant and he's worried, you know? 475 00:35:16,991 --> 00:35:18,450 He's always thinking ahead. 476 00:35:18,534 --> 00:35:22,413 This man thinks a great deal, always did as a kid, even. 477 00:35:22,496 --> 00:35:24,915 He always had an ambition. 478 00:35:25,666 --> 00:35:28,460 He said he wanted to be 479 00:35:29,128 --> 00:35:31,588 very big in the industry. He wanted to be... 480 00:35:31,672 --> 00:35:35,884 When he saw bing, you know, he felt that that was his ambition. 481 00:35:47,229 --> 00:35:50,983 And bing Crosby ruled the ainnaves completely. 482 00:35:51,066 --> 00:35:53,610 I mean, every radio show, in those days, 483 00:35:54,570 --> 00:35:57,156 had 15, 20 minutes of bing Crosby. 484 00:35:58,073 --> 00:36:01,452 A single record, it's called white Christmas, 485 00:36:01,535 --> 00:36:04,788 to this day, it's the biggest record that ever sold. 486 00:36:05,039 --> 00:36:06,999 Sold 50 million records. 487 00:36:14,631 --> 00:36:18,927 All the time I was with Harry, I just kept thinking about the next step. 488 00:36:20,763 --> 00:36:24,683 I'd listen to Tommy dorsey's band and I'd listen to this singer with the band. 489 00:36:24,767 --> 00:36:28,687 Jack Leonard was with the band. But I had heard through the grapevine, 490 00:36:28,771 --> 00:36:31,565 Tommy tried to screw him out of $3,000 and they were fighting. 491 00:36:31,982 --> 00:36:36,612 To my knowledge, I was the first guy to tell Tommy about frank. 492 00:36:38,197 --> 00:36:40,491 Friend, girlfriend, she said, 493 00:36:40,574 --> 00:36:44,286 "frank Sinatra has a record out, called all or nothing at all." 494 00:36:44,370 --> 00:36:47,206 And she said, "it is fantastic." 495 00:36:47,289 --> 00:36:48,874 And I mentioned that to Tommy. 496 00:36:53,462 --> 00:36:58,008 When I quit, the first guy he contacted was frank. 497 00:36:58,092 --> 00:36:59,885 He said, "how'd you like to work for me?" 498 00:37:00,219 --> 00:37:06,058 I said, "Jesus, Tom." I said, "I got a two-year deal with Harry and I don't know." 499 00:37:06,141 --> 00:37:08,560 I said, "I'm dying to sing for you." 500 00:37:08,644 --> 00:37:12,815 'Cause Tommy was... he and Glenn Miller, they were the two top orchestras. 501 00:37:12,898 --> 00:37:15,067 So I didn't sleep all night. 502 00:37:15,150 --> 00:37:17,903 My eyes were jumping, I was so excited. 503 00:37:17,986 --> 00:37:19,405 I went to the theatre very early. 504 00:37:19,488 --> 00:37:22,449 I was just sitting in the dressing room and Harry came. 505 00:37:22,533 --> 00:37:26,036 I finally got up and I walked into his room. And iwalked in and iwalked out. 506 00:37:26,120 --> 00:37:28,831 I walked in and I walked out. "What are you, nervous?" 507 00:37:29,998 --> 00:37:32,459 I said, "well, Jesus, I am nervous, Harry." 508 00:37:32,543 --> 00:37:36,046 I said, "I know what I'm gonna ask you is a very tough thing." 509 00:37:37,005 --> 00:37:40,008 And he said, "Tommy dorsey wants to hire you." 510 00:37:40,843 --> 00:37:42,678 He was still signed with me. 511 00:37:42,761 --> 00:37:45,657 I hadn't given him a written release, I just said, "sure, go ahead, frank." 512 00:37:45,681 --> 00:37:48,517 'Cause really, I mean, I have always lived that way. 513 00:37:48,600 --> 00:37:50,686 The word is stronger than the pen with me. 514 00:37:50,769 --> 00:37:54,481 I was so happy. And that even affected my singing now. 515 00:37:54,565 --> 00:37:58,235 It began to get it more lofty than it was. And I was doing better things. 516 00:38:04,700 --> 00:38:08,912 I joined Tommy with a lot of malevolence in the band. 517 00:38:08,996 --> 00:38:11,707 A lot of bad vibes. 518 00:38:11,790 --> 00:38:14,751 They resented me for the fact that their friend Jack Leonard quit. 519 00:38:19,381 --> 00:38:21,133 When you're with a band, it's very clicky. 520 00:38:22,259 --> 00:38:24,052 And when a new person comes in, it's like, 521 00:38:24,136 --> 00:38:27,222 "you prove yourself, kiddo, before you become one of the group." 522 00:38:28,849 --> 00:38:33,729 We were just sitting on the bandstand when Tommy announced this new singer. 523 00:38:33,812 --> 00:38:39,026 Out on stage walked this very skinny, unprepossessing-looking young man. 524 00:38:39,109 --> 00:38:40,736 And I thought, "wow." 525 00:38:57,711 --> 00:38:59,922 He sang about eight bars, 526 00:39:00,506 --> 00:39:05,719 and that whole theatre became so quiet you could've heard a pin drop. 527 00:39:05,802 --> 00:39:10,098 You just knew that you were hearing something quite unique. 528 00:39:18,440 --> 00:39:23,445 Tommy dorsey had this incredible, incredible breath control. 529 00:39:27,449 --> 00:39:29,243 Without breathing... 530 00:39:41,296 --> 00:39:44,132 Iwatched him and I could never see him breathe. 531 00:39:44,216 --> 00:39:47,135 Sixteen bars at a time, I wonder how he does that. 532 00:39:48,971 --> 00:39:52,307 If you can visualise, a trombone player holds the mouthpiece, 533 00:39:52,391 --> 00:39:54,685 he was breathing in the corner of his mouth. 534 00:39:55,477 --> 00:39:59,314 And that was my theory, "do not break a phrase, if you can do that. 535 00:39:59,398 --> 00:40:02,985 "And keep the audience listening for the rest of the phrase." 536 00:40:04,027 --> 00:40:07,531 He wouldn't be able to sing four lines of that song. 537 00:40:09,366 --> 00:40:11,410 There was a seamlessness, a smoothness. 538 00:40:11,493 --> 00:40:15,122 And not one person is looking at anybody else. 539 00:40:15,205 --> 00:40:18,709 And they are completely under the spell of Sinatra's story. 540 00:40:39,146 --> 00:40:42,858 We came to Los Angeles to open the palladium, 541 00:40:42,941 --> 00:40:44,568 a great new dance hall. 542 00:40:46,361 --> 00:40:48,780 We got bombed, everybody did the night before and 543 00:40:48,864 --> 00:40:50,104 I remember the bellboy came in, 544 00:40:50,616 --> 00:40:54,119 said, "hey! Everybody awake yet? We're in a war with Japan. 545 00:40:54,202 --> 00:40:56,204 "They bombed the Pearl harbor." 546 00:40:58,624 --> 00:41:02,836 With the unbounding determination of our people, 547 00:41:03,587 --> 00:41:07,507 we will gain the inevitable triumph. 548 00:41:07,883 --> 00:41:09,760 So help us god. 549 00:41:12,429 --> 00:41:13,847 Now we were getting angry. 550 00:41:13,930 --> 00:41:17,100 If I had been single, I probably would have said, "hey, I want to volunteer." 551 00:41:17,184 --> 00:41:18,685 But I had a child. 552 00:41:50,926 --> 00:41:55,472 Dad was in Hollywood with the band when I was born, back in Jersey city. 553 00:41:55,555 --> 00:41:58,850 Band singer Jo Stafford recalled that he was so excited 554 00:41:58,934 --> 00:42:01,436 that all he did was talk about his new baby girl. 555 00:42:21,498 --> 00:42:24,418 Oh, my god. It was beautiful. 556 00:42:25,252 --> 00:42:29,798 I was first in the family of seven children to have a baby, 557 00:42:29,881 --> 00:42:33,385 and the whole family spoiled her, loved her. 558 00:42:33,969 --> 00:42:36,638 And he was wonderful with her. 559 00:42:37,431 --> 00:42:38,640 He loved it. 560 00:43:27,606 --> 00:43:29,691 It was a different era, it was a sweet era. 561 00:43:30,859 --> 00:43:32,277 It was a dance era. 562 00:43:32,360 --> 00:43:34,738 And you did a ballad with long lines, 563 00:43:34,821 --> 00:43:38,909 so that you could hold the girl real close and dance. 564 00:44:04,142 --> 00:44:07,813 Frank had a style, almost a sexy style. 565 00:44:07,896 --> 00:44:09,689 Very warm. 566 00:44:10,690 --> 00:44:12,234 With those eyes and that smile, 567 00:44:12,317 --> 00:44:16,696 it was almost like he could pinpoint them at one particular girl. 568 00:44:16,780 --> 00:44:18,156 They just fell in love with him. 569 00:44:36,299 --> 00:44:39,052 The kids were just enamoured of frank. 570 00:44:39,469 --> 00:44:42,722 And you could hear, when Tommy would be playing, 571 00:44:42,806 --> 00:44:45,684 the kids were aware that there's a modulation for frank's vocal, 572 00:44:46,852 --> 00:44:50,063 and nobody would be dancing, they'd all just crowd around the bandstand. 573 00:44:50,146 --> 00:44:52,607 The kids came not to see Tommy dorsey any more. 574 00:44:53,775 --> 00:44:58,029 It wasn't Tommy that was getting the crowd, it was frank that was getting the crowd. 575 00:45:02,158 --> 00:45:03,994 And that's what Tommy couldn't stand. 576 00:45:05,078 --> 00:45:08,832 If you've got an organisation and the boy singer is taking it away from you, 577 00:45:08,915 --> 00:45:10,292 who needs that action? 578 00:45:13,628 --> 00:45:14,671 So there was a conflict. 579 00:45:14,754 --> 00:45:18,049 He kept trying to push him down, and frank wouldn't let him. 580 00:45:19,467 --> 00:45:22,929 In 15 months he became the hottest new singing star in the country, 581 00:45:24,055 --> 00:45:25,974 especially among teenagers. 582 00:45:31,646 --> 00:45:35,150 It was pandemonium all the time, chaos. 583 00:45:36,318 --> 00:45:40,071 The reaction from the crowds in those days was absolutely phenomenal. 584 00:45:40,155 --> 00:45:42,574 I mean, they were screaming and yelling and screaming. 585 00:45:42,657 --> 00:45:45,785 The kids would scream every time I'd come out on the stage. 586 00:45:49,831 --> 00:45:51,166 How are you, frank? 587 00:45:51,249 --> 00:45:53,168 I feel fine, mr Crosby. 588 00:45:53,251 --> 00:45:55,754 Let's declare a little moratorium on the formality, Frankie. 589 00:45:55,837 --> 00:45:56,922 Just call me bing. 590 00:45:57,005 --> 00:46:00,800 No, I wouldn't dream of calling a man of your years by his first name. 591 00:46:03,845 --> 00:46:08,099 Now, I figured that Crosby was the only man on top. 592 00:46:08,183 --> 00:46:10,936 He was the only guy on top and I thought to myself, 593 00:46:11,019 --> 00:46:14,814 "somebody's got to challenge this bum. Sometime or other it's gonna happen." 594 00:46:14,898 --> 00:46:17,150 So I began to think to myself, 595 00:46:17,359 --> 00:46:19,611 "Jesus, why don't I do it for myself? 596 00:46:19,694 --> 00:46:23,573 "I mean, I know this guy has signed me and I got a deal with him." 597 00:46:23,657 --> 00:46:27,786 Tommy was a man who was more of a proprietary attitude. 598 00:46:28,286 --> 00:46:29,347 Tommy was almost like a father. 599 00:46:29,371 --> 00:46:32,457 And if a guy left, he was a son who was leaving, you see. 600 00:46:32,999 --> 00:46:34,793 After the first year I was with him, I said, 601 00:46:34,876 --> 00:46:36,729 "Tommy, I think in about a year I'd like to leave the band." 602 00:46:36,753 --> 00:46:39,673 And he kind of laughed at me, just grinned at me. 603 00:46:40,173 --> 00:46:42,801 And after four months went by, I said it to him again. 604 00:46:42,884 --> 00:46:45,220 But he didn't smile too broadly this time. 605 00:46:45,971 --> 00:46:47,657 Said, "I don't want to talk to you, god damn it." 606 00:46:47,681 --> 00:46:49,599 He said, "you fucking ingrate." 