Frank Sinatra

Frank Sinatra Biography
in full Francis Albert Sinatra
(1915–1998)
(born December 12, 1915, Hoboken, New Jersey, U.S.—died May 14, 1998, Los Angeles, California) American singer andmotion-picture actor who, through a long career and a very public personal life, became one of the most sought-after performers in the entertainment industry; he is often hailed as the greatest American singer of20th-century popular music.
Sinatra's father, Martin, was a tavern owner and part-time prizefighter, and his mother, Natalie—known to all as “Dolly”—was a domineering influence in both localpolitics and in her son's life and career. Upon hearing the recordings of Bing Crosby, Sinatra was inspired as a teenager to choose popular singing as a vocation. He joined a local singing group, which, asthe Hoboken Four, won a talent competition in 1935 on the popular radio program Major Bowes' Amateur Hour. The group toured the country that year, but Sinatra was the only member with serious musicalambitions, and they soon disbanded. For the next few years, Sinatra sang with local dance bands and for remote radio broadcasts. In 1939, while singing and waiting tables at the Rustic Cabin inEnglewood Cliffs, New Jersey, he was discovered and hired by trumpeter Harry James, who had recently quit the Benny Goodman Orchestra to start his own band.
The actor
Sinatra appeared in several filmsthroughout the 1940s, the best among them being the musicals in which he costarred with dancer Gene Kelly. Of these, Anchors Aweigh (1945) and Take Me Out to the Ballgame (1949) are pleasant diversions,whereas On the Town (1949) ranks among the greatest of film musicals. It was acting, rather than music, that precipitated Sinatra's comeback in 1953. He pleaded with Columbia Pictures president HarryCohn for the role of the scrappy, tragic soldier, Maggio, in From Here to Eternity (1953), and he agreed to work for scale. His performance was universally praised and earned him an Oscar for best...