By Sally Deering

Hobokenâ€s ‘Native Son†Frank Sinatra grew up in a town quite different from what it is today. There were no Starbucks or even PATH trains when Sinatra was born in 1915. And when he was old enough, the ‘skinny blue-eyed kid†began singing in his parents†saloon. Thatâ€s where Sinatra learned his trade, crooning to locals at Marty Oâ€Brienâ€s saloon.

Thatâ€s where the Frank Sinatra legend begins at the exhibit SINATRA: AN AMERICAN ICON now on view through September 4th at the NY Public Library for the Performing Arts. Sinatra sang in the studio and performed onstage for more than 50 years, recording hundreds of songs, and performing thousands of shows. Jam packed with memorabilia, music and all things Sinatra, this exhibit is both a loving tribute and a peek into the complicated life journey Sinatra took, from small time Hoboken street kid to saloon singer to concert and film star and in his later years, show biz royalty.

The personal mementos Sinatra collected, the home movies that were taken of him with family, photos, correspondence, music, and awards on display shine a warm light on a popular and hard-working performer who juggled a star-studded career with the obligations of family. Along his journey, Sinatra sought new challenges for his talents, from tap dancing with Gene Kelly to dramatic acting with Burt Lancaster to painting abstracts on canvas a la Wassily Kandinsky. SINATRA: AN AMERICAN ICON is a visual and audio feast for Sinatra fans and those who want to know more about Ol†Blue Eyes.

SINATRAâ€S HOBOKEN DAYS
The exhibit begins in the libraryâ€s lobby with several black and white photographs including one taken in 1938 of a young and somewhat bewildered Sinatra at the microphone of the Rustic Cabin in Fort Lee where he worked as a singing waiter for $15 a week. Inside the entrance, several platinum and gold albums he was given are on display including one for selling 1 million copies of “Come Fly with Me” and another for “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning.”

Move on to a display of memorabilia from his early Hoboken days including parents Marty & Dolly Sinatraâ€s 1913 wedding portrait, a photo from when Marty, a Hoboken firefighter was burned during a fire; and one of the Hoboken saloon Marty Oâ€Brienâ€s that Sinatraâ€s parents bought in 1920. Instead of naming the saloon Marty Sinatraâ€s, they gave it an Irish name because back then, Hoboken was divided into neighborhoods according to ethnicity and the bar was in the Irish section of town. Another Sinatra memento: Sinatraâ€s ID card from when he was a kid living at 841 Garden Street in Hoboken, printed in his own hand.

Ever since Sinatra was a kid, he would sing and accompany himself on the ukulele which is also on display: “While Frankâ€s primary interest was his voice, he had been playing ukulele since he was a boy,” it states next to the instrument on display. “He wooed his future bride the first time they met, serenading her with a song on the uke.”

The exhibit features a timeline of Sinatraâ€s life in Hoboken; his first marriage that took place in Jersey City and then a timeline of his early singing career where he crooned at the microphone as a soloist fronting Big Bands

A FILM STAR IS BORN
Sinatraâ€s early radio days are on exhibit with rarely heard recordings of broadcasts including Sophie Tuckerâ€s private recording collection and a special 1945 V.J. Day show with Bob Hope, Meredith Wilson, and Orson Welles.

In 1953, Sinatra was cast as Private Angelo Maggio in FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, based on the novel by James Jones. He won his first Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Other films followed, some dramatic THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, and some called on him to be a song-and-dance man. The exhibit features the white dance shoes he and Gene Kelly wore in one of their dance numbers in “TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALLGAME.”

SING WITH SINATRA
In one room of the exhibit thereâ€s a recording booth where a visitor can step inside and watch a video of Sinatra singing “The Theme from New York, New York.” It gets better. Visitors are given a chance to sing with the Master, just by hitting a button on the Touch Screen.

The exhibit reveals a lot about Sinatraâ€s politics, too, says one visitor.

“What I took from the exhibit is that Sinatra was a very complicated man,” Stan Sinberg, a writer and former New Yorker visiting from San Francisco says. “He was a pioneer in race relations. Just look at his TV shows in the 1950s and 60s where heâ€s singing with Ella Fitzgerald and theyâ€re hugging and touching. This was rare back then. I was also surprised by his paintings. I had no idea he was a visual artist, too.”

Sinberg, whoâ€s vacationing in Manhattan for several weeks, says heâ€s returning for a second look.

“Thereâ€s so much to see and listen to,” Sinberg says. “I really liked the recording booth where you can sing a duet with Sinatra. And when you play back what you recorded, the “Make It Stop” option was hilarious. I also liked the tuxedo in the glass case. He really was a skinny guy when he was young.”