607 00:46:50,225 --> 00:46:53,061 I left Tommy's band, signing a piece of paper 608 00:46:53,144 --> 00:46:56,731 which said he gets the rest of my life one-third of my salary. 609 00:46:57,440 --> 00:46:58,775 He sued me, 610 00:46:58,858 --> 00:47:02,404 and I've been accused that the mob got me out of the band. 611 00:47:02,654 --> 00:47:05,740 Some unidentifiable creature 612 00:47:05,907 --> 00:47:09,911 went to Tommy dorsey, said, "you better let him out of the contract." 613 00:47:10,912 --> 00:47:12,080 Well, that never happened. 614 00:47:12,539 --> 00:47:14,499 The man that straightened that out was 615 00:47:14,582 --> 00:47:18,294 the secretary of the American federation of radio artists. 616 00:47:18,378 --> 00:47:21,256 Then he went to mr dorsey, he said, 617 00:47:21,339 --> 00:47:24,009 "I think we can come to a settlement quite simply." 618 00:47:24,092 --> 00:47:25,385 Tom said, "no, no, no." 619 00:47:25,468 --> 00:47:29,389 He said, "I want one-third of his salary for the rest of his life, as long as he lives." 620 00:47:29,889 --> 00:47:34,477 Then jaffe said to him, "you enjoy playing music in hotel rooms 621 00:47:34,561 --> 00:47:36,980 "and having the nation hear you on the radio?" 622 00:47:37,605 --> 00:47:41,609 He said, "sure, I do." He said, "not any more, you won't." 623 00:47:43,611 --> 00:47:46,239 He never said goodbye to me or nothing. 624 00:47:46,322 --> 00:47:48,575 And I didn't know where I was going. 625 00:47:48,658 --> 00:47:50,869 I didn't know where I was going, but I went home. 626 00:47:50,952 --> 00:47:53,621 I bought a little house for Nancy and myself in hasbrouck heights. 627 00:47:53,705 --> 00:47:55,373 And I was just happy to be home. 628 00:47:57,542 --> 00:47:59,627 Nancy was now two years old. 629 00:48:02,964 --> 00:48:06,801 I spent about three, four weeks just sitting at home. 630 00:48:07,677 --> 00:48:10,013 And I can just picture, you know? 631 00:48:11,389 --> 00:48:13,391 They were poor times but they were good. 632 00:48:13,475 --> 00:48:18,313 Always. As poor as they always were, they were never that bad. 633 00:48:28,823 --> 00:48:33,411 'Cause then when the real work started, he worked like a dog. 634 00:48:34,788 --> 00:48:36,331 I was living in hasbrouck heights, 635 00:48:36,414 --> 00:48:39,793 and I found out there was a theatre there where they had vaudeville, 636 00:48:39,876 --> 00:48:42,045 and iwent around, spoke to the manager. 637 00:48:42,128 --> 00:48:45,882 And I said, "I'd like to play here for a couple of nights, maybe a weekend." 638 00:48:45,965 --> 00:48:47,300 He said, "okay." 639 00:48:47,383 --> 00:48:53,306 Each booker from the theatres in New York, the roxy, the strand, the loew's state, 640 00:48:53,389 --> 00:48:54,808 the Paramount, 641 00:48:54,891 --> 00:48:58,103 they sent their scouts over to see what all the noise was about. 642 00:48:58,186 --> 00:49:01,981 Why were the kids screaming and yelling and running up and down the aisles. 643 00:49:02,065 --> 00:49:05,110 The Paramount theatre manager said, 644 00:49:05,193 --> 00:49:07,612 "I would like you to open at new year's Eve." 645 00:49:07,695 --> 00:49:11,616 And he said, "you've got Benny Goodman's orchestra and a Crosby picture." 646 00:49:11,699 --> 00:49:15,120 And I fell right on my butt. I couldn't believe what he said to me. 647 00:49:15,203 --> 00:49:18,790 And in those days, they called you, "an extra added attraction." 648 00:49:18,873 --> 00:49:21,501 I got into New York and I look at the marquee. 649 00:49:25,463 --> 00:49:26,589 Holy Christ. 650 00:49:27,632 --> 00:49:30,802 So we get ready to go and I'm excited and it's the opening day. 651 00:49:30,885 --> 00:49:33,805 And this is the moment that's gonna make me or break me. 652 00:49:33,888 --> 00:49:36,432 If I'm not good in the Paramount theatre, 653 00:49:36,516 --> 00:49:39,144 under these circumstances I'm dead. 654 00:49:39,227 --> 00:49:40,728 Jesus, I was nervous. 655 00:49:48,361 --> 00:49:50,488 Benny did a whole section of music, 656 00:49:50,572 --> 00:49:53,700 and then he would finish that section with sing, sing, sing. 657 00:49:53,783 --> 00:49:55,827 And it would get rowdy, it would tear the joint. 658 00:49:55,910 --> 00:49:57,412 It ran about eight minutes. 659 00:49:57,996 --> 00:50:00,957 He finished sing, sing, sing and he took a bow. 660 00:50:01,040 --> 00:50:05,420 And he went over to the microphone and he said, "now, frank Sinatra." 661 00:50:08,715 --> 00:50:11,217 And they screamed like a banshee. 662 00:50:11,968 --> 00:50:15,263 He turned around and looked at the audience and he said, to nobody, 663 00:50:15,388 --> 00:50:17,515 "what the fuck is that?" He said. 664 00:50:36,451 --> 00:50:38,578 There was one girl that was making so much noise 665 00:50:38,661 --> 00:50:40,788 and screaming so much and I wanted her out. 666 00:50:42,081 --> 00:50:44,334 'Cause I thought she would precipitate a riot. 667 00:50:44,792 --> 00:50:47,921 And I tried to pull her out and she was like a tigress. 668 00:50:48,087 --> 00:50:51,466 So I called some of the guards. I had four guards 669 00:50:51,883 --> 00:50:55,053 pulling her out and carrying her, and she wouldn't go! 670 00:50:56,054 --> 00:50:58,734 I mean, there was nothing that you can do when you have 3,000 people 671 00:50:58,765 --> 00:51:02,185 standing up and screaming at something. What you gonna say? "Sit down"? 672 00:51:02,393 --> 00:51:05,772 I mean, this was the kind of hysteria that came there. 673 00:51:10,652 --> 00:51:14,113 The next day, the reviews came out, they were very kind. 674 00:51:14,239 --> 00:51:16,241 I mean, business was mobbed. It was holiday season. 675 00:51:16,324 --> 00:51:17,700 New York was jumping. 676 00:51:17,992 --> 00:51:20,787 I was booked for two weeks. 677 00:51:26,960 --> 00:51:30,755 Parents would take the children into the theatres at 4:00 in the morning 678 00:51:30,838 --> 00:51:32,966 and wait with them until daylight. 679 00:51:33,049 --> 00:51:34,889 And what a difference in a child in those days. 680 00:51:34,926 --> 00:51:36,844 I mean, they used to come scrubbed up, 681 00:51:37,011 --> 00:51:40,139 their pink cheeks, with their hair combed and the Bobby socks. 682 00:51:46,020 --> 00:51:48,606 It was incredible, it was like mass hypnosis. 683 00:51:50,650 --> 00:51:52,151 That was the thrill of our life. 684 00:51:52,235 --> 00:51:54,654 We used to go for 35 cents and sat there all day. 685 00:51:55,822 --> 00:51:59,534 We were poor, but we always had money to go to the Paramount to see Sinatra. 686 00:52:00,201 --> 00:52:03,997 When he'd walk out and then the band would play the intro to the songs, 687 00:52:04,372 --> 00:52:06,249 you'd get goose bumps. 688 00:52:06,666 --> 00:52:08,626 It was little wonder that throughout the nation, 689 00:52:08,710 --> 00:52:13,006 feminine listeners formed frank swoonatra fanclubs. 690 00:52:13,089 --> 00:52:15,049 And one organisation called itself 691 00:52:15,133 --> 00:52:19,220 the sighing society of swooning Sinatra slaves. 692 00:52:19,512 --> 00:52:23,266 The voice, as he was nicknamed, was no flash in the pan. 693 00:52:24,100 --> 00:52:27,061 When frank Sinatra was becoming famous, 694 00:52:27,186 --> 00:52:31,733 movies were the ultimate tool of creating celebrity. 695 00:52:31,983 --> 00:52:37,238 But after the depression, not everybody could even afford a ticket to the theatre. 696 00:52:37,405 --> 00:52:42,076 But everybody in america, pretty much, either had a radio 697 00:52:42,410 --> 00:52:45,580 or had access to one and you could use it for free. 698 00:52:47,123 --> 00:52:49,292 Here's your hit parade! 699 00:52:49,751 --> 00:52:53,921 Here's frank with your fifth place favourite, swinging on a star. 700 00:53:10,438 --> 00:53:12,523 The hit parade came along. 701 00:53:12,774 --> 00:53:16,611 The next thing happened, I'm still at the Paramount, there's a new club opening 702 00:53:17,236 --> 00:53:22,575 on 57th street called riobamba and they called and made an offer. 703 00:53:22,658 --> 00:53:25,953 I said to my agents, "gee, that sounds interesting." 704 00:53:26,412 --> 00:53:28,081 They said, "we don't think so. 705 00:53:28,206 --> 00:53:31,709 "'Cause you're a Coca-Cola seller and this is a champagne joint." 706 00:53:32,502 --> 00:53:36,422 I said, "I'm fucking well ready for anything right now." I said, "book 'em." 707 00:53:36,506 --> 00:53:39,550 It all happened in like a period of two to three months. 708 00:53:39,634 --> 00:53:44,222 The opening at the Paramount, the riobamba and the hit parade. 709 00:53:47,809 --> 00:53:51,854 The show at the Paramount, I came off the stage at about a quarter of 9:00 710 00:53:52,271 --> 00:53:53,773 and the radio show went on at 9:00. 711 00:53:54,482 --> 00:53:57,485 And it was like you put an animal in a cage. The ambulance would back up 712 00:53:57,568 --> 00:54:00,696 up on the sidewalk, they'd open the door like that so I could jump in, 713 00:54:00,780 --> 00:54:02,758 as it pulled away a bit, they would close the door, 714 00:54:02,782 --> 00:54:04,718 because there were thousands of kids in the street. 715 00:54:04,742 --> 00:54:07,453 And in the ambulance, they would have a malted milk and a sandwich 716 00:54:07,578 --> 00:54:12,250 and I would devour that by the time I got the ten blocks up to the radio station. 717 00:54:15,837 --> 00:54:19,132 I was so busy working, I was really working my ass off 718 00:54:19,215 --> 00:54:22,135 trying to help out with the war effort, the best I could. 719 00:54:22,385 --> 00:54:25,680 Super war bond salesmen say, "let's all back the attack." 720 00:54:26,013 --> 00:54:30,101 It's an auction, with the biggest buyers of war-bonds getting souvenirs. 721 00:54:30,184 --> 00:54:33,455 20,000, Bob hope has got seabiscuit's shoe, worn when he won the Santa Anita handicap. 722 00:54:33,479 --> 00:54:35,356 Do you think it will fit me? 723 00:54:36,482 --> 00:54:41,070 Now war-bond buyers get orchids with the voice as the pin-up boy. 724 00:54:42,613 --> 00:54:44,973 And we have a squeal with each orchid, ladies and gentlemen. 725 00:54:45,324 --> 00:54:49,162 The super war-bond special is the duet of the century. 726 00:55:39,962 --> 00:55:43,883 Ruth lowe, who was a Canadian woman, her husband got killed. 727 00:55:43,966 --> 00:55:46,886 He was a Canadian flyer, right at the beginning of the war, he got killed. 728 00:55:47,386 --> 00:55:50,890 She wrote that song and brought it down personally to New York. 729 00:55:58,189 --> 00:56:01,192 That song, it followed my dad his whole life. 730 00:56:02,735 --> 00:56:07,532 And I think it probably was because so many people identified with it in the first place. 