On one of his good days, in April 1997, Frank watched on television as the House of Representatives voted to award him the Congressional Gold Medal. It is the highest tribute the Congress can pay, and past recipients have included George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant, Sir Winston Churchill, and, from the world of show business, George and Ira Gershwin, Marian Anderson, John Wayne, and Bob Hope.
Frank had long since said there was one sort of tribute he could do without. He had begged Tina not to let him “wind up on a coffee mug.” The use of his name and likeness on a pasta sauce and silk ties had passed muster. In the fall of 1997, however, The Wall Street Journal ran a piece headlined “Sinatra’s Wife and Kids Battle Over Frank Inc. While His Health Slips.” “Family members have clashed repeatedly,” the story said, “over arguably tacky merchandise, such as a ‘singing’ Franklin Mint souvenir plate with Mr. Sinatra on vocals via computer chip. Sinatra cigars are being readied. . . . The licensing barrage has largely been the doing of Tina Sinatra.”
On December 12, the great classical violinist Isaac Stern called Frank and played “Happy Birthday” over the telephone. Frank was eighty-two.
Some of his best moments, now, were spent sitting quietly with Oppedisano. They talked, sipped drinks into the night, and watched television. Frank was amused, in early 1998, when the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke. He and Bill Clinton had dined together early in the presidency, and had got on well.
Frank tended to tell old jokes again and again, and the Lewinsky affair prompted him to trot out one about the 1991 furor over Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas and his alleged sexual harassment of Anita Hill. “Obviously,” Frank would say, “that guy hadn’t read the Bible. It’s right in there: ‘Thou shalt not discuss thy rod with thy staff!’ ”
As he grew less and less mobile, the television was at once an umbilical to the outside world and a constant irritation. “I sat with him in his study,” Don Rickles recalled, “and we watched television and he kept telling me to change the channel. He’d sit there and say, ‘Turn that off, that’s not good . . . turn that off . . . turn that off.’ One time we came across him singing, and he said ‘Turn that off!’ ”
Old friends still came around to play poker. On Sunday, May 10, Jack Lemmon, singer Jerry Vale, screenwriter Larry Gelbart, and the comic Tom Dreesen arrived for a game. Frank did not join them. “I went to his room to say hi,” recalled Dreesen, who had long worked as Frank’s warm-up man, “and he was in his pajamas, resting.” Frank roused himself enough to express affection in his time-worn way. “If anybody ever hits you,” he told Dreesen, “call me.”
The following day, Oppedisano remembered, “Barbara had gone out, and I gave him a nonalcoholic beer. And, at least in his mind, he thought he was looped, that he was bombed. He and I had a great laugh.”
A little earlier, when his daughter Tina had come to visit, Frank had asked how long it was until the millennium. He had once promised that he would see in the year 2000 by throwing the ultimate birthday party, in the Roman Colosseum perhaps, or in downtown Manhattan. Now, told by Tina that the millennium was less than two years off, he responded, “Oh, I can do that. Nothin’ to it.”
On Tuesday May 12 and the following day, however, Frank seemed dispirited, more miserable than usual about being an invalid. “This is not me,” he told Oppedisano. “I don’t want to go on this way.”
Ever since his mother’s death, Frank had given more serious thought to the Roman Catholic faith in which he had been raised. He had discussed the possibility of an afterlife with Shirley MacLaine. “We had a talk about reincarnation,” she remembered, “and he was extremely open to it. Because he was old enough then, and so many memories, déjà vus, were coming to him. He used me a lot to look into those areas, would call me when something drastic happened in his life, looking for spiritual sustenance. This was not wacky to him at all.”
Oppedisano, too, was aware of Frank’s belief in the spirit world. During the final series of concerts, in Manila, Frank had told him he believed they had met before in a previous life. In his final months, he would say that Jilly Rizzo, dead since 1992, had been visiting him. Once he asked Oppedisano in a whisper to, “get my mother out of here.” He insisted that Dolly was sitting “right over there in the chair.”
