J. Randy Taraborrelli - Sinatra: Behind the Legend

Sinatra

Behind the Legend

PAN BOOKS

For Rose Marie Taraborrelli

I wrote the first draft of this book almost twenty years ago. It was November 1996 when I finished the manuscript. A year later, in November 1997, the first edition of Sinatra: Behind the Legend was published.

I had met Mr. Sinatra four times backstage at concerts in Los Angeles and Las Vegas in the 1980s. While those sorts of meet-and-greet moments after a performance are never fully satisfying, the four opportunities I had to shake the mans hand and tell him how much he meant to me and my Italian-American family were nevertheless thrilling. Thank you for saying that, he told me after his show that opened the new Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles on July 30, 1982. The concert also starred his daughter Nancy. I really appreciate it. Always a pleasure to meet another dago, he added with a chuckle. Dad! Nancy exclaimed. How do you know this guys not gonna write that you called him a dago? She was kidding; Frank laughed at the joke. Cause the little dago knows better than to go dere, he said, winking at me. (I did know better, which is why I waited thirty-two years to share this anecdote!)

Immersing myself in his life and times for this book made me feel an even closer connection to Frank, but of course I wanted a full interview with the man himself. I tried in 1996 and again in 1997 while I was writing the book, but he was so ill during that time, it proved impossible. Its just not going to happen, his first wife, Nancy, told me. I think maybe youre a few years too late. I understood, of course.

Theres no telling where a biographers quest for information will take him, and what sorts of characters will cross his path in the course of that adventure. Working on this book led me to interview a number of bizarre and colorful figures, including the man who kidnapped Frank Sinatra Jr.

I was about seven when I heard that Frank Sinatras son had been kidnapped. Maybe because Id also heard a little about Sinatras alleged mob ties from my Italian-American grandparents, I recall thinking to myself, What kind of dope would kidnap Frank Sinatras kid? As a youngster, I couldnt quite grasp the seriousness of the situation. But as a grown man, I was determined to better understand it. When I found Barry Keenan, he had never before told his story, other than in the form of testimony at his trial. It was a powerful experience for me to hear a blow-by-blow account of one of the most high-profile crimes of the 1960s from the kidnapper himselfall of which you will find in these pages.

In May 1998, about six months after Sinatra: Behind the Legend was published, I was still promoting it on television programs when Frank passed away. The book was reissued at that time, again in hardcover, as Sinatra: A Complete Life. After the publication of that reissue, many people contacted me to tell me that Id missed them in my research. While the goal of any biographer is to interview as many sources as possible, its impractical to locate every person who ever had contact with a subject. (As it was, my researchers and I found more than four hundred.)

Happy that so many new sources had reached out to me, in January 1999, I began working on a revised edition, interviewing individuals such as Franks longtime valet, George Jacobs (with whom I conducted three interviews). Additionally, I went back to the tapes of interviews from years ago and extracted new material from them. However, before that edition (which would have been issued in paperback) had a chance to see the light of day, my publisher went out of business. Therefore, other than the hardcover edition from 1998, this book has not been available since that time. Now, eighteen years later, I am proud to finally bring forth a fully revised and updated edition of Sinatra: Behind the Legend, published to coincide with what would have been Frank Sinatras centenary birthday.

J. Randy Taraborrelli

Summer 2015

I think I would like to be remembered as a man who brought an innovation to popular singing, a peculiar, unique fashion that I wish one of these days somebody would learn to do so it doesnt die where it is. I would like to be remembered as a man who had a wonderful time living his life and who had good friends, a fine family, and I dont think I could ask for anything more than that, actually. I think that would do it.

Frank Sinatra to Walter Cronkite, November 16, 1965

Frank Sinatra was like a flawed diamondbrilliant on the surface, imperfect beneath. Of course, it was those flaws, those hidden complexities, that made him human, and in many ways defined his persona. If one really wants to understand Frank, though, one must travel from lower Manhattan across the Hudson River to Hoboken, New Jersey, where Sinatra is a hometown hero.

Everyone in Hoboken seems to know someone who knew someone else who once knew Frank or his family. Every Italian bartender, delicatessen owner, dry cleaner, pizzeria worker, and thrift store proprietor over the age of fifty seems to have a good Sinatra story, a juicy Sinatra rumor, or an inconsequential Sinatra anecdote about that time he or she ran into the man himself and rubbed shoulders with greatness. In Hoboken, the Sinatra tales flow freely.

Frank Sinatra was the most famous person who ever came from Hoboken. They still love him there and theyre still proud of him. One can see it in their eyes when they speak of him, when they pull from their wallets a dog-eared photograph they took at Frankies brilliant concert at the Latin Casino in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, or when they play that special Sinatra tune on the bars jukebox, the one they danced to at their wedding and that their own children and grandchildren will dance to at theirs... the one that still brings tears to their eyes.

When in Hobokena city whose Park Avenue library has a glass-encased second-floor shrine to Sinatra filled with an impressive trove of memorabiliaa Sinatra biographer has to sift through the legends to find the real facts of his life. There are endless stories that have been repeated so oftenhanded down from one generation to anotherthat today no one can even remember whence they originated, let alone whether or not theyre accurate.

All of itthe truth, the legendssays something about the endurance of Frank Sinatra and the impact he had on not only the people of Hoboken but on our culture as a whole. One thing is certain: There is nobody as popular, as respected, and as adored as the man the people of Hoboken will forever lovingly refer to as Frankie.

I n the late 1800s, Hoboken, New Jersey, a former resort area for the New York wealthy, was a run-down and destitute city. However, it was also a place of expectation and promise for many ambitious newcomers. With hope in their hearts, if not money in their pockets, they had come to the New World on crowded, rat-infested passenger liners and disease-ridden cargo ships. The Dutch, Swedes, Finns, English, Irish, and Scottish were all represented before 1700. The Germans and French Huguenots had arrived by 1750.

The Irish came in 1845 because of the great potato famine in Ireland; many of them went into the booming factories rather than return to the uncertainty of farming. The Germans arrived in 1848 after a revolution failed to produce a democracy. They were the most educated of the tide of immigrants and quickly became the aristocracy of the cities in which they settled.

By then, although there was still plenty of farmland left, New Jerseysometimes called the Foreign State because it was home to so many immigrantswas rapidly becoming industrialized, a process that had started in 1830 when canals and railroads started to crisscross the state. Factories produced glass, iron, leather, oil, and munitions (Colt made his revolver in New Jersey until he went bankrupt and moved to Connecticut), clothes, hats, coaches, cabinetware, and chairs, among other day-to-day items. From New York City, just across the river, came a steady supply of immigrants to work in those factories.