731 00:56:08,491 --> 00:56:11,577 You know, with their personal losses. 732 00:56:43,901 --> 00:56:45,444 I was declared a 4-f. 733 00:56:45,820 --> 00:56:50,074 I got a reject slip from uncle Sam because of a perforated ear-drum from my birth. 734 00:56:50,866 --> 00:56:52,952 Then the press started to work on me. 735 00:56:54,370 --> 00:56:56,789 "Who the hell is he not to be in the service? 736 00:56:56,998 --> 00:56:59,667 "Boys are getting killed in Europe 737 00:56:59,750 --> 00:57:02,430 "and this guy's singing songs to their wives and their girlfriends." 738 00:57:17,852 --> 00:57:23,941 I'm stationed in foggia, Italy, and all we knew overseas about frank Sinatra was 739 00:57:24,275 --> 00:57:28,696 he was not serving because of a punctured ear-drum 740 00:57:28,779 --> 00:57:31,616 and the women were crazy about him, 741 00:57:31,699 --> 00:57:36,120 so our girlfriends, our wives were nuts about frank Sinatra. 742 00:57:36,203 --> 00:57:40,625 There was a great dislike, at the least, for this figure. 743 00:57:47,632 --> 00:57:51,385 The real creeps were the guys who were in uniform but had safe jobs in 744 00:57:51,469 --> 00:57:53,804 fort dix, fort totten in long island. 745 00:57:53,888 --> 00:57:57,433 They were the guys who threw the tomatoes and the eggs at the big sign 746 00:57:57,516 --> 00:57:59,894 up the marquee at the Paramount theatre. 747 00:57:59,977 --> 00:58:03,481 It was childish. They would not have the guts to face me alone. 748 00:58:06,025 --> 00:58:07,443 But I got the second notice. 749 00:58:08,069 --> 00:58:11,447 And I had to reappear for the exam, I couldn't believe it. 750 00:58:12,573 --> 00:58:15,910 In other words, I wasn't being treated like an ordinary citizen. 751 00:58:16,202 --> 00:58:18,663 I was a special case, all of a sudden, right? 752 00:58:24,752 --> 00:58:27,922 I went to the Newark armoury with 6,000 other guys, 753 00:58:28,255 --> 00:58:33,552 and there were cameramen and radio guys and a thousand people on the street. 754 00:58:33,636 --> 00:58:36,198 The kids, you know, "Frankie, baby, don't let them push you around", 755 00:58:36,222 --> 00:58:38,391 and all that kind ofjazz. 756 00:58:39,934 --> 00:58:42,853 And when I got finished, they put me in a station wagon 757 00:58:42,937 --> 00:58:46,315 with two rifled infantry men 758 00:58:46,607 --> 00:58:49,902 and a driver and took me to governors island. 759 00:58:50,403 --> 00:58:52,780 First of all, when iwalked into the ward, 760 00:58:53,030 --> 00:58:55,199 they knew I was coming. Word was out that I was coming 761 00:58:55,282 --> 00:58:57,219 and these guys were kind of lolling on their beds, 762 00:58:57,243 --> 00:58:58,994 and they walked toward me, 763 00:58:59,078 --> 00:59:03,666 and one guy shook my hand and said "I'm glad to meet you, I've been a big fan." 764 00:59:03,791 --> 00:59:07,294 He said, "you need any magazines, or comic books, I got a lot of stuff." 765 00:59:07,378 --> 00:59:10,798 Well, you know how many phone calls I made? I must have made 700 phone calls 766 00:59:10,923 --> 00:59:13,634 to everybody's family, all over the United States! 767 00:59:13,801 --> 00:59:15,970 Because they would call their family and put me on. 768 00:59:16,053 --> 00:59:17,781 And there were about seven phone booths there 769 00:59:17,805 --> 00:59:19,491 and the kids would make them one at a time. 770 00:59:19,515 --> 00:59:21,451 I'm running from one booth to another making a call. 771 00:59:21,475 --> 00:59:25,646 "Hello, mrs so and so or the wife of the guy... hello, Angie, he's fine. 772 00:59:25,771 --> 00:59:28,107 "He looks great." "Are you sure?" 773 00:59:28,190 --> 00:59:30,192 "Oh, my god! You're calling me? It's really you?" 774 00:59:30,276 --> 00:59:31,277 "Yeah, sing something!" 775 00:59:32,570 --> 00:59:34,113 The next afternoon, 776 00:59:35,197 --> 00:59:37,533 I get word to go down and see the psychiatrist. 777 00:59:38,659 --> 00:59:40,453 And he said, "before we do anything, 778 00:59:41,036 --> 00:59:43,914 "I got an 11 year old who is absolutely crazy about you." 779 00:59:44,248 --> 00:59:46,333 And I signed it to his little girl. 780 00:59:46,667 --> 00:59:49,712 He put it away and said, "I've read your whole medical report." 781 00:59:49,879 --> 00:59:52,965 Even a rifle shot can deafen you if the guy is next to you. 782 00:59:53,048 --> 00:59:55,551 That's why they reject people with holes in their ears. 783 00:59:55,718 --> 00:59:57,136 He said, "I'm recommending 784 00:59:57,720 --> 01:00:00,890 "that you are absolutely rejected from the service." 785 01:00:01,640 --> 01:00:03,660 He said to me, "now, why don't you go back to your ward, 786 01:00:03,684 --> 01:00:06,562 "get yourself dressed and go back to New York." 787 01:00:07,730 --> 01:00:10,316 I got on the ferryboat, put my coat collar up like this, 788 01:00:10,399 --> 01:00:12,234 the snow on my face, 789 01:00:12,318 --> 01:00:15,029 and suddenly the city began to come alive 790 01:00:15,112 --> 01:00:17,948 through the snow, the lights at wall street downtown, 791 01:00:18,032 --> 01:00:19,492 all the buildings are lit. 792 01:00:19,575 --> 01:00:20,826 I started to cry. 793 01:00:41,180 --> 01:00:45,267 Frankie was born at the Margaret hague hospital in Jersey city. 794 01:00:45,351 --> 01:00:50,481 Somewhere along the line, daddy said he named him for Franklin Roosevelt. 795 01:00:50,564 --> 01:00:53,859 So it was Franklin Wayne Emmanuel Sinatra. 796 01:00:55,236 --> 01:00:57,488 My brother says it's Francis. 797 01:00:57,571 --> 01:00:59,532 I think he was putting you on, hon. 798 01:00:59,615 --> 01:01:04,411 My name was never Franklin and I was not named after Franklin delano Roosevelt. 799 01:01:04,495 --> 01:01:09,917 But Dolly Sinatra said he was the greatest president that we had ever had. 800 01:01:10,251 --> 01:01:12,002 Her son began to believe it. 801 01:01:12,086 --> 01:01:13,754 And when he became famous, 802 01:01:13,838 --> 01:01:17,591 he worked for Franklin d. Roosevelt many, many times. 803 01:01:18,259 --> 01:01:20,135 I came out for Roosevelt. I loved him. 804 01:01:20,302 --> 01:01:22,888 And then iwent on, and I worked my ass off for him. 805 01:01:23,430 --> 01:01:26,517 Orson welles and myself did a lot of the campaigning 806 01:01:26,600 --> 01:01:30,271 and particularly if it was a large Italian area. 807 01:01:30,354 --> 01:01:31,522 We did one in Jersey, 808 01:01:31,605 --> 01:01:34,108 with all of the dagos in the audience, almost all Italians. 809 01:01:35,192 --> 01:01:39,613 Then I said, "if you don't vote for this man, you're all gonna be in a lot of trouble." 810 01:01:40,614 --> 01:01:43,284 I didn't make any kind of a fancy speech. 811 01:01:43,367 --> 01:01:45,369 And then welles would walk out. 812 01:01:45,452 --> 01:01:48,622 And he was dynamite. He was absolute dynamite. 813 01:01:52,960 --> 01:01:56,046 There was great criticism heaped upon me 814 01:01:56,130 --> 01:02:00,342 because I was so active in that particular campaign for mr Roosevelt. 815 01:02:01,594 --> 01:02:05,723 Newspaper writers like Lee Mortimer and westbrook pegler, 816 01:02:05,806 --> 01:02:09,310 who were never in favour of the Democratic position, 817 01:02:09,393 --> 01:02:11,896 they suddenly began to attack Sinatra. 818 01:02:11,979 --> 01:02:13,022 I was stamped. 819 01:02:13,105 --> 01:02:15,524 They stamped me a communist right away. 820 01:02:15,608 --> 01:02:16,775 I said, "bullshit." 821 01:02:16,859 --> 01:02:20,279 I said, "I don't know who you are, but you are wrong." 822 01:02:21,280 --> 01:02:23,324 - Yeah? - Good morning. My name is frank Sinatra. 823 01:02:29,580 --> 01:02:32,958 Dad did the first picture at rko called higher and higher. 824 01:02:33,918 --> 01:02:36,337 My family was still at home, but I looked for a house. 825 01:02:37,087 --> 01:02:39,632 That point Nancy put our house on the market. 826 01:02:39,715 --> 01:02:42,885 And I called her. I said, "I found a great house." 827 01:02:42,968 --> 01:02:45,179 And I couldn't have been happier 828 01:02:45,262 --> 01:02:48,182 because I loved California. 829 01:02:48,265 --> 01:02:50,100 Lovely, lovely. 830 01:02:50,184 --> 01:02:51,936 It was right on the lake. 831 01:02:52,019 --> 01:02:54,855 We had a kayak, a canoe. 832 01:02:56,398 --> 01:02:59,026 Toluca lake was so beautiful. 833 01:02:59,109 --> 01:03:01,737 We had a wonderful life there. 834 01:03:01,820 --> 01:03:03,322 Dad came home a lot. 835 01:03:03,530 --> 01:03:05,532 He wasn'tjust a voice on the radio. 836 01:03:08,702 --> 01:03:13,123 I was home. I'm thinking I've done a movie, and I'm gonna do another movie. 837 01:03:13,207 --> 01:03:15,007 And then I didn't get many movies down at rko, 838 01:03:15,084 --> 01:03:17,724 because mr Mayer saw me at a big old building downtown, the shrine. 839 01:03:18,420 --> 01:03:20,464 Metro used to buy the whole row. 840 01:03:52,287 --> 01:03:54,665 And I'm standing up there singing. I've never met Mayer. 841 01:03:54,748 --> 01:03:57,668 And I see him sitting there and he's crying. 842 01:03:57,751 --> 01:04:00,754 And he whispered something to the guy sitting next to him. 843 01:04:00,879 --> 01:04:03,090 Mayer said, "I want that boy." 844 01:04:03,173 --> 01:04:05,843 I went to Metro and I got $130,000 a picture. 845 01:04:16,603 --> 01:04:20,274 A problem arose when I started at mgm. 846 01:04:20,357 --> 01:04:22,860 We did a picture called anchors aweigh. 847 01:04:23,986 --> 01:04:26,113 What struck me at first about frank 848 01:04:26,196 --> 01:04:30,951 was that here was the best known, most popular performer in america, 849 01:04:31,035 --> 01:04:33,871 and the first two pictures he made at rko 850 01:04:33,954 --> 01:04:37,041 were, let's face it, flops. 851 01:04:37,124 --> 01:04:41,378 So I said to him, "frank, there's one big thing you have to do. 852 01:04:41,462 --> 01:04:45,049 "You can't be thought of as a guy who just stands there. 853 01:04:45,132 --> 01:04:48,177 "You don't have to be a great, great dancer 854 01:04:48,260 --> 01:04:52,139 "but you have to move, you have to dance a little bit. Period." 855 01:04:52,222 --> 01:04:54,850 I said that means a lot of sweat and work. 856 01:04:54,933 --> 01:04:57,436 He said, "great. When do we start?" 857 01:04:57,519 --> 01:05:00,230 He worked as if he were training for the heavyweight championship. 858 01:05:00,314 --> 01:05:02,107 He really worked very hard. 859 01:05:15,537 --> 01:05:17,998 I did four vocals in anchors aweigh. 860 01:05:18,082 --> 01:05:21,210 They said, "well, mr Sinatra, who do you want to write these songs? 