Frank had a notion of what constituted an admirable death. Sir Winston Churchill, he said, had “closed his eyes at ninety-one, sitting in a rocker with a good cigar in one hand, a snifter of brandy in the other. That’s my kind of cat.” Sir Winston, however, did not die like that. He died sick and helpless in his bed, after weeks in a virtual coma.
On the evening of Thursday, May 14, 1998, while Barbara was out dining with friends, Frank complained to his nurse of chest pain and difficulty in breathing. Sometime after that he sat up and screamed, then fell back on the bed. His lips had turned blue. Fire Department paramedics, responding to an emergency call, rushed him the short distance to Cedars-Sinai.
Dr. Kennamer was alerted, and hurried to the hospital. The housekeeper reached both Barbara and Oppedisano by telephone, and they arrived to find the doctor still working on Frank. He was alive, but barely, after suffering another heart attack.
Accounts differ as to his condition in the brief time that remained to him. Oppedisano said Frank was “still very much aware when I arrived. I held his hand.” Barbara said her husband told her he was “very tired.” She responded, she said, with, “Fight, darling, you must fight.” According to a statement put out by the family, Frank’s last words were, “I’m losing it.” Dr. Kennamer, however, said he was “beyond talking. . . . We worked on him for about an hour and a half. We gave him a lot of intravenous medication. . . . But basically he was dead.”
Frank was formally pronounced dead at 10:50 P.M. His daughters arrived—they had not been called immediately—to find their father lying on a gurney, his eyes closed, his hands on his chest.
As the news got out, newspaper editors stopped the presses, changed front pages, began preparing special editions. Broadcasters dug out archive footage, rushed programs onto the air. In New York, the top of the Empire State Building was lit in blue once again. In Hollywood, the top of the Capitol Records tower was draped in black.
In Las Vegas the following night, the casinos along the Strip turned off their lights for a few minutes. The traffic stopped, and thousands gathered on the sidewalk holding flickering candles. When the lights at Caesars Palace came back on again, they revealed a giant illuminated likeness of Sinatra. At the Cal-Neva Lodge on Lake Tahoe, they played Sinatra music nonstop and served a blue cocktail dreamed up for the occasion. On the grand piano, which remained unplayed, they laid a solitary red rose.
In Hoboken, there was standing room only at a memorial mass held in St. Francis Church, where Frank had been baptized. A large portrait of him in his prime, trademark cigarette in hand, stood propped on the altar among the candles.
Some in the congregation wept, then all rose as one to sing “My Way,” which was played as the recessional. As they finished, the Italian-American singer chimed in with, “Frankie took the blows, but he did it his way.” Some then made the pilgrimage to the plaque that marked Frank’s birthplace at 415 Monroe Street—the house itself was long since gone—to leave loaves of Italian bread and bottles of Jack Daniel’s on the sidewalk.
In a Beverly Hills church, with far greater pomp and circumstance, Cardinal Roger Mahony presided over a vigil and a funeral mass. At the vigil, Frank’s pianist Bill Miller played “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning” and “All the Way.” The family followed the casket into a church packed with the aristocracy of show business. Those at the mass the following morning included Gregory Peck, Kirk Douglas, Tony Bennett, Sophia Loren, Liza Minnelli, Tony Curtis, Paul Anka, Anthony Quinn, Milton Berle, Diahann Carroll, Dionne Warwick, Debbie Reynolds, Peggy Lee, Jack Nicholson, Gene Autry, Sidney Poitier, Janet Leigh, Faye Dunaway, and Bruce Springsteen. Nancy Reagan and former New York governor Hugh Carey were there, as were Larry Kin
g and Phil Donahue, Joey Bishop, Dean Martin’s former wife Jeanne, and Sammy Davis’s widow, Altovise. Frank’s two surviving former wives, Nancy Sinatra and Mia Farrow, sat behind the immediate family. The air was permeated with the fragrance of gardenias, from the flowers that blanketed Frank’s coffin.
