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Frank Sinatra - Biography & Music Buy Frank Sinatra Posters

Born on December, 12, 1915, in Hoboken, N.J. Frank, Sinatra was arguably the most important popular music figure of the 20th century, his only real rivals for the title being Bing Crosby, Elvis Presley, and the Beatles. His popularity as a singer and his productivity has resulted in an overwhelming discography.

Francis Albert Sinatra was born on December 12, 1915 in Hoboken, New Jersey. Frank Sinatra's father was a firefighter and amateur boxer named Martin Anthony Sinatra while his mother, Natalie Sinatra had political aspirations. Frank Sinatra, was a singer, actor, director and producer, who entertained generation after generation all over the world. 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 later with Tommy Dorsey.

Frank Sinatra was known as Ol' Blue Eyes to his fans. One of the first entertainment superstars the world has known. Frank Sinatra's songs have a timeless beauty to them. Sinatra's hit songs include ``Strangers in the Night'', ``The Lady is a Tramp'', ``New York, New York'' and ``Chicago.'' He was the first ever star to have teenage girl fans scream at him in public. He went on to act in more than fifty films. He acted in serious movies such as ``The Manchurian Candidate,'' "From here to Eternity" capers such as Ocean's Eleven and outrageous musicals such as ``Guys and Dolls'' and ``Pal Joey.''

Frank Sinatra is a winner of ten time Grammy award, two times Golden Globe winner and won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for "From Here to Eternity." He also won an honorary Oscar for his work on "The House I Live In" which was a short film advocating racial equality and secularism. Apart from these he also won the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award and Cecil B DeMille Award. National achievements included Kennedy Center Honors Lifetime Achievement Award, Congressional Gold Medal and Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Another legacy of Frank Sinatra was the legendary Rat Pack. It comprised his close friends in the entertainment business. The Rat Pack included Dean Martin, Joey Bishop, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford, Milton Berle and Tony Curtis.

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 - becoming the most popular singer of the era among teenage music fans. About that time his film career was also starting in earnest, striking box-office gold early on with a lead role in Anchors Aweigh (1945), a Best Picture nominee at the 1946 Academy Awards. In 1946 Sinatra was awarded a special Oscar for his part in a short film against intolerance, The House I Live In. His career on a high, Sinatra went from strength-to-strength on record, on stage and on screen, peaking in 1949, once again with Gene Kelly, in the MGM musical On the Town and Take Me Out to the Ball Game.

A controversial public affair with screen siren Ava Gardner broke up his marriage to Nancy Barbato. Record sales dwindled in the early 1950s and although Sinatra continued to act, now, appearing in more dramatic fare such as Meet Danny Wilson (1951), a vocal cord haemorrhage all but ended his career. In September 1951, Sinatra made his Las Vegas debut at the Desert Inn. A month later, a second series of the Frank Sinatra Show aired on CBS.

Columbia and MCA dropped him in 1952. In 1953, Sinatra signed with Capitol Records, where he worked with many of the finest musical arrangers of the era, most notably Nelson Riddle, Gordon Jenkins, and Billy May. He won an Oscar in 1954 for best supporting actor and followed this with a scintillating performance as a deranged assassin in suddenly and arguably a career best performance and Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in the powerful drama. The Man With the Golden Ar Sinatra reinvented himself with a series of albums featuring darker emotional material, including, "In the Wee Small Hours" (1955) - Sinatra's first 12" LP and his second collaboration with Nelson Riddle- Where Are You? (1957) and Frank Sinatra Sings For Only The Lonely (1958). He also incorporated a hipper, "swinging" persona, as heard on Swing Easy! (1954), Songs For Swingin' Lovers (1956), and Come Fly With Me (1957).

By the end of the year, Billboard named "Young at Heart" Song of the Year, Swing Easy! With Nelson Riddle at the helm, (his second album for Capitol) was named Album of the Year and Sinatra was named "Top Male Vocalist" by Billboard, Down Beat and Metronome.

On January 27, 1961, Sinatra played a benefit show at Carnegie Hall for Martin Luther King, Jr. He played a chief role in the desegregation of Nevada hotels and casinos in the 1960s. He played more benefits for King. According to Frank Sinatra, Jr., at one point during a show in 1963 King sat weeping as Sinatra sang Ol' Man River, the song from the musical Show Boat that, in the show, is sung by an African-American stevedore.

Sinatra's first live album, Sinatra at the Sands, was recorded during January and February 1966 at the Sands Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

On June 12, 1971, at a concert in Hollywood to raise money for the Motion Picture and TV Relief Fund, at the age of 55, Sinatra announced that he was retiring, bringing to an end his 36-year career in show business.

In 1973, Sinatra came out of retirement with a television special and album, both entitled Ol' Blue Eyes Is Back. The album, arranged by Gordon Jenkins and Don Costa, was a great success, reaching number 13 on Billboard and number 12 in the UK. The TV special was highlighted by a dramatic reading of "Send in the Clowns" and song and dance sequences with former co-star Gene Kelly.

In January 1974, Sinatra returned to Las Vegas, performing at Caesar's Palace despite vowing in 1970 never to play there again after the manager of the resort, Sanford Waterman, pulled a gun on him during a heated argument. With Waterman recently shot, the door was open for Sinatra to return.

It will be an understatement to say that Sinatra had a busy love life. At various points in time he was married to Ava Gardner, Mia Farrow and Barbara Marx. When Frank Sinatra married Mia Farrow, he was thirty years older than her. His lovers included Lauren Bacall, Juliet Prowse and Dorothy Provine. Sinatra was to be married to Bacall but he called it off when he realized that the press had heard of their engagement.

Though Frank Sinatra announced his retirement in 1971, there was no way that his fans would let him stop. He appeared in numerous television serials and movies throughout the 1980's. In 1993 and 1994 he released two albums called Duets I and Duets II which comprised his songs with other artists over the years. These turned out to be his highest ever selling albums. He even went on to the win the Grammy for Duets II. Frank Sinatra died on May 14, 1998.

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