861 01:05:21,293 --> 01:05:23,587 "The gershwins, kern, Porter, 862 01:05:23,670 --> 01:05:26,256 "Oscar hammerstein, Rodgers? Who do you want?" 863 01:05:26,340 --> 01:05:28,175 He said, "Sammy cahn." 864 01:05:28,842 --> 01:05:31,470 And they said, "we don't mind hiring him. Who is he?" 865 01:05:31,553 --> 01:05:34,765 And Sinatra typically said, "since you're not singing the songs, 866 01:05:34,848 --> 01:05:36,350 "don't let it bother you." 867 01:05:36,433 --> 01:05:38,602 And they said, "you know we've got about 10 arrangers?" 868 01:05:38,685 --> 01:05:41,105 I said, "no, no, sorry, I have my own arranger." 869 01:05:41,188 --> 01:05:44,858 Axel stordahl, whom I now had engaged, who would not leave Tommy. 870 01:05:44,942 --> 01:05:46,110 I finally convinced him. 871 01:05:46,193 --> 01:05:48,487 I got him $1,250 an arrangement. 872 01:05:48,570 --> 01:05:51,740 Hesam, "I never saw so much money in my life." 873 01:07:18,827 --> 01:07:24,166 Anchors aweigh opened to rave reviews and big box office around the country. 874 01:07:24,249 --> 01:07:28,128 Overnight frank Sinatra became a major movie star, 875 01:07:28,212 --> 01:07:30,923 having already become a recording and radio star. 876 01:07:37,262 --> 01:07:40,891 At that point his attitude was 877 01:07:40,974 --> 01:07:44,394 fate has now suddenly put me into the position 878 01:07:44,478 --> 01:07:47,231 to do something about unfairness. 879 01:07:47,314 --> 01:07:49,399 In his lifetime, 880 01:07:49,483 --> 01:07:51,485 he had seen abject poverty. 881 01:07:52,653 --> 01:07:55,489 He had seen terrible things done to people. 882 01:07:55,781 --> 01:07:57,407 And it upset him. 883 01:07:59,534 --> 01:08:02,788 I was living in Harlem, and my family was on welfare. 884 01:08:04,373 --> 01:08:06,541 We were just a hoofing act. 885 01:08:06,625 --> 01:08:10,420 And frank found us, and we went into the capitol theatre 886 01:08:10,504 --> 01:08:13,131 and he paid us $1,750. 887 01:08:13,215 --> 01:08:15,550 All the money in the world. 888 01:08:16,468 --> 01:08:20,013 And frank would come out, open up, sing a couple of songs, 889 01:08:20,097 --> 01:08:21,098 then he introduced us. 890 01:08:21,181 --> 01:08:23,016 You know, he'd say little things like 891 01:08:23,100 --> 01:08:25,727 "I want you to keep an eye on this little kid in the middle." 892 01:08:25,811 --> 01:08:27,914 He said, "boy, he's gonna be something one of these days. 893 01:08:27,938 --> 01:08:30,107 "You watch him. He burns the stage out." 894 01:08:32,985 --> 01:08:36,280 Frank has been one of the main moving forces with me 895 01:08:36,363 --> 01:08:40,492 'cause he stood up and was countered long before it became fashionable. 896 01:08:42,577 --> 01:08:44,621 Putting his convictions on the line, 897 01:08:44,705 --> 01:08:47,624 dad played himself in the house I live in, 898 01:08:47,708 --> 01:08:50,711 a 10-minute short made in 1945. 899 01:08:51,378 --> 01:08:55,674 And it fitted me to a tee because I was involved in anti-bigotry motions. 900 01:08:55,966 --> 01:08:57,634 We got 10 little kids, 901 01:08:57,718 --> 01:09:00,012 and then you hear the rumpus in the alley outside, 902 01:09:00,095 --> 01:09:01,281 where they back up one little boy. 903 01:09:01,305 --> 01:09:03,557 They don't use any words on him, but you know 904 01:09:03,640 --> 01:09:06,911 they're either saying "you Guinea bastard", or "you Jew bastard" or something to him. 905 01:09:06,935 --> 01:09:08,520 And I do a little short speech. 906 01:09:08,603 --> 01:09:10,355 My dad came from Italy. 907 01:09:10,439 --> 01:09:14,401 But should I hate your father because he came from Ireland or France or Russia? 908 01:09:14,484 --> 01:09:16,403 Wouldn't I be a first class fat head? 909 01:09:16,486 --> 01:09:18,447 That film deeply moved me. 910 01:09:19,614 --> 01:09:25,037 It was one of the most engaging documents that I had ever seen on the issue of race. 911 01:09:25,704 --> 01:09:28,415 A lot of movies had been made before that time 912 01:09:28,498 --> 01:09:31,418 that attempted to deal with the issues of race. 913 01:09:31,501 --> 01:09:36,131 But nobody from the height of pop culture had done it quite the way Sinatra did. 914 01:09:36,214 --> 01:09:38,258 Think about that, fellas. 915 01:09:38,342 --> 01:09:40,761 Use your good American heads. 916 01:09:40,844 --> 01:09:42,846 Don't let anybody make suckers out of you. 917 01:09:42,929 --> 01:09:45,098 Well, gotta go to work. 918 01:09:45,265 --> 01:09:46,266 What do you work? 919 01:09:47,017 --> 01:09:49,478 - I sing. - You're kidding. 920 01:09:51,772 --> 01:09:53,357 Come here. 921 01:09:55,317 --> 01:09:57,861 Now, you all stand here and no hissing allowed. 922 01:10:38,985 --> 01:10:40,821 As an Italian-American growing up, 923 01:10:40,904 --> 01:10:45,033 the most virulent, anti-Italian thing was still in the land. 924 01:10:45,117 --> 01:10:47,911 Stereotypes of a fractured English, 925 01:10:47,994 --> 01:10:51,498 life with Luigi radio shows. 926 01:10:51,706 --> 01:10:54,000 Dear mamma Mia! 927 01:10:56,378 --> 01:11:00,715 Sinatra, he's a very big singer and he's italiano born. 928 01:11:01,508 --> 01:11:04,553 For him to come along and deal with that, 929 01:11:04,636 --> 01:11:08,098 to insist that he was going 930 01:11:08,181 --> 01:11:12,269 to change the way people thought about Italian-Americans through his diction, 931 01:11:12,352 --> 01:11:14,688 which was impeccable on those songs, 932 01:11:15,772 --> 01:11:18,400 through the style that he presented himself with, 933 01:11:18,525 --> 01:11:19,568 I think was crucial. 934 01:11:22,404 --> 01:11:25,240 New oscars for Hollywood's top moviemakers. 935 01:11:25,323 --> 01:11:28,660 At grauman's Chinese theatre, over 2,000 stars are on hand 936 01:11:28,743 --> 01:11:31,788 for the 18th annual motion picture academy awards. 937 01:11:31,872 --> 01:11:32,873 The frank sinatras. 938 01:11:32,956 --> 01:11:36,376 He is honoured with a special award for his short the house I live in. 939 01:11:43,341 --> 01:11:45,802 The last day of world war ii. 940 01:11:45,886 --> 01:11:49,222 Here and across the nation, yes, from coast to coast, 941 01:11:49,306 --> 01:11:52,809 uncorks the pent-up emotions of almost four years. 942 01:11:52,893 --> 01:11:56,229 Downtown they see sailors lift automobiles, 943 01:11:56,313 --> 01:11:58,273 soldiers kiss pretty girls 944 01:11:58,356 --> 01:12:01,234 and the carrying off of beautiful maidens. 945 01:12:49,032 --> 01:12:50,867 Hollywood was dad's oyster, 946 01:12:50,951 --> 01:12:53,787 and he was befriending a wide circle of the famous. 947 01:12:55,372 --> 01:12:58,041 During this heady period of newfound stardom, 948 01:12:58,124 --> 01:13:02,128 he was seen around town squiring sweater girl Lana Turner 949 01:13:02,212 --> 01:13:05,882 and starlet Marilyn Maxwell, among other women. 950 01:13:37,872 --> 01:13:41,585 All the rich, glamorous girls were after the celebrity. 951 01:13:42,294 --> 01:13:43,962 He was attractive. 952 01:13:44,504 --> 01:13:47,424 He was orientated that way in a way. 953 01:13:47,507 --> 01:13:51,595 He thought he had to possess any woman he thought attractive. 954 01:13:51,678 --> 01:13:53,513 A lot of men are like that. 955 01:13:53,597 --> 01:13:56,516 And they get that way more so with more success. 956 01:14:09,529 --> 01:14:11,865 With frank, it was the martinis in the dressing room. 957 01:14:13,158 --> 01:14:14,784 The lavishness, 958 01:14:14,868 --> 01:14:16,953 gold cigarette lighters. 959 01:14:17,120 --> 01:14:18,538 "Let's have fun. 960 01:14:18,747 --> 01:14:19,831 "Where are the laughs? 961 01:14:19,914 --> 01:14:22,709 "Where are the people in this new world that I love?" 962 01:14:23,543 --> 01:14:26,546 Nancy was always the Italian wife. 963 01:14:27,088 --> 01:14:28,965 The house has got to be spotless. 964 01:14:29,049 --> 01:14:32,218 If you want peppers or pasta, the sauce is made. 965 01:14:32,302 --> 01:14:34,846 And I'll have the kids and we'll raise a family. 966 01:14:34,929 --> 01:14:37,390 And that was what was important to her. 967 01:14:40,477 --> 01:14:43,063 On the last day of 1946, 968 01:14:43,146 --> 01:14:45,106 my mother discovered a diamond bracelet 969 01:14:45,190 --> 01:14:47,484 in the glove compartment of the new Cadillac convertible 970 01:14:47,567 --> 01:14:50,403 that dad was teaching her to drive. 971 01:14:50,487 --> 01:14:53,740 Figuring it was a gift for her, she said nothing. 972 01:14:53,990 --> 01:14:57,410 But that night at the family's new year's Eve party, 973 01:14:57,744 --> 01:15:01,122 she spied Marilyn Maxwell wearing the bracelet. 974 01:15:01,748 --> 01:15:04,668 I said to her, "I know where you got that." 975 01:15:04,751 --> 01:15:06,711 She just walked out aghast 976 01:15:06,795 --> 01:15:09,506 that I would be brave enough. 977 01:15:09,589 --> 01:15:11,174 She went and told frank. 978 01:15:11,257 --> 01:15:13,718 And frank said to me, "you know, you should apologise." 979 01:15:13,802 --> 01:15:16,721 And I said, "frank, you're mixed up. 980 01:15:16,805 --> 01:15:19,265 "She has to apologise to me." 981 01:15:21,267 --> 01:15:23,937 I feel it was like part of growing up, 982 01:15:24,187 --> 01:15:27,857 that he would eventually have his fill of all this routine 983 01:15:27,941 --> 01:15:30,318 and appreciate what he had. 984 01:15:31,444 --> 01:15:34,197 Then we made up, and he said, "it's gonna be different. 985 01:15:34,322 --> 01:15:36,783 "It's gonna be better. It's gonna be fine." 986 01:17:13,004 --> 01:17:15,632 "Nancy," I said, "it's Valentine's day coming up. 987 01:17:15,715 --> 01:17:17,926 "And I'm finished with my work here in New York. 988 01:17:18,009 --> 01:17:21,304 "How would you like to be my Valentine in acapulco?" 989 01:17:21,387 --> 01:17:23,681 She said, "that would be marvellous." 990 01:17:24,891 --> 01:17:27,477 Now, in the meantime I went to Miami. 991 01:17:27,560 --> 01:17:29,479 But the next morning was a shitty day, 992 01:17:29,562 --> 01:17:32,402 and I said, "I'm not gonna sit down here. I'm gonna go where the sun is, 993 01:17:33,608 --> 01:17:34,609 "Cuba." 994 01:17:42,659 --> 01:17:45,912 And I checked into the famous hotel, nacional hotel. 995 01:18:00,301 --> 01:18:03,596 We went down to the bar, and 66 gangsters were standing there. 996 01:18:03,680 --> 01:18:06,015 Forty-eight years of good behaviour. 997 01:18:06,099 --> 01:18:09,185 And I knew several of the fellas from New Jersey and New York, 998 01:18:09,269 --> 01:18:10,937 including the fischetti brothers. 999 01:18:11,020 --> 01:18:13,815 They were Capone's guys when he was alive. 1000 01:18:15,775 --> 01:18:17,026 They were really tough. 1001 01:18:21,656 --> 01:18:23,867 That time the boys were dealing with Cuba, 1002 01:18:23,950 --> 01:18:25,750 they handled all the gambling up there, right? 1003 01:18:26,744 --> 01:18:28,347 And one of them said, "hey, frank, come here. 1004 01:18:28,371 --> 01:18:29,851 "I want you to meet Charlie Luciano." 