After “Ave Maria,” from the choir, Frank’s voice filled the church. “Put your dreams away for another day . . .” he sang, and the tears flowed.
The invited mourners emerged into the sunlight, where some five hundred people were gathered. Photographers jostled to grab pictures of famous faces. Overhead, a skywriting plane traced the initials “F.S.” in the air, then embraced them with the shape of a heart. FRANK SINATRA’S REMAINS were flown that afternoon to Palm Springs, then taken to Desert Memorial Park for burial. A priest, from another church named after St. Francis, conducted a last ceremony.
A Marine Corps major general presented a folded Stars and Stripes to Barbara Sinatra “on behalf of a grateful nation.” President Clinton had approved this final honor in response to an initiative by Frank’s daughter Nancy, even though her father had never served in the armed forces. The Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal were deemed justification enough.
Screened off from view for privacy, the casket was lowered into the bronze-lined burial vault that contained Frank’s parents. Frank’s grave marker is flanked by those of his parents and Jilly Rizzo. It is small, flush with the well-groomed turf, and bears only his name, dates of birth and death, and the hopeful epitaph, “The Best Is Yet to Come.”
Frank had included that song in his last big concert. “The best is yet to come,” he had sung, and then with emphasis, not quite according to the original lyric, “Babe, it’s gonna be fine.”
He knew it had not all been fine. He had decided never to write his autobiography, he had said, “because I’m not proud of too many things I’ve done.” What he wished to be remembered for, he told an interviewer, was “to have succeeded in making popular music an art form— to have reached people. . . .” He had also once said: “Whatever else has been said about me is unimportant. When I sing, I believe.”
Notes and Sources
Full citations for books mentioned in the Notes and Sources
appear in the Bibliography.
ABBREVIATIONS USED IN NOTES AND SOURCES
Chapter 1: Debut
3–4 “May I sing?”/first studio recording: ints. Mary Mane, widow of Frank Mane, Mrs. Mane’s attorney, Robert Mandelbaum; Charles Granata, Sessions with Sinatra,Chicago: A Cappella (Chicago Review Press), 1999, 2–, Will Friedwald, Sinatra!The Song Is You, New York: Da Capo Press, 1997, 65; (“Our Love”) words and music by Larry Clinton, Buddy Bernier, and Bob Emmerich, New York: Chappell, 1939; (technology) ints. Alan Graves, of the Audio Lathe; (label) photo and corr. Robert Mandelbaum, Jan. 4, 2004; (thousand and more) Granata, xiv.
4 “best singer”: Sammy Cahn, I Should Care, New York: Arbor House, 1974, 132.
Chapter 2: A Family from Sicily
5 I am Sicilian/“I don’t think”: FS comments during Italian tour, 1987, RAI UNO (Italian TV), videotape in authors’ collection.
5 fire and paradox: Donald Ordway, Sicily: Island of Fire, New York: National Travel Club, 1930, 2–.
6 “ungovernable”: Luigi Barzini, From Caesar to the Mafia, New York: Library Press, 1971, 68.
6 crime rate: Will Monroe, The Spell of Sicily, Boston: Page, 1909, 123.
6 Mafia characterization: (“mafia”/“Mafia”) Luigi Barzini, The Italians, New York: Atheneum, 1964, 253–. The authors also studied A Family Business, the study of kinship in organized crime by Francis Ianni and Elizabeth Reuss-Ianni (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1972); (marriage/divorce) Charlotte Chapman, Milocca: A Sicilian Village, Cambridge, MA: Schenkman, 1971, 88–; (padrone) Donna Gabaccia, From Sicily to Elizabeth Street, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1984, 5–, Gay Talese, “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” Esquire, Apr. 1966; (uomini rispettati) ibid., Barzini, Italians, 256–, Claire Sterling, The Mafia, London: Hamish Hamilton, 1990, 49, 72–.
