Part 2 Sinatra: All or Nothing at All

This programme contains some strong language

He was an emotionally sensitive man that night.

-This was a big night for him.

-APPLAUSE

It was a fabulous event.

The who's who of celebrities were there.

The night itself was exciting and a lot of mixed emotions.

Ladies and gentlemen, Frank Sinatra.

BAND PLAYS My Way by Frank Sinatra

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

We are talking about the best pop singer who ever lived.

For his retirement concert,

Sinatra chose 11 songs to represent the story of his life and career.

BAND CONTINUES TO PLAY

He used the songs to tell the story of himself

and he tells us our story through his story.

This is what set him apart.

This programme contains some strong language

# You see a pair of laughing eyes

# And suddenly you're sighing sighs

# You're thinking nothing's wrong

# You string along, boy, then snap!

# Those eyes, those sighs They're part of the tender trap

# You're hand in hand beneath the trees

# And soon there's music in the breeze

# You're acting kind of smart until your heart just goes wap!

# Those trees, that breeze They're part of the tender trap

# Some starry night

# When her kisses make you tingle

# She'll hold you tight

# And you'll hate yourself for being single

# And all at once it seems so nice

# The folks are throwing shoes and rice

# You hurry to a spot that's just a dot on the map

# And then you wonder how

# It all came about

# It's too late now

# There's no getting out

# You fell in love

# And love is the tender trap... #

Thank you very much. I'm absolutely thrilled.

# Boodley-a-boo-dee-boo-da

# Ba-da-boo-dee-boo-dee-boo-da... #

Frank Sinatra is, well, Frank Sinatra.

In 20 years, he's travelled from Hoboken to Hollywood

with stops in between.

The Voice has become one of Hollywood's great stars.

Recently, after a comparatively inactive period,

Variety credited him with the greatest comeback

in theatre history.

He's now one of Hollywood's hottest properties.

I can't imagine.

Hello?

In 1949, Frank Sinatra is still the crooner,

the romantic ideal of the young.

By the '50s,

he is a different kind of singer

and he is a different kind

of screen personality.

He's a grown-up.

He's somebody who sings convincingly of suffering

and who, we assume, has himself suffered.

-OK, let's make a record. Let's go.

-Right, rolling.

I love recording.

I think making records is a great fun of all times

because it's current. It's right there.

When you finish a recording, um,

you blink your eye or your ear, so to speak, and boom.

# It was just one of those things

# Just one of those crazy flings... #

When he gets to Capitol, it is a total picture of adulthood,

of maturity and the country responded immediately.

Women said, "This is a man you could go to bed with"

and the men said, "I'd like to be this guy."

# One of those nights... #

In the '50s, the phoenix emerged from the ashes

of a previous existence

and the curly hair and the floppy bow ties

suddenly gave way to the Cavanagh hat

and the long, loosened tie.

# Just one of those things... #

And this was a change

that very, very few musical personalities

have been able to accomplish.

Did Sinatra and Sinatra only select those songs

or did he do it in collaboration with you and with a producer?

Sinatra picked his own things.

So, when you hear a Frank Sinatra album,

it's a product of Frank Sinatra's head.

# Was too hot not to cool down

# So, goodbye, dear... #

You think about Only The Lonely,

Wee Small Hours Of The Morning, you know.

# Here's hoping... #

He invented concept albums.

# It was great fun... #

What he would do is to find a mood

and then figure out what songs reflect that mood.

# It was just, just one of those nights... #

And then, when he walked into the studio,

he was prepared to follow the arranger's orchestration.

Listen, Lowe...

..if there's any popping of Ps, let's stop

because there were too many Ps popping

and they should be past that.

Can you clear those up a little bit?

'I may be one of the few people

'who performs in the middle of the orchestra

'right in the studio...

'No headphones and not a booth, a glassed-in booth.

'..cause I need the drive of the orchestra.'

# Although I'm not a great romancer

# I know that you're bound to answer... #

A good arranger is terribly vital because he's a recording secretary.

For instance, if you brought a song to me

and I said, "It's very good. Maybe we'll record it."

Then we'd bring in, in those days, it was Axel

and then we went to Billy May and Nelson and then Gordon Jenkins.

We would sit down and we would pick the key

and I would give him my thoughts on what the background should be,

from eight measures to eight measures,

then I would say, "How wrong am I?" HE CHUCKLES

Well, he would conduct the orchestra sometimes. That's a lot of fun.

But if not, say, comfortable with it,

I became accustomed to it.

Some of it was his need to assert himself.

That was part of his performance. He was a showman.

Sinatra respected Nelson Riddle so much, his musical talent.

They made something in excess of 300 songs -

300 separate arrangements -

in the years that they worked together,

including the song called (I've Got You) Under My Skin.

# I've got you under my skin... #

I stayed up at night to write that arrangement.

I remember bringing it to the recording

and everybody was very impressed.

When they finished the first run through,

the entire orchestra applauded for Nelson Riddle

and whistled cos it was so gorgeous.

That was according to Frank's specifications.

He said, "I want a long crescendo."

# Sacrifice anything come what might

# For the sake of having you near

# In spite of a warning voice

# Comes in the night

# It repeats, it repeats, it repeats, it repeats

# Don't you know, you fool

# Not going to win?

# Use your mentality

# Wake up to reality

# And each time I do just the thought of you

# Makes me stop before I begin

# Cos I've got you

# Under my skin... #

Go get her.

Get her!

Ah!

# I would sacrifice anything

# Come what might

# For the sake of having you near

# In spite of a warning voice

# Comes in the night

# It repeats, how it yells in my ear

# Don't you know, you fool

# You ain't never going to win?

# Why not use your mentality?

# Wake up, step up to reality

# And each time I do just the thought of you

# Makes me stop just before I begin

# Cos I've got you under my skin

# And I love you under my skin. #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thank you.

The first act was called Daily Life

and this act is called Love And Marriage

and since we're doing a little singing here tonight,

Mr Leader, if you please.

ORCHESTRA PLAYS

# Love and marriage, love and marriage

# Go together like the horse and carriage

# This, I tell you, brother

# You can't have one without the other

# Love and marriage, love and marriage

# It's an institute you can't disparage

# Ask the local gentry

# And they will say it's elementary... #

That period in America

was the greatest growth of individual wealth

in the history of Western civilisation.

There was money. There was money to buy records.

There was money for kids to have their own subculture.

# Love and marriage, love and marriage

# Go together like... #

For large numbers of white, middle class Americans,

they never had it so good as in the '50s,

but they also knew the whole thing could go bust

if the bomb got dropped.

Let us face, without panic, the