1005 01:18:29,914 --> 01:18:31,791 And I said, "how do you do?" 1006 01:18:32,542 --> 01:18:35,128 Charlie "lucky" Luciano. Shackled to his henchmen, 1007 01:18:35,461 --> 01:18:39,674 the overlord of a $12 million a year vice ring goes to prison. 1008 01:18:41,634 --> 01:18:44,137 And when he got out, he was deported. 1009 01:18:44,220 --> 01:18:47,807 The United States bureau of narcotics didn't like the fact that he ended up in Cuba 1010 01:18:47,891 --> 01:18:51,352 because they didn't want him setting up an operation so close to their shores. 1011 01:18:51,436 --> 01:18:52,854 This is in the '405. 1012 01:18:52,937 --> 01:18:55,231 Lucky Luciano was being watched closely. 1013 01:18:55,315 --> 01:18:59,777 And of course it went on the wire service that I shook hands with Charlie Luciano. 1014 01:18:59,861 --> 01:19:01,529 Writers picked it up and all that crap. 1015 01:19:08,745 --> 01:19:11,039 And that was the public's first taste 1016 01:19:11,122 --> 01:19:15,168 of what became Sinatra's persona for the rest of his life. 1017 01:19:15,251 --> 01:19:16,836 Buddies with the mob. 1018 01:19:18,004 --> 01:19:20,214 From that moment, I couldn't beat these guys. 1019 01:19:20,340 --> 01:19:22,258 See, they went to press every day. 1020 01:19:22,342 --> 01:19:25,929 - Then of course at that point... - Lee Mortimer picked up a picture... 1021 01:19:26,012 --> 01:19:28,473 Getting off the plane. 1022 01:19:28,556 --> 01:19:31,851 And then the FBI got the photo from Mortimer, 1023 01:19:31,935 --> 01:19:34,687 who was a famous muckraking journalist, 1024 01:19:34,771 --> 01:19:40,109 who was trying to identify the people in the photo that are with Sinatra. 1025 01:19:40,193 --> 01:19:42,528 They start to dream up all these things about me. 1026 01:19:42,612 --> 01:19:47,659 Said I went to Cuba and delivered $2 million, and I brought back drugs into the country. 1027 01:19:48,701 --> 01:19:50,620 Now, my luggage of course is on the aeroplane, 1028 01:19:50,703 --> 01:19:55,458 but I carried a sketchpad in a thin attache case. 1029 01:19:56,125 --> 01:19:59,712 Now, this was the bag I was supposedly bringing the $2 million in, right? 1030 01:20:00,880 --> 01:20:02,423 There's no evidence of it! 1031 01:20:02,507 --> 01:20:04,425 The only mentions of it in government documents 1032 01:20:04,509 --> 01:20:07,804 are recounting that it's been in the press. 1033 01:20:07,887 --> 01:20:12,141 The investigators, they would read something in the press 1034 01:20:12,225 --> 01:20:16,479 and then investigate it, giving it the patina of truth. 1035 01:20:16,562 --> 01:20:18,606 It was in some ways a vicious cycle. 1036 01:20:18,690 --> 01:20:23,736 It led to yet another investigation of his arrest in the late '30s. 1037 01:20:34,247 --> 01:20:38,001 But that was an old, old charge, way back when I was a kid, 1038 01:20:38,084 --> 01:20:40,586 when I first got the job at the rustic cabin. 1039 01:20:40,670 --> 01:20:44,048 Some dame claimed that I'd seduced her and she was pregnant. 1040 01:20:44,132 --> 01:20:46,968 She wasn't pregnant at all. She was a hokey fan. 1041 01:20:47,427 --> 01:20:48,636 We went to the courtroom, 1042 01:20:48,720 --> 01:20:50,722 and my mother who was a nurse and a midwife 1043 01:20:50,805 --> 01:20:52,845 said to the judge, "I'd like to examine this woman." 1044 01:20:53,182 --> 01:20:54,618 And all of a sudden there was no case. 1045 01:20:54,642 --> 01:20:55,727 They threw everything out. 1046 01:21:05,945 --> 01:21:09,532 You see those things were driving me crazy, in that period. 1047 01:21:10,324 --> 01:21:13,494 Bogie once said, "you have to remember one thing, frank. 1048 01:21:13,661 --> 01:21:17,582 "There's only one way that anyone can fight a newspaper. 1049 01:21:17,665 --> 01:21:19,917 "And that's with a newspaper. 1050 01:21:20,668 --> 01:21:25,548 "If you have altercations with the press, you're gonna be fighting a losing battle." 1051 01:21:25,631 --> 01:21:28,885 And this was Humphrey bogart's sage and sane advice, 1052 01:21:29,427 --> 01:21:32,764 which his friend frank Sinatra promptly proceeded to ignore. 1053 01:21:33,723 --> 01:21:35,224 Peggy Lee was opening at ciro's 1054 01:21:35,308 --> 01:21:38,144 and ciro's was one of the in-joints to go to. 1055 01:21:38,227 --> 01:21:39,729 She was marvellous. 1056 01:21:48,488 --> 01:21:51,282 And behind us I knew an oriental voice. 1057 01:21:51,365 --> 01:21:53,993 She said, "that's frank Sinatra." 1058 01:21:54,077 --> 01:21:57,080 And I hear the male voice say, "yeah, I saw that Guinea bastard." 1059 01:21:57,163 --> 01:21:58,456 I didn't know who it was. 1060 01:21:58,539 --> 01:22:01,125 I just kind of rounded, and sure enough it's him 1061 01:22:01,209 --> 01:22:04,295 'cause I had seen his picture on the top of the column. 1062 01:22:04,378 --> 01:22:07,632 I hear the chairs being scraped on the floor and they get up. 1063 01:22:11,010 --> 01:22:13,890 Peggy went off stage and people were still applauding and all that stuff, 1064 01:22:13,930 --> 01:22:16,224 and I said to everybody at my table, 1065 01:22:16,307 --> 01:22:19,352 "excuse me a minute." And this after he'd been bludgeoning me. 1066 01:22:19,435 --> 01:22:22,396 He called me a red, he called me a communist. 1067 01:22:22,480 --> 01:22:24,315 He did everything he could. 1068 01:22:24,398 --> 01:22:26,901 I had enough of him. I had it up to here. 1069 01:22:26,984 --> 01:22:29,278 So I walked out and I tapped him on the shoulder. 1070 01:22:29,362 --> 01:22:30,446 He turned around. 1071 01:22:30,530 --> 01:22:33,241 I hit him so fucking hard, I broke the whole front of his face, 1072 01:22:33,324 --> 01:22:34,909 and he banged his head. 1073 01:22:46,254 --> 01:22:47,564 And the son of a bitch, he was funny, 1074 01:22:47,588 --> 01:22:49,858 he said, "I'll write about this," and he takes a piece of paper out. 1075 01:22:49,882 --> 01:22:50,901 "You're gonna do more than that," I said 1076 01:22:50,925 --> 01:22:52,861 "I'm gonna Bury you right under the street like this." 1077 01:22:52,885 --> 01:22:54,762 And before I can make another move, 1078 01:22:54,846 --> 01:22:57,116 two guys grabbed me and they walked me right back in the club. 1079 01:22:57,140 --> 01:22:59,308 The people were running outside to get an ambulance 1080 01:22:59,392 --> 01:23:00,685 and all that kind of bullshit. 1081 01:23:01,060 --> 01:23:03,271 And I just walked through the whole crowd. 1082 01:23:06,524 --> 01:23:09,068 There were no charges, no arrests, no nothing. 1083 01:23:09,610 --> 01:23:10,987 He just wanted a civil suit. 1084 01:23:11,070 --> 01:23:12,864 $9,000 judgement. 1085 01:23:12,947 --> 01:23:15,032 That was it. Nothing ever happened. 1086 01:23:16,784 --> 01:23:17,952 As a matter of fact, 1087 01:23:18,035 --> 01:23:20,580 what I did to him through the ensuing years, 1088 01:23:20,663 --> 01:23:24,041 every time I saw him at a restaurant, I'd spit at him 1089 01:23:24,375 --> 01:23:26,294 and dare him to get up and take a punch at me. 1090 01:23:32,133 --> 01:23:36,554 Can you be objective and tell me what kind of a father you are? 1091 01:23:36,637 --> 01:23:38,097 Or is that too tough? 1092 01:23:39,432 --> 01:23:40,975 Yeah, it's a tough question. 1093 01:23:51,944 --> 01:23:55,865 Tina was the California girl. She was born in Los Angeles. 1094 01:23:56,240 --> 01:24:00,203 Dad nearly went crazy going through red lights and stop signs 1095 01:24:00,286 --> 01:24:02,163 to get to the hospital. 1096 01:24:02,788 --> 01:24:04,540 He wanted a girl, 1097 01:24:04,624 --> 01:24:07,293 and she was born on father's day. 1098 01:24:07,376 --> 01:24:09,378 That's how lucky he is. 1099 01:24:10,171 --> 01:24:12,965 Tina as a child, growing up, 1100 01:24:13,049 --> 01:24:14,568 never got to spend a lot of time with me. 1101 01:24:14,592 --> 01:24:16,195 You know, I was probably a stranger to her. 1102 01:24:16,219 --> 01:24:19,972 "Who's this guy? Comes in every six months, he comes to see me?" 1103 01:24:26,229 --> 01:24:29,440 He was away so much of his career, you know, 1104 01:24:30,900 --> 01:24:34,654 that the real great experience of being the son of this man, 1105 01:24:34,737 --> 01:24:35,821 as far as I am concerned, 1106 01:24:36,739 --> 01:24:38,991 didn't actually come until later years. 1107 01:24:41,494 --> 01:24:44,830 I think that dad, when he was rushing and going on with his career, 1108 01:24:45,122 --> 01:24:49,293 knew that I was there taking care of the kids, and he didn't have to worry about it. 1109 01:24:52,338 --> 01:24:54,924 Daddy wanted me to have a lot of children. 1110 01:24:55,007 --> 01:24:58,177 The way things were going, I knew that it was not looking right. 1111 01:24:58,261 --> 01:25:01,764 I figured I'd be stuck having to care for more. 1112 01:25:01,847 --> 01:25:03,557 Now, about that time, 1113 01:25:04,809 --> 01:25:07,520 is when I got tied up with Ava, somewhere in there. 1114 01:25:40,344 --> 01:25:43,973 Well, the first time we met was 1943. 1115 01:25:44,056 --> 01:25:45,474 I was out with Mickey. 1116 01:25:45,558 --> 01:25:46,684 We were married then. 1117 01:25:47,852 --> 01:25:49,228 Frank came over to the table. 1118 01:25:50,313 --> 01:25:52,815 Jesus, he was like a god in those days. 1119 01:25:52,898 --> 01:25:56,694 If gods can be sexy, he reeked of sex. 1120 01:25:56,777 --> 01:25:57,987 He said something like, 1121 01:25:58,070 --> 01:26:00,948 "if I had seen you first, honey, I would've married you myself." 1122 01:26:01,032 --> 01:26:03,826 I paid no attention to that. I knew he was married. 1123 01:26:03,909 --> 01:26:06,245 He had a kid, for Christ's sake. 1124 01:26:07,079 --> 01:26:11,959 The next time we met was when we had that famous Metro group picture taken. 1125 01:26:12,084 --> 01:26:13,627 He was a terrible flirt. 1126 01:26:13,753 --> 01:26:15,254 He couldn't help it. 1127 01:26:15,546 --> 01:26:19,508 I took a look at her and I said, "Jesus, you got prettier than the last time I saw you." 1128 01:26:19,592 --> 01:26:22,636 This was not the young little girl from Carolina at the studio. 1129 01:26:22,720 --> 01:26:24,597 This was a woman who was glorious. 1130 01:26:26,265 --> 01:26:28,893 She had an air that the other girls didn't have. 1131 01:26:28,976 --> 01:26:29,977 No question. 1132 01:26:33,189 --> 01:26:37,360 Very natural and of all the stars of that time, 1133 01:26:37,443 --> 01:26:40,738 she had less star mannerism than anyone I ever met. 1134 01:26:42,114 --> 01:26:44,241 She was sort of one of the boys. 1135 01:26:44,325 --> 01:26:48,079 I think she pretty much was always with men. 1136 01:26:58,547 --> 01:26:59,673 Here's your drink, lady. 1137 01:27:01,675 --> 01:27:03,427 I said, here's your drink, lady. 1138 01:27:06,222 --> 01:27:07,473 Thank you very much. 1139 01:27:18,025 --> 01:27:21,779 I think a lot of his fantasies were bound up in her. 1140 01:27:22,196 --> 01:27:26,742 I think he brought to it what a young man brings to that almost 1141 01:27:27,159 --> 01:27:32,164 unbelievable romance that may never happen to him kind of thing you do fantasise about. 