6 corruption/rigging elections: M. I. Finley, Denis Mack Smith, and Christopher Duggan, A History of Sicily, New York: Elisabeth Sifton-Viking, 1987, 183, 197–, Sterling, 47, Barzini, Italians, 256.
6 “not a dish for the timid”: Ordway, 7.
6–7 paternal grandfather: (obituary) NYT, Apr. 10, 1948; (death certificate) “Frank” Sinatra, no. 226, Apr. 12, 1948, NJ Department of Health—Bureau of Vital Statistics; (1964/Catania) Il Giornale, Dec. 20, 1997, corr. Office of the Mayor, Comune di Lumarzo, Genoa, Dec. 2002; (1987) FS comments during 1987 Italian tour, RAI UNO; (Agrigento) int. Ann Barak Stutch; (Nancy’s books) Nancy Sinatra, Frank Sinatra: An American Legend, New York: Reader’s Digest, 1998, 15, and see Nancy Sinatra, Frank Sinatra: My Father, New York: Pocket, 1985, 2–.
7 Sicilian and U.S. records: To establish the correct names, birthplace, and birth-dates of Sinatra’s paternal grandparents, the authors relied above all on information supplied by the grandparents themselves during their lifetimes, and by their granddaughter Rose Paldino. The facts as to their origins were collated with the assistance of Kathy Kirkpatrick, a genealogist specializing in the study of Sicilian records. Kirkpatrick is in accord with the authors’ findings.
Critical bits of information were the maiden names of Sinatra’s paternal grandmother, Rosa Saglimbeni, and her mother, Angela Lo Forte, which are noted on Rosa’s death certificate. Using her maiden name—married women in Italy were identified by their maiden names—Rosa Saglimbeni Sinatra entered the United States at Ellis Island with three young children—including Sinatra’s father, Antonino—in 1903. Further research in Ellis Island records established the earlier arrival of Sinatra’s grandfather Francesco, in 1900, and his uncle Salvatore, in 1902.
The information supplied to U.S. immigration officials by Rosa and Francesco, along with data they later supplied for the U.S. Census, established their true ages, Francesco’s occupation (shoemaker), and their port of departure from Sicily—Palermo. A search of civil birth records for the Palermo suburb of Brancaccio yielded the birth certificate of Antonino Sinatra, dated May 4, 1894— the known birthdate of Sinatra’s father—to Rosa Saglimbeni and Francesco Sinatra. Subsequent research in the records of the Brancaccio parish church uncovered Antonino’s baptismal record.
The vague recollections of an octogenarian priest led the authors to the village of Lercara Friddi. Registries in Lercara’s church of Maria S.S. della Neve include Sinatra’s grandparents’ baptismal and marriage records, firmly identifiable thanks to the inclusion of their parents’ names, which match data in U.S. official records (death certificates—for Frank [Francesco] Sinatra, Apr. 12, 1948, no. 226—listing father’s name as Isidor, and for Rosa Sinatra, Feb. 28, 1925, no. 20— listing parents’ names as Salvatori Saglimbene [sic] and Angela Lo Forte, NJ Department of Health—Bureau of Vital Statistics; Ellis Island records—see sourcing for emigration to United States later in this chapter; U.S. Census— Frank and Rose Sinatra responses for U.S. Census, 1920; Palermo records— Antonino Sinatra entry, May 4, 1894, civil birth records, Palermo, microfilm FHL 1963806, Genealogical Society of Utah, and baptism certificate dated May 8, 1894, reflecting May 4 birth, in Parrochia S.S. Salvatore, Palermo— certificate shows one godparent bore Rosa’s mother’s maiden name, Lo Forte; priest—Don Antonino Scianna, cited in La Repubblica, Jun. 13, 1987; Lercara Friddi—marriage register, Jan. 2, 1881, entry for Francesco Sinatra, son of Isidor Sinatra and Dorotea Siragusa, to Rosa Saglimbeni, daughter of Salvatore Saglimbeni and Angela Lo Forte, reflecting marriage on Dec. 30, 1880, Libro dei Matrimonia no. XV, 1881–1889, baptismal certificates for Francesco, Feb. 24, 1857, and for Rosa, Sep. 9, 1857, Libro dei Battesimi, Archivio Parrocchiale Maria S.S. della Neve, Lercara Friddi).