SINATRAâ€S LATER YEARS

Sinatra expanded his artistic chops when he picked up a paintbrush and began expressing himself through oils and acrylics on canvas. Several of his paintings – bright abstracts with geometric shapes – are on view. He never sold his paintings, and preferred, instead, to give them away to family and friends – sometimes even fans.

Sinatra won Emmys, Oscars, a Golden Globe and so many more awards and well-deserved accolades during his career. His last official shows were December 1994 in Japan; right before his 79th birthday and his final show was on Feb. 25, 1995. He passed away three years later in Los Angeles on May 14, 1998, at 82. The White House awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1985 and in 1998 the Congressional Gold Medal, posthumously.

ALWAYS THE SALOON SINGER
Sinatra always saw himself as a singer in a saloon, according to his daughter Nancy Sinatra, Jr.
“My dadâ€s roots were in the saloon, and he never forgot that, never lost that,” Nancy Sinatra says.

Nobody knew that better than Sinatra, himself. If you wanted to know the real him, all you had to do was listen.

“Just let me sing, baby,” he once said.

And so he sang…and weâ€re still listening.

If you go
Now through Sept. 4
SINATRA: AN AMERICAN ICON
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
40 Lincoln Center Plaza, NYC
(917) 275-6975
www.nypl.org
Exhibit hours: Mon.12 – 8 pm; Tues, 12 – 6 pm;
Wed, 12 – 6 pm; Thurs, 12 – 8 pm; Fri, 12 – 6 pm; and Sat, 12 – 6 pm.

The post OL’ BLUE EYES IS BACK ! SINATRA: AN AMERICAN ICON Celebrates Sinatra’s Centennial first appeared on River View Observer.

But in Hudson County-He’s it!!    

Although Frank Sinatra died over 11 years ago, his legend, and music and escapades as an entertainer on and off the stage and screen live on. Especially in Hudson County where stories about the boy from Hoboken are passed down from parents to children. In Hudson County we love Frank Sinatra .Everyone has a Sinatra story – it really is -Six degrees of Frank Sinatra here. You hear things like “Frank was at my mother’s wedding,” or “they say he use to ride the streets of Hoboken late at night in his limo, remembering the good old days. And   there isn’t a restaurant in Hudson County that doesn’t have  some kind of photo of Frank. Yep, In Hudson County we love Frank- here is a bio on Hudson County’s favorite son.       

Francis Albert Sinatra was born on December 12, 1915 in Hoboken, New Jersey. Frank Sinatraâ€s father was a firefighter and amateur boxer named Martin Anthony Sinatra while his mother, Natalie Sinatra had political aspirations. Over the next eighty years Frank Sinatra was a singer, actor, director and producer who entertained generation after generation all over the world.Maybe it was due to the fact that his father was an amateur pugilist, but Sinatra wanted to become a sportswriter when he was young. Frank Sinatraâ€s first job was as an office boy in the Hudson Observer. It was supposed to be his apprenticeship where he picks up the tricks of the trade. But once he heard the voice of Bing Crosby on radio, he changed his mind and decided that he would become a singer. Along with a few pals he formed the Hoboken Four.

Frank Sinatra was known as Ol†Blue Eyes to his fans. One of the first entertainment superstars the world has known. Frank Sinatraâ€s songs have a timeless beauty to them. Sinatraâ€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. The word bobbysoxer was coined around this time.

Frank Sinatra, the actor refused to be typecast or slotted into any particular category. He acted in serious movies such as “The Manchurian Candidate,” “From here to Eternity” capers such as Oceanâ€s Eleven and outrageous musicals such as “Guys and Dolls” and “Pal Joey.” He went on to act in more than fifty films.

Frank Sinatra is a ten time Grammy award winner, two time 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.

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.

But it was not only milk and honey for Sinatra. The Frank Sinatra file in the FBI is in excess of two thousand pages. He was plagued with mob affiliations throughout his career. It is rumored that the character of Johnny Fontane in the book “Godfather” was inspired by Sinatra. Frank Sinatra lost his gambling license in Nevada after he was seen in the company of Sam Giancana. Giancana was at the time accused of ordering the killing of more than two hundred people.

Another Sinatra fan was the infamous Lucky Luciano. Frank Sinatra, Jr. was kidnapped in 1963. It was only on the payment of ransom money by his father that he was released. For his part Frank Sinatra has steadfastly denied his alleged mob links throughout his life.

Frank Sinatraâ€s children have all done work that keeps their illustrious fatherâ€s legacy intact. His daughter Nancy Sinatra was an actress and she wrote two books about Frank. His son Frank Sinatra Jr, was the conductor in his fatherâ€s orchestra. Frank Sinatraâ€s youngest daughter, Christina Sinatra produced a mini series on the life of her father.

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 1980â€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.

Anish Chandy

The post Hudson County’s Favorite Son-Frank Sinatra first appeared on River View Observer.