1142 01:27:58,190 --> 01:27:59,900 Lana Turner told me, 1143 01:27:59,984 --> 01:28:02,194 "I've been there, honey. Don't do it." 1144 01:28:06,615 --> 01:28:09,577 I should've listened to her. The girl had been around. 1145 01:28:18,210 --> 01:28:20,963 But he was good in the feathers. 1146 01:28:21,046 --> 01:28:24,326 You don't really listen to what people tell you when a guy is good in the feathers. 1147 01:28:30,347 --> 01:28:32,308 He is a disciplined man in many respects, 1148 01:28:32,391 --> 01:28:35,352 but he's never disciplined emotionally about women. 1149 01:28:36,520 --> 01:28:38,481 I think that that did him in. 1150 01:28:38,564 --> 01:28:42,234 He would come home once or twice a week and see her all the time, 1151 01:28:42,318 --> 01:28:43,986 and figured it was gonna keep me quiet. 1152 01:28:44,069 --> 01:28:46,530 And I couldn't handle it, I was sick. 1153 01:28:46,614 --> 01:28:48,657 I was breaking down. 1154 01:28:48,741 --> 01:28:50,951 He was never looking for long-range things. 1155 01:28:51,035 --> 01:28:52,703 It was always for the moment. 1156 01:28:53,412 --> 01:28:55,498 Foregoing gossip columnists, 1157 01:28:55,706 --> 01:28:57,976 they write that your marriage is in trouble, these kinds of things. 1158 01:28:58,000 --> 01:28:59,436 Normal people don't read about these kinds of things. 1159 01:28:59,460 --> 01:29:02,171 What're you gonna say about gossip columns? 1160 01:29:02,254 --> 01:29:05,466 Hedda hopper, louella Parsons, sheilah Graham 1161 01:29:05,549 --> 01:29:07,510 and other nationally syndicated columnists 1162 01:29:07,593 --> 01:29:12,181 had already been berating my father for a host of extramarital affairs. 1163 01:29:12,264 --> 01:29:14,850 He could ignore columnists very easily. 1164 01:29:15,059 --> 01:29:18,729 But Louis b. Mayer warned that he would cancel his contract early. 1165 01:29:18,812 --> 01:29:20,356 Dad responded. 1166 01:29:20,439 --> 01:29:22,316 He moved us closer to his work 1167 01:29:22,399 --> 01:29:25,945 to a $250,000 mansion not far from Hollywood. 1168 01:29:26,946 --> 01:29:28,906 But he continued to see Ava. 1169 01:29:29,782 --> 01:29:33,827 Mr Mayer was a man who was completely void of a sense of humour. 1170 01:29:33,911 --> 01:29:37,706 And I was always doing pranks and having fun and all that stuff. 1171 01:29:37,873 --> 01:29:40,251 And Mayer loved to have people... 1172 01:29:40,334 --> 01:29:41,961 Well, not people, me, 1173 01:29:42,294 --> 01:29:45,297 come to his office whenever he was lonely. 1174 01:29:45,673 --> 01:29:49,134 He had a white formica desk, looked like Howard Hughes' cockpit. 1175 01:29:49,260 --> 01:29:52,429 And I'd go in and sit down and hold my hat in my lap and... 1176 01:29:52,930 --> 01:29:55,849 In a period of five years, I bet I was there 50 times. 1177 01:29:59,687 --> 01:30:01,897 He had a string of wonderful race horses. 1178 01:30:01,981 --> 01:30:05,734 And he also had horses that he would ride on Sunday afternoons, his own horses. 1179 01:30:05,818 --> 01:30:08,988 And one Sunday something happened that spooked the horse, 1180 01:30:09,071 --> 01:30:10,906 and he had a fractured pelvic bone, 1181 01:30:10,990 --> 01:30:14,493 and he was in a cast from here to his knees. 1182 01:30:14,618 --> 01:30:15,911 We felt badly about it 1183 01:30:16,036 --> 01:30:18,247 and we were sitting around commiserating about the fact 1184 01:30:18,330 --> 01:30:21,959 that it would take him a long time to heal because he had fallen off the horse, 1185 01:30:22,042 --> 01:30:24,795 and I said, "no, he didn't. He fell off Ginny Simms." 1186 01:30:27,673 --> 01:30:31,885 He was courting this girl named Ginny Simms, you see, fellas and girls. 1187 01:30:34,346 --> 01:30:36,307 And I get kicked out of the studio. 1188 01:30:42,187 --> 01:30:44,565 Frank Sinatra found himself in the unhappy position 1189 01:30:44,648 --> 01:30:46,317 of being considered finished. 1190 01:30:46,692 --> 01:30:48,986 His record sales slumped severely. 1191 01:30:49,320 --> 01:30:50,738 Now, is this true? 1192 01:30:51,113 --> 01:30:54,199 Earned $11 million in six years, 1193 01:30:54,575 --> 01:30:57,911 but you spent money like crazy and you couldn't pay your taxes? 1194 01:30:58,329 --> 01:30:59,705 Had you spent all your money? 1195 01:30:59,788 --> 01:31:01,332 - Pretty much all of it. - Okay. 1196 01:31:01,457 --> 01:31:02,833 I mean, I was broke. 1197 01:31:04,627 --> 01:31:07,463 It was an enormous sense of foreboding 1198 01:31:07,546 --> 01:31:10,507 in the American psyche immediately after the war. 1199 01:31:10,716 --> 01:31:13,385 What was going to happen next? 1200 01:31:14,011 --> 01:31:16,805 Would we really be able to sustain the peace 1201 01:31:16,889 --> 01:31:19,350 that we finally achieved in 1945? 1202 01:31:19,642 --> 01:31:23,812 Or was the roof going to fall in on us even more than it had before? 1203 01:31:25,105 --> 01:31:28,525 You see anxiety in abstract expressionist painting. 1204 01:31:28,651 --> 01:31:33,238 You see it in bebop, a jazz of extreme intensity of style. 1205 01:31:33,739 --> 01:31:36,909 But American commercial popular music 1206 01:31:37,201 --> 01:31:41,747 responded to this anxiety with the musical equivalent of comfort food. 1207 01:31:52,049 --> 01:31:54,259 When I wasn't doing that well with the record business, 1208 01:31:54,385 --> 01:31:56,595 'cause Mitch Miller was put in charge. 1209 01:31:56,720 --> 01:31:59,640 And he decided to bring into the world a new kind of music 1210 01:31:59,765 --> 01:32:02,226 which was a hokey-pokey kind of music. 1211 01:32:02,351 --> 01:32:04,520 And I just resented it. 1212 01:32:04,937 --> 01:32:08,649 Frank Sinatra finds himself being produced by Mitch Miller, 1213 01:32:08,816 --> 01:32:11,443 who had a kind of perverse genius 1214 01:32:11,610 --> 01:32:14,613 in gimmicky pop records that sold by the car load. 1215 01:32:14,822 --> 01:32:18,617 And Miller expected him to make records like this. 1216 01:32:19,827 --> 01:32:21,662 He says, "I won't do any of that shit." 1217 01:32:23,122 --> 01:32:24,373 So, what do I do? 1218 01:32:24,665 --> 01:32:26,834 Who tells Sinatra what to do? 1219 01:32:27,000 --> 01:32:29,211 Who ever told Sinatra what to do? 1220 01:32:29,545 --> 01:32:32,339 He made it his business going through 1221 01:32:32,464 --> 01:32:36,301 the deterioration, aesthetically of the music at that time 1222 01:32:36,468 --> 01:32:39,513 and still finding good songs to record. 1223 01:32:40,389 --> 01:32:43,016 I was 14 at the time and I was allowed to drink 1224 01:32:43,308 --> 01:32:45,769 in mcmillan's at 94th and third. 1225 01:32:47,104 --> 01:32:49,815 And I had loaded thejukebox with Sinatra stuff. 1226 01:32:50,107 --> 01:32:51,108 And suddenly... 1227 01:33:05,998 --> 01:33:09,293 The birth of the blues literally brought me to my knees. 1228 01:33:09,710 --> 01:33:12,713 The singing is so virile, sensational. 1229 01:33:12,796 --> 01:33:15,048 It's one of the great Sinatra records. 1230 01:33:19,845 --> 01:33:22,765 I played it over and over. Dimes, dimes, dimes. 1231 01:33:22,931 --> 01:33:25,684 Drinking and drinking and drinking, a 14-year-old. 1232 01:33:26,769 --> 01:33:30,105 He was abuzz in my young life. 1233 01:33:33,025 --> 01:33:36,653 But he wasn't selling records, no one was going to see the movies, 1234 01:33:36,737 --> 01:33:40,365 and he was making everyone angry with him, he owed a lot of money. 1235 01:33:42,201 --> 01:33:44,703 People don't remember the climate then. 1236 01:33:45,579 --> 01:33:49,291 Frank made so many good records at that time that did not sell. 1237 01:33:49,458 --> 01:33:52,377 His behaviour made him persona non-grata, 1238 01:33:52,461 --> 01:33:56,590 and I thought, "if you can't sell a good one, let's try novelty." 1239 01:34:04,598 --> 01:34:07,226 So I said, "okay, I'll do it your way now." 1240 01:34:07,392 --> 01:34:09,520 "I'll do the songs. Let's see what happens." 1241 01:34:13,398 --> 01:34:17,402 My heart wasn't in it and I didn't even understand what the hell I was doing. 1242 01:34:42,719 --> 01:34:46,890 When his records didn't sell and it came time for his renewal, 1243 01:34:47,266 --> 01:34:49,434 Columbia just didn't want to re-sign him. 1244 01:34:49,768 --> 01:34:53,772 It ended up finally as a very unhappy parting. 1245 01:34:54,147 --> 01:34:58,861 They were, I think, very happy to get rid of each other at the time. 1246 01:35:22,968 --> 01:35:24,928 If somebody in my family left me a lot of money, 1247 01:35:25,012 --> 01:35:26,531 I probably would never have worried about it. 1248 01:35:26,555 --> 01:35:27,848 But I think I was concerned 1249 01:35:27,973 --> 01:35:31,226 that I can't take care of my problems, my family and everything. 1250 01:35:36,940 --> 01:35:39,318 I was working hard to pay bills. 1251 01:35:39,610 --> 01:35:41,153 I was working too hard. 1252 01:35:41,278 --> 01:35:44,948 Three shows a night at the copacabana and I got booked at the capitol theatre. 1253 01:35:45,032 --> 01:35:46,992 Every week was a week of mondays. 1254 01:35:47,492 --> 01:35:50,454 And it rained every Monday, that kind of feeling. 1255 01:35:56,460 --> 01:35:58,337 I was hurting, I was struggling, 1256 01:35:58,503 --> 01:36:02,299 but I was managing to make it because we lowered the keys, all that kind of stuff. 1257 01:36:06,178 --> 01:36:08,138 And a perfect setting for what happened. 1258 01:36:08,263 --> 01:36:11,099 It was a February blizzard night, big snowfall. 1259 01:36:11,350 --> 01:36:14,478 Sixty people in a room because the weather was so bad. 1260 01:36:42,255 --> 01:36:45,717 Suddenly I felt some kind of a snap, something in my throat 1261 01:36:45,801 --> 01:36:47,970 and I went for a note and nothing came out. 1262 01:36:48,053 --> 01:36:50,555 I could feel myself swallowing my own blood. 1263 01:36:51,223 --> 01:36:53,558 I looked at the audience and they looked at me, 1264 01:36:54,059 --> 01:36:56,770 and everybody knew that something quite serious had happened. 1265 01:36:56,979 --> 01:37:00,232 And I leant in to the microphone and I said, "good night." 1266 01:37:00,399 --> 01:37:03,151 And iwalked up the stairs and I went right to the hotel. 1267 01:37:06,655 --> 01:37:10,409 A lot of his friends and lot of his associates just left him. 1268 01:37:12,577 --> 01:37:15,831 All the guys that made hundreds of thousands of dollars with me 1269 01:37:15,998 --> 01:37:17,958 never called and said, "what can we do for you? 1270 01:37:18,125 --> 01:37:19,167 "Do you need any money?" 