7–8 Lercara Friddi: (background) Finley et al., 160–, 192–, Nicolò Sangiorgio, Lercara Friddi, Palermo, Sicily: Edizioni Kefagrafica, 1991, 143–, Giuseppe Mavaro, Dialogo tra un maes
tro ed i suoi alunni sulla storia di Lercara Friddi, Lercara Friddi, Sicily: Biblioteca Comunale, 2002, corr. Nicolò Sangiorgio, int. Salvatore Lupo; (“core territory”) Alberto Consiglio, Lucky Luciano, Milan: Editrice A and G Marco, 1972, 11–, int. Salvatore Lupo; (Corleone/mafiosi) ibid., and Carl Sifakis, The Mafia File, Wellingborough (U.K.): Thorsons, 1987, 89, 223; (Prizzi/stronghold) Salvatore Lupo, Storia della Mafia, Rome: Donzelli, 1996, refs.; (Luciano born) Lupo, 29, Consiglio, 11–; (“without doubt”) Sifakis, 200; (“head”) Virgil Peterson, The Mob, Ottawa, IL: Green Hill, 1983, 181; (“founder”) George Wolf with Joseph DiMona, Frank Costello: Prime Minister of the Underworld, New York: William Morrow, 1974, 95– and flap.
8 Sinatras and Lucanias: (marriage/baptismal registers) entries for the marriage of Francesco Sinatra and Rosa Saglimbeni and for Antonio Lucania and Rosalia Cafarelli/Capanelli, Apr. 1883, Libro dei Matrimonia no. XV, 1881– 1889, entries for baptisms of Isidor (1884) and Salvatore (1887) Sinatra, Bartholomey (1891) and Salvatore (1897) Lucania, Libro dei Battesimi, Archivio Parrocchiale Maria S.S. della Neve, Lercara Friddi; (lived same short street) Sangiorgio to authors, Dec. 21, 2002, and Jan. 12, 2003, citing birth records of Salvatore Lucania and Isidoro Sinatra.
8 address book/Saglimbeni: “Agenda Personale di Lucania Salvatore,” attachment to Cusack to Giordano, Jun. 20, 1962, LLBN. Antonino Saglimbeni and Rosa Saglimbeni, whom Francesco Sinatra was to marry, were second cousins, twice removed. Though in modern society in the urban United States and Europe this would be regarded as a distant relationship—and thus usually insignificant—in rural Sicily such relatives interact with each other regularly. In his book From Caesar to the Mafia, Luigi Barzini wrote: “Power has many sources. The first and nearest source is one’s family. In Sicily the family includes relatives as far as the third, fourth, or fifth degree” (cousins—civil birth and marriage records for Lercara Friddi, 1719–1920, Genealogical Society of Utah—Antonino and Rosa were descendants of Salvatore Saglimbeni, corr. genealogist Katharine Kirkpatrick; “Power has”—Barzini, Caesar, 69); (Francesco after wife’s death) Photoplay, Sep. 1956; (age of ninety-one) death certificate—other official data shows he was ninety-one at death, not sixty-four as reported in the press; (Sinatrahimself indicated) FS int. by Sid Mark, Apr. 19, 1983, WPHT (Philadelphia, PA), Photoplay, Aug. 1945; (“very close”) Photoplay, Sep. 1956, citing Lee Bartletta Amorino; (“check back”) FS commentary during 1987 Italian tour, RAI UNO.
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