The Sunday Memory Drawer - Sinatra

HBO has been running this month a two-part, four-hour documentary on Frank Sinatra.   You can find it frequently on their broadcast schedule, on demand, and is viewable on TVs, tablets, computers, phones, and probably some bathroom walls.  While it requires a healthy sit, the documentary is well worth your time.

Admittedly, the film is a trifle biased.  Documentarian Alex Gibney had the full cooperation of the Sinatra family, as if Frank Jr. and Nancy have anything else to do these days.  But, given the involvement on a personal level, you know that you'll get to see a lot of wonderful personal photos.  At the same time, it will be very short on details regarding arrests, jail time, domestic violence and the like.  

Still, for the music alone, it's worth the price of your monthly premium cable bill.  You do get some of the mob connection stuff as well as Frank's less-than-stellar behavior.  Most noteworthy to me was his liberal political leanings and his ongoing fight for equal and civil rights.  Of course, you'll find that all pretty contradictory when you see Frank perform with Sammy Davis Jr. and reduce that talented singer and dancer to a 1963 incarnation of Willie Best.  

But that was Frank.   The purest form of an enigma.  Talented but egotistical.  Kind yet ruthless.  Caring yet heartless.  You hear the terrific renditions of his songs throughout, but you also realize that, in later years, he gave concerts despite the fact that he couldn't sing any more.  Or remember the words.   "That's why the lady is a shoe."

You get the picture.   

As I watched this documentary, I was kicked back one more time to my youth.   When stars seemed bigger than they really were.  When places like Hollywood and Las Vegas seemed so far away.   And your perceptions of celebrities and show business were formed by the adults around you.   In this case, my family.

For us on South 15th Avenue in Mount Vernon, New York, Hollywood might as well have been on the moon.  But we, as a family unit, were certainly entranced by the glamour of it all.  We had our favorite TV shows on one of the three networks available to us.  My mom and her girlfriend Ronnie went to the movies on Monday nights every week.  I remember her talking on the phone the next day with somebody else about what she had seen.   She always seemed to be focused on a movie star's physical appearance.

"Eleanor Parker's eyes were so bloodshot."

"Shirley McLaine's haircut looks ridiculous."

"When did David Niven start looking so fat?"

I sort of had an idea who these people were.  Every month, one of my errands was to go around the corner to Bob's Candy Store and pick up the latest editions of TV/Radio Mirror and Photoplay for my mom.  These were gossip magazines always centered on who was getting a divorce from whom.  I remember one particular cover story headline that was confusing to me at the time.

"WHY LIBERACE CAN'T FIND THE RIGHT WOMAN."

In retrospect, I wish I had read the article at the time.   But this was all alien to me and I formed my opinions based on what I heard around the house.  I started to like the same shows and stars that my family did.  So, as a result, I loved Debbie Reynolds and Bob Hope and Dean Martin.   And hated the likes of Eddie Fisher and Elizabeth Taylor, who, in my grandmother's own words, was "such a tramp."

And, through it all, another hated icon for me and my family was...Frank Sinatra.

"He's a nasty man."

"If I couldn't sing any better than that, I wouldn't try."

"That ugly string bean."

My grandmother fueled most of this vitriole for some reason.  As a result, we became a Dean Martin household as if he and Frank were pitted against one another in a competition.   All this despite the fact that my family always needed to acknowledge that Dean was "always drunk."

Nevertheless, there was tons of venom against Ol' Blue Eyes and I never understood it.

Of course, the sight of him spooked me for the longest time.  One of the many Friday afternoon movies that my mother took me to at either RKO Proctor's or Loews was the original edition of "Oceans 11," which starred Frank and the rest of the so-called "Rat Pack."  

In the plot line, the crooks rob all the Las Vegas casinos and hide the money in the coffin of one of their members who suffered a heart attack during the heist.  Except the joke's on them when the coffin is cremated and they listen to it burning in the chapel.   

At that time, I had no time what cremation was.   And, after I asked my mother about it, I was completely scared and repulsed.   And, as a result, I could no longer see Frank Sinatra's image without hearing that damn crematory sound in the movie.

Some things never get away from you.

Still, Frank Sinatra was one of those people who was bigger than life to me.   He epitomized the Hollywood star and was clearly light years away from my own existence.  I had no real viewpoint of his singing talents.  I just heard he was a bad guy and I accepted that from my family as if they were telling me not to touch a hot stove.

A few years later, Grandma really got a lather up over Frankie.   As I have written here before, my grandmother and I watched together the steamy prime time soap opera called "Peyton Place."   On that show, as a young and teenage Allison McKenzie, was one Mia Farrow.   And we all became aware of Frank Sinatra's involvement with and ultimate marriage to Farrow.   

"What the hell does she see in that stupid greaseball?"

"He could be her father.  How disgusting."

"Wait till he punches her in the head.  Good bye, Mia."

My grandmother didn't know Mia Farrow, but it's as she was defending her own child.  I sucked this all up and the anti-Sinatra feelings rose in me geometrically.

Again, my opinions were their opinions.

Over the years, I always had this disdain for Frank Sinatra.   I had friends who saw him in concert from time to time and would extol his virtues.  I wouldn't hear it.   I guess this is how prejudice gets handed down in some families.  The venom was engrained in me.  And, as a result, I wasn't as objective as I could be regarding Frank Sinatra.

The HBO documentary was a perfect leveling agent for me.   Even though the content was a bit stilted, I learned a lot and realized that I had been blinded by the viewpoints of others.  Is he my favorite singer of all time?  Nah.  I'm still partial to Dean Martin and Rosemary Clooney, who were played in my house constantly.   

But, I could see the mysticism around Sinatra.   And understand it a little better.   

However, one of my favorite memories of Frank was not included in the documentary and understandably so.  It was the night he died in May of 1998.

Actually, I was living about three blocks away from the Cedars-Sinai Hospital he was rushed to.  The news broke through prime time programming.   And we later learned that daughter Nancy did not make to the hospital before he ultimately passed.  They had tried to reach her but she had taken her phone off the hook so as not to disturbed.   You see, that was the night they aired the series finale episode of "Seinfeld."

To this day, that little sidebar still makes me chuckle.  

The very next morning, I was driving through Beverly Hills and I stumbled across a sea of news vans.   As it turns out, they were all camped out in front of his gated home.   I surveyed the attention.  And understand it a little bit better today as a result of the HBO show.

Frank Sinatra was still bigger than life.   And, apparently, even bigger in death.

Dinner last night:  French dip panini.