1271 01:37:19,251 --> 01:37:20,377 At that point I had nobody. 1272 01:37:20,460 --> 01:37:22,271 The only guy who ever talked to me was Jimmy Van heusen 1273 01:37:22,295 --> 01:37:24,095 and he'd give me a few dollars for my pocket. 1274 01:37:26,008 --> 01:37:27,509 He was in a terrible state. 1275 01:37:27,884 --> 01:37:31,221 His ego and his self-esteem were at the lowest ebb. 1276 01:37:31,596 --> 01:37:35,600 And particularly bad because mine was frankly at the peak. 1277 01:37:41,273 --> 01:37:44,276 This is appropriate for me because 1278 01:37:44,901 --> 01:37:46,945 having been a saloon singer all my life, 1279 01:37:48,447 --> 01:37:51,616 I've become an expert on saloon songs. 1280 01:37:52,451 --> 01:37:54,536 The kind of things that 1281 01:37:56,079 --> 01:37:58,498 cause men to cry in their beers. 1282 01:38:00,042 --> 01:38:03,920 Because they're in trouble with their girls. 1283 01:38:05,505 --> 01:38:08,300 And they seek little bars 1284 01:38:09,009 --> 01:38:13,305 and it's really a caricature of one such person. 1285 01:39:13,031 --> 01:39:17,035 It was another one of those nights when I ended up refusing to sleep with frank. 1286 01:39:17,452 --> 01:39:19,830 I was half asleep in my room across the suite 1287 01:39:19,913 --> 01:39:21,540 and I heard this gun shot. 1288 01:39:21,957 --> 01:39:23,708 It's scared the bejesus out of me. 1289 01:39:23,792 --> 01:39:27,045 I didn't know what I was going to find, his brains blown out? 1290 01:39:28,255 --> 01:39:29,881 He was always threatening to do it. 1291 01:39:37,013 --> 01:39:42,269 Instead, he was sitting on the bed grinning like a goddam drunken school kid, 1292 01:39:42,561 --> 01:39:45,230 a smoking gun in his hand. 1293 01:39:45,564 --> 01:39:48,817 He'd fired the gun into the fucking pillow. 1294 01:39:50,193 --> 01:39:51,653 What a night that was. 1295 01:39:52,195 --> 01:39:53,655 It was a cry for help. 1296 01:39:54,072 --> 01:39:56,074 I always fell for it. 1297 01:39:56,992 --> 01:39:59,703 And they were together late one night in the car 1298 01:39:59,786 --> 01:40:01,746 and I could tell they'd both been drinking. 1299 01:40:02,205 --> 01:40:04,249 We had a buzzer at the gate 1300 01:40:04,332 --> 01:40:08,378 and he said, "Nancy, will you please tell Ava that I've asked you for a divorce?" 1301 01:40:08,461 --> 01:40:10,297 I said, "frank, you're out of your mind." 1302 01:40:10,422 --> 01:40:11,590 And I hung up. 1303 01:40:11,756 --> 01:40:13,425 Wouldn't tolerate it. 1304 01:40:16,094 --> 01:40:18,555 And she was a real bitch, too. 1305 01:40:21,516 --> 01:40:25,353 In the beginning the press had been really condemning frank and Ava, 1306 01:40:25,437 --> 01:40:28,481 and condoning Nancy for her conduct. 1307 01:40:32,027 --> 01:40:34,279 Over time, I think that began to change. 1308 01:40:34,613 --> 01:40:35,947 The press flipped. 1309 01:40:36,781 --> 01:40:41,119 Mom began to take flack for keeping Romeo and Juliet apart. 1310 01:40:43,663 --> 01:40:47,167 But she got legal guidance and she let him go. 1311 01:40:47,626 --> 01:40:50,837 I thought by letting him go that they would end their romance. 1312 01:40:52,172 --> 01:40:54,674 And in time I always felt he'd come back. 1313 01:40:55,717 --> 01:40:56,927 Always felt that. 1314 01:41:03,350 --> 01:41:05,810 Only days after his divorce from Nancy became final, 1315 01:41:06,102 --> 01:41:07,854 we had gotten married. 1316 01:41:08,730 --> 01:41:11,650 We were really, deeply in love, almost too much in love. 1317 01:41:12,817 --> 01:41:14,653 Things all of a sudden didn't fall in place. 1318 01:41:14,819 --> 01:41:16,488 She was working at Metro. 1319 01:41:16,655 --> 01:41:17,822 Picture here, picture there. 1320 01:41:17,989 --> 01:41:20,659 Then came a job to do a picture in Spain. 1321 01:41:22,077 --> 01:41:24,162 This is pandora. 1322 01:41:24,955 --> 01:41:26,957 She was bold and beautiful. 1323 01:41:27,874 --> 01:41:31,169 Desired by every man who met her. 1324 01:41:31,336 --> 01:41:34,506 He was having a very bad time with Ava gardner. 1325 01:41:35,674 --> 01:41:37,968 She was terrible to him, terrible. 1326 01:41:38,802 --> 01:41:40,679 Just grinding her feet 1327 01:41:41,471 --> 01:41:44,015 into his face in the dust, you know. 1328 01:41:45,183 --> 01:41:47,602 This was a turmoil that the whole world knew about 1329 01:41:47,686 --> 01:41:49,312 when I was chasing it around the world, 1330 01:41:49,396 --> 01:41:51,276 that I was borrowing money to go visit with her. 1331 01:41:51,356 --> 01:41:53,608 I was running away from frank. 1332 01:41:53,692 --> 01:41:56,069 Desperately trying to break up with him. 1333 01:41:56,569 --> 01:41:59,364 I knew that I just couldn't live with him any more. 1334 01:41:59,906 --> 01:42:03,368 I still loved him, but the marriage was never going to work. 1335 01:42:07,122 --> 01:42:09,249 The trouble was, 1336 01:42:09,708 --> 01:42:11,334 frank and I were too much alike. 1337 01:42:15,046 --> 01:42:17,173 He met his match with her. 1338 01:42:17,257 --> 01:42:21,011 She was sexually free and gorgeous. 1339 01:42:21,469 --> 01:42:23,054 She couldn't be conquered. 1340 01:42:29,686 --> 01:42:33,815 The fact the we were no longer in the same city, let alone the same country. 1341 01:42:33,898 --> 01:42:35,608 That took the bottom out of everything. 1342 01:42:41,072 --> 01:42:45,118 I became an out and out drunk. I mean, I was bombed all the time. 1343 01:42:45,285 --> 01:42:47,912 God bless tootsie's, I never paid a tab at tootsie's. 1344 01:42:50,749 --> 01:42:54,544 So at 4:00, of course this night, "hey, dago", he said. "You better go home." 1345 01:42:56,629 --> 01:42:58,381 Now he was on 52nd street, 1346 01:42:58,465 --> 01:43:00,675 I was staying at Jimmy's, 57th street. 1347 01:43:00,759 --> 01:43:03,720 I walked out and it was like 20 degrees. 1348 01:43:05,305 --> 01:43:07,182 So I started walking, and walking and walking. 1349 01:43:07,265 --> 01:43:08,784 Suddenly I don't know where the hell I am. 1350 01:43:08,808 --> 01:43:10,352 'Cause the booze really hit me. 1351 01:43:10,518 --> 01:43:12,103 It really hit me like a sledgehammer. 1352 01:43:12,228 --> 01:43:14,689 And the next thing I know, there was a flashlight in my eye 1353 01:43:14,773 --> 01:43:16,232 and somebody was shaking me. 1354 01:43:18,234 --> 01:43:20,434 "You're gonna have to get out of here. Come on, get up." 1355 01:43:20,612 --> 01:43:23,698 And the cop grabbed my arm and then he looked at me. 1356 01:43:24,032 --> 01:43:25,450 "Are you Sinatra?" 1357 01:43:31,206 --> 01:43:34,292 I was in somebody's car in New York. 1358 01:43:34,459 --> 01:43:37,962 We stopped at a light and I saw him coming past the capitol, like this, 1359 01:43:39,631 --> 01:43:41,841 walking down the street, 1360 01:43:42,467 --> 01:43:46,137 coat collar up, a hat and was alone. 1361 01:43:46,513 --> 01:43:48,848 It was the first time I had ever seen him alone. 1362 01:43:48,932 --> 01:43:51,393 And nobody was stopping him and nobody was doing anything. 1363 01:43:51,476 --> 01:43:53,186 And nobody cared. 1364 01:43:53,269 --> 01:43:54,646 And nobody cared. 1365 01:44:01,486 --> 01:44:06,533 Is the man going to talk about his dark ages, when his career had that little stroke? 1366 01:44:06,866 --> 01:44:08,576 When his voice ran away from home? 1367 01:44:08,660 --> 01:44:11,162 When his records started selling like used edsels. 1368 01:44:11,496 --> 01:44:12,497 Nope. 1369 01:44:12,914 --> 01:44:15,041 The man is an incorrigible optimist. 1370 01:44:15,125 --> 01:44:16,668 A firm believer in clichés. 1371 01:44:17,085 --> 01:44:19,045 He has a philosophy about trouble. 1372 01:44:19,295 --> 01:44:21,256 Don't feed it, maybe it'll go away. 1373 01:44:22,048 --> 01:44:25,093 Sure, I've met frustration and I don't like him either. 1374 01:44:25,427 --> 01:44:28,513 I know discouragement, despair and all those other cats. 1375 01:44:29,180 --> 01:44:33,435 But I guess I knew that sooner or later something good was bound to happen to me. 1376 01:44:33,768 --> 01:44:35,648 And here's one of the best things that ever did. 1377 01:44:46,197 --> 01:44:48,491 When I read the book from here to eternity, 1378 01:44:48,658 --> 01:44:50,577 I said, "I gotta play maggio." 1379 01:44:50,702 --> 01:44:52,954 I've known 100 maggios in my neighbourhood. 1380 01:44:53,538 --> 01:44:54,998 And I may have been one. 1381 01:44:56,708 --> 01:45:00,003 When the news broke in the trade papers that 1382 01:45:00,253 --> 01:45:02,853 Columbia had bought it and they were going to make the film of it, 1383 01:45:03,214 --> 01:45:06,926 I spoke to Harry cohn, who was then the head of Columbia pictures, 1384 01:45:07,051 --> 01:45:08,720 and I said, "I'd like to play that." 1385 01:45:08,803 --> 01:45:10,930 He said, "you've never done a dramatic role. 1386 01:45:11,014 --> 01:45:13,308 "You're a guy who sings and dances with gene Kelly." 1387 01:45:13,391 --> 01:45:16,311 And I said, "but that's the kind of thing I think I can do." 1388 01:45:16,686 --> 01:45:21,774 Sinatra from the beginning kept sending cables to Harry cohn and to me 1389 01:45:21,900 --> 01:45:23,359 calling himself maggio, 1390 01:45:23,902 --> 01:45:25,236 signing maggio. 1391 01:45:25,487 --> 01:45:28,156 Saying that he was the person to play that part. 1392 01:45:28,948 --> 01:45:31,242 But I do suspect that Ava 1393 01:45:32,076 --> 01:45:35,622 went to Harry cohn and said, "you gotta give him the job. 1394 01:45:35,955 --> 01:45:37,749 "Or he'll jump off a building or something." 1395 01:45:38,917 --> 01:45:43,296 Their marriage was not going swimmingly, but he had to get back on his feet. 1396 01:45:43,379 --> 01:45:45,256 She knew that better than anybody. 1397 01:45:45,548 --> 01:45:47,383 She placed a call to Harry and said, 1398 01:45:47,592 --> 01:45:50,261 "you know who should play maggio, dontyou? 1399 01:45:50,386 --> 01:45:52,305 "That son of bitch husband of mine." 1400 01:45:54,098 --> 01:45:55,642 It's pretty funny, yeah. 1401 01:45:56,434 --> 01:45:59,604 So finally they said, "all right, let's test Sinatra." 1402 01:46:00,104 --> 01:46:02,649 Sinatra came up to my office on the day of the test 1403 01:46:02,732 --> 01:46:04,400 and said, "how do I play this scene?" 1404 01:46:04,484 --> 01:46:08,488 I said, "it's easy. All you do is make them laugh and cry at the same time." 1405 01:46:08,696 --> 01:46:10,949 Anyway he went down and he made the test. 1406 01:46:11,491 --> 01:46:14,369 There's a scene where I'm talking to the hooker in the bar. 1407 01:46:14,452 --> 01:46:17,038 I just did what I thought was a natural thing to do. 1408 01:46:17,121 --> 01:46:20,441 And we did it once, it was very short. I don't think it was more than three minutes. 