Frank Sinatra

Mentioned in the lyrics of several songs, including "On and On" by Stephen Bishop, "Sugar Mice" by Marillion, "Hey M\Manhattan!" by Prefab Sprout, "She Goes On" by Crowded House and "It's My Life" by Bon Jovi. His death is referred to in the Badly Drawn Boy song "You Were Right". In 2016 The Avalanches released the song "Frankie Sinatra".

The "Guinness Book of British Hit Singles and Albums" stated he was "regarded by many as the greatest song stylist of the 20th century" as well as being the "first teen idol". He achieved 34 US gold albums. By 2005 he had achieved more US top-ten LPs than any other soloist and was still the 12th most successful artist in the history of the UK singles and albums charts.

On 5/14/98, his last day of life, his family drove him to the hospital, frantically running stop signs and red lights. However, traffic was unusually light at that time, since many Americans were at home watching the final episode of the TV show Seinfeld (1989).

He made one more appearance on the big screen with a cameo in Cannonball Run II (1984) and a final acting performance in Magnum, P. I.

He was named Humanitarian of the Year by the Variety Clubs of America in 1983.

Sinatra returned to the big screen in The First Deadly Sin (1980), once again playing a New York detective, in a moving and understated performance that was a fitting coda to his career as a leading man.

(1980), in 1987, as a retired police detective seeking vengeance on the killers of his granddaughter, in an episode entitled Magnum, P. I.

He turned down the role of Paul Kersey in Death Wish (1974). It was eventually given to Charles Bronson, and was the role that made him an international superstar.

He inspired the Johnny Fontaine character in The Godfather (1972).

He received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the 1971 Academy Awards for his many contributions to charity over the years. Bob Hope, who hosted the Oscars that year, remarked, "It's interesting how Sinatra announced his retirement, and they gave him a humanitarian award". Sinatra himself hosted or co-hosted the Academy Awards four different times: 1963, 1969, 1975 and 1985.

After appearing in the poorly received comic western Dirty Dingus Magee (1970), Sinatra didn't act again for seven years, returning with a made-for-TV cops-and-mob-guys thriller Contract on Cherry Street (1977), which he also produced. Based on the novel by William Rosenberg, this fable of fed-up cops turning vigilante against the mob boasted a stellar cast and was a ratings success.

He also starred with Lee Remick in The Detective (1968), a film daring for its time with its theme of murders involving rich and powerful homosexual men, and it was a major box-office success.

In 1967 Sinatra returned to familiar territory in Sidney J.

Furie's The Naked Runner (1967), once again playing as assassin in his only film to be shot in the U. K. and Germany.

That same year he starred as a private investigator in Tony Rome (1967), a role he reprised in the sequel, Lady in Cement (1968).

He made his directorial debut with the World War II picture None But the Brave (1965), which was the first Japanese/American co-production.

That same year Von Ryan's Express (1965) was a box office sensation.

While filming a kidnapping scene for Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964), he learned that his son, singer Frank Sinatra Jr., had been kidnapped from his hotel room in Lake Tahoe, NV. For obvious reasons, the scene was never used in the completed film.

On the other hand, he alternated such projects with much more serious offerings, such as The Manchurian Candidate (1962), regarded by many critics as Sinatra's finest picture.

were lucrative, especially the famed Ocean's 11 (1960).

Voted the 59th Greatest Movie Star of all time by "Entertainment Weekly".

An accomplished amateur painter, he not only recorded the Grammy-winning album "Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely" (Capitol: 1958), but designed the cover art, as well.

Some three decades late, Hungarian-born actress Eva Bartok claimed that her daughter, Deana, born in 1957 during Bartok's marriage to Curd Jürgens, was actually fathered by Sinatra, during a brief affair that he and Bartok had had following his breakup in 1956 with the sultry Ava Gardner. Sinatra never acknowledged paternity.

Was originally signed on to play Billy Bigelow in Carousel (1956), but walked off the set on the first day of filming after he found out that they were going to shoot each scene twice, using two different lens sizes, and was quoted as saying, "I was paid to make one movie, not two".

Arguably a career-best performance--garnering him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor--was his role as a pathetic heroin addict in the powerful drama The Man with the Golden Arm (1955). Known as "One-Take Charlie" for his approach to acting that strove for spontaneity and energy, rather than perfection, Sinatra was an instinctive actor who was best at playing parts that mirrored his own personality.

He continued to give strong and memorable performances in such films as Guys and Dolls (1955), The Joker Is Wild (1957) and Some Came Running (1958).

He won an Oscar for best supporting actor and followed this with a scintillating performance as a cold-blooded assassin hired to kill the US President in Suddenly (1954).

He fought back, though, finally securing a role he desperately wanted--Maggio in From Here to Eternity (1953).

He continued to act, although in lesser films such as Meet Danny Wilson (1952), and a vocal cord hemorrhage all but ended his career.

In the late 1950s and 1960s Sinatra became somewhat prolific as a producer, turning out such films as A Hole in the Head (1959), Sergeants 3 (1962) and the very successful Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964). Lighter roles alongside "Rat Pack" buddies Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr.

His career on a high, Sinatra went from strength to strength on record, stage and screen, peaking in 1949, once again with Gene Kelly, in the MGM musical On the Town (1949) and Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949). A controversial public affair with screen siren Ava Gardner broke up his marriage to Nancy Barbato Sinatra and did his career little good, and his record sales dwindled.

About that time his film career was also starting in earnest, and after appearances in a few small films, he struck box-office gold with a lead role in Anchors Aweigh (1945) with Gene Kelly, a Best Picture nominee at the 1946 Academy Awards.

Sinatra was awarded a special Oscar for his part in a short film that spoke out against intolerance, The House I Live In (1945).

Frank Sinatra was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, to Italian immigrants Natalina Della (Garaventa), from Northern Italy, and Saverio Antonino Martino Sinatra, a Sicilian boxer, fireman, and bar owner. Growing up on the gritty streets of Hoboken made Sinatra determined to work hard to get ahead. Starting out as a saloon singer in musty little dives (he carried his own P. A. system), he eventually got work as a band singer, first with The Hoboken Four, then with Harry James and then Tommy Dorsey. With the help of George Evans (Sinatra's genius press agent), his image was shaped into that of a street thug and punk who was saved by his first wife, Nancy Barbato Sinatra. In 1942 he started his solo career, instantly finding fame as the king of the bobbysoxers--the young women and girls who were his fans--and becoming the most popular singer of the era among teenage music fans.