1409 01:46:21,459 --> 01:46:23,836 And they said thank you very much and I left. 1410 01:46:24,003 --> 01:46:27,215 When I heard that Eli wallach, who's my dearest friend, 1411 01:46:27,298 --> 01:46:29,092 and one of the finest actors in the world... 1412 01:46:29,259 --> 01:46:31,719 When I heard that he tested for it, I said forget it. 1413 01:46:32,136 --> 01:46:35,181 He gonna win it because he's a seasoned actor 1414 01:46:35,265 --> 01:46:39,435 and he's really good, a fine performer. 1415 01:46:45,233 --> 01:46:47,527 For years and years there's this story 1416 01:46:48,820 --> 01:46:52,699 that frank Sinatra got the role in from here to eternity 1417 01:46:52,949 --> 01:46:57,287 'cause his mafia friends threatened the producers of that movie. 1418 01:46:58,121 --> 01:47:02,542 If I had this part in the picture, you know, it puts me right back up on top again. 1419 01:47:03,376 --> 01:47:05,545 I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse. 1420 01:47:08,590 --> 01:47:09,674 That's absurd. 1421 01:47:09,757 --> 01:47:10,925 The godfather thing is... 1422 01:47:11,092 --> 01:47:13,219 The godfather thing is a wonderful story. 1423 01:47:13,303 --> 01:47:16,431 It just doesn't happen to be true, as documentary. 1424 01:47:17,390 --> 01:47:21,269 Wallach's agent asked for twice what wallach had made 1425 01:47:21,352 --> 01:47:23,896 and cohn absolutely refused to do that. 1426 01:47:23,980 --> 01:47:26,983 That was not the way that Harry ran his studio. 1427 01:47:27,400 --> 01:47:31,487 But I said, "let's go back and look at the Sinatra test again. 1428 01:47:31,696 --> 01:47:33,531 "Maybe it's better than we thought it was." 1429 01:47:33,823 --> 01:47:37,452 Wallach looked like prize fighter, like he can take care of himself. 1430 01:47:38,411 --> 01:47:41,289 Sinatra looked like a plucked chicken, just pitiful, 1431 01:47:41,372 --> 01:47:44,542 and that helped the characterisation. 1432 01:47:44,626 --> 01:47:47,420 It was all there, you didn't have to play it. 1433 01:47:49,756 --> 01:47:51,674 So, we started to shoot the picture. 1434 01:48:05,688 --> 01:48:09,025 And all I did was go to work every morning, be in bed at 10:30. 1435 01:48:09,233 --> 01:48:12,236 Once I got it, I said I'm gonna work my ass off for this thing. 1436 01:48:13,571 --> 01:48:15,573 One, two, three, four. 1437 01:48:15,657 --> 01:48:17,784 One, two, three, four. 1438 01:48:18,451 --> 01:48:21,037 The best help I ever had was from monty clift. 1439 01:48:21,496 --> 01:48:24,749 And monty was a wonderful dissector of the script. 1440 01:48:24,999 --> 01:48:27,919 And we made changes, little tiny changes constantly. 1441 01:48:29,295 --> 01:48:31,339 A couple times I said to Fred, "this is new to me. 1442 01:48:31,422 --> 01:48:34,676 "I wanna check with you to find out if the approach I have is proper." 1443 01:48:34,759 --> 01:48:36,639 And he would brush me off about the whole thing. 1444 01:48:37,178 --> 01:48:38,846 A month out in Honolulu with Freddy, 1445 01:48:38,930 --> 01:48:40,532 I said, "there must be something missing in my script. 1446 01:48:40,556 --> 01:48:44,102 "It went from scene number 162 to 164." 1447 01:48:44,227 --> 01:48:47,772 And he said, "well, do something. What would a drunk do at the bar?" 1448 01:48:47,939 --> 01:48:49,750 And I said, "drunks do a lot of the things at bars." 1449 01:48:49,774 --> 01:48:52,318 Bartender! A whisky, a large whisky. 1450 01:48:53,778 --> 01:48:54,779 Excuse me. 1451 01:48:55,029 --> 01:48:56,739 Hey, buddy. 1452 01:49:00,034 --> 01:49:04,122 Hey, coming out, fellas, the terror of gimbels' basement. 1453 01:49:04,205 --> 01:49:07,625 Stand back there now. Here we go, seven for daddy, five deuce. 1454 01:49:07,875 --> 01:49:09,419 Hey, seven. 1455 01:49:10,795 --> 01:49:11,838 Snake eyes. 1456 01:49:13,131 --> 01:49:14,298 That's the story of my life. 1457 01:49:16,676 --> 01:49:20,096 Sinatra was doing the movie for $8,000 for eight weeks' work, 1458 01:49:20,179 --> 01:49:23,015 which was okay if you're a mechanic, 1459 01:49:23,099 --> 01:49:24,851 but was not big star money. 1460 01:49:25,476 --> 01:49:27,562 I did it because I knew I was gonna survive, 1461 01:49:27,687 --> 01:49:31,816 and I knew that one day I was gonna wake up and say, "okay, it's all over." 1462 01:49:32,483 --> 01:49:34,193 I cleaned the house. 1463 01:49:34,318 --> 01:49:36,195 Clean sweep is what I did. 1464 01:49:36,320 --> 01:49:39,657 Got rid of my accountant. I straightened myself out, I stopped drinking. 1465 01:49:40,533 --> 01:49:42,636 I was vice president in charge of artists and repertoire 1466 01:49:42,660 --> 01:49:45,705 and Sinatra had hit bottom and I mean bottom. 1467 01:49:45,997 --> 01:49:48,124 And frank could not get a record contract. 1468 01:49:49,000 --> 01:49:51,311 And I didn't know frank, I'd never met him and I got a call one day 1469 01:49:51,335 --> 01:49:54,088 from the William Morris agency, a man named Sam weisbord. 1470 01:49:54,255 --> 01:49:57,925 And he said, "we've just taken on Sinatra as his agents." 1471 01:49:58,009 --> 01:49:59,737 Hesam, "would you be interested in signing him?" 1472 01:49:59,761 --> 01:50:01,012 And I said, "sure." 1473 01:50:01,262 --> 01:50:03,139 And he said, "you would?" 1474 01:50:03,264 --> 01:50:07,101 I said, "sure, there's talent still there. Bring him in. I'd like to sign him." 1475 01:50:15,109 --> 01:50:18,029 On the 30th of April, 1953, 1476 01:50:18,237 --> 01:50:22,074 he recorded I've got the world on a string and don't worry 'bout me 1477 01:50:22,408 --> 01:50:24,160 and didn't look back. 1478 01:50:30,041 --> 01:50:32,043 It was a brand new guy 1479 01:50:32,126 --> 01:50:35,379 and a certain confidence after coming through hell 1480 01:50:35,463 --> 01:50:37,799 and getting a contract at capitol. 1481 01:50:40,301 --> 01:50:42,011 When iwent over to capitol records, 1482 01:50:42,094 --> 01:50:44,597 Nelson was what they call the house arranger. 1483 01:50:44,764 --> 01:50:47,785 And he was writing for practically everybody, all of the singers on the label. 1484 01:50:47,809 --> 01:50:51,479 And we got started pretty good and we just left it that way. 1485 01:50:56,734 --> 01:50:58,734 Well, a lot of the things that we laid out together 1486 01:50:59,862 --> 01:51:02,406 were done with his suggestive phrases. 1487 01:51:02,490 --> 01:51:04,909 Frank had enough background in classical music 1488 01:51:05,076 --> 01:51:07,286 to be able to describe what he wanted. 1489 01:51:09,330 --> 01:51:11,958 He just became in charge of everything. 1490 01:51:12,542 --> 01:51:17,255 That control, which had always been hovering in Sinatra's soul, 1491 01:51:17,630 --> 01:51:19,757 was now accepted. 1492 01:51:21,509 --> 01:51:23,302 I went to the art department, 1493 01:51:23,427 --> 01:51:26,305 I said, "can you sketch me a cover of a street corner 1494 01:51:26,389 --> 01:51:28,742 "with a guy leaning against a lamppost smoking a cigarette?" 1495 01:51:28,766 --> 01:51:31,477 Then I sat with Nelson and I said, "okay, we want songs 1496 01:51:31,561 --> 01:51:34,772 "belonging to a title called songs for young lovers." 1497 01:51:35,690 --> 01:51:37,525 And that was the album. 1498 01:51:38,484 --> 01:51:41,112 And this thing took off like a goddam rocket. 1499 01:51:57,628 --> 01:52:02,383 From here to eternity marked a change in his career forever, 1500 01:52:02,466 --> 01:52:05,678 because people were forced to accept him 1501 01:52:05,803 --> 01:52:08,681 as force in drama. 1502 01:52:09,181 --> 01:52:11,642 And I don't think they ever saw him like that. 1503 01:52:12,143 --> 01:52:13,352 Prew, 1504 01:52:14,145 --> 01:52:15,813 prew, listen. 1505 01:52:16,689 --> 01:52:18,566 Fatso done it, prew. 1506 01:52:18,649 --> 01:52:20,651 He likes to whack me in the gut. 1507 01:52:21,152 --> 01:52:23,112 He asked me if it hurts. 1508 01:52:23,446 --> 01:52:25,406 And I spit at him like always. 1509 01:52:26,157 --> 01:52:29,744 I think what made people enjoy it and like it 1510 01:52:30,328 --> 01:52:32,830 was my inner love for doing it 1511 01:52:32,955 --> 01:52:35,499 and wanting it and needing it so badly. 1512 01:52:35,750 --> 01:52:38,419 I had to get out, prew. I had to get out. 1513 01:52:40,671 --> 01:52:45,134 At Hollywood's pantages theatre, it's the motion picture industry's night of nights. 1514 01:52:45,217 --> 01:52:47,345 And the film capital's top stars 1515 01:52:47,428 --> 01:52:50,681 turn out for the annual presentation of the coveted oscars. 1516 01:52:51,098 --> 01:52:53,351 Tell me about your recollections of Oscar night. 1517 01:52:53,768 --> 01:52:57,647 I bought a gold coin with an Oscar on it, 1518 01:52:57,897 --> 01:52:59,273 like he was going to win. 1519 01:52:59,357 --> 01:53:01,359 And he came to my house for dinner 1520 01:53:01,525 --> 01:53:04,320 and he took Nancy and Frankie with him. 1521 01:53:04,528 --> 01:53:06,697 That was quite a night, I was 10. 1522 01:53:07,698 --> 01:53:10,368 I looked so cute in my Navy blue suit. 1523 01:53:11,160 --> 01:53:14,789 Little Nancy was wearing my little urban cape that he'd given me. 1524 01:53:14,872 --> 01:53:18,417 It was a thrill and he was jubilant. 1525 01:53:18,709 --> 01:53:20,211 And I said, "you're gonna get it." 1526 01:53:21,754 --> 01:53:24,715 The winner is frank Sinatra in from here to eternity. 1527 01:53:46,570 --> 01:53:48,030 That's a clever opening. 1528 01:53:50,574 --> 01:53:51,993 Ladies and gentlemen, 1529 01:53:53,703 --> 01:53:56,956 I'm deeply thrilled and very moved. 1530 01:53:58,332 --> 01:54:02,753 And I really don't know what to say because this is a whole new kind of thing. 1531 01:54:04,755 --> 01:54:06,590 Song and dance man type stuff. 1532 01:54:07,383 --> 01:54:10,261 And I'm terribly pleased 1533 01:54:10,344 --> 01:54:13,180 and if start thanking everybody, I'll do a one-reeler up here, 1534 01:54:13,264 --> 01:54:14,598 so I'd better not. 1535 01:54:15,099 --> 01:54:18,436 And I'd just like to say, however, that 1536 01:54:19,311 --> 01:54:22,565 they're doing a lot of songs here tonight but nobody asked me... 1537 01:54:24,984 --> 01:54:28,446 I love you, though, thank you very much. I'm absolutely thrilled. 1538 01:55:09,987 --> 01:55:13,574 He was very, very moved by that. It stunned him. 1539 01:55:19,830 --> 01:55:23,876 I think that everybody was disappointed there wasn't some extended celebration. 1540 01:55:24,001 --> 01:55:25,836 He wanted to be with himself. 1541 01:55:26,003 --> 01:55:29,423 And he said, "I just went home, parked the car and I walked." 1542 01:55:31,425 --> 01:55:32,760 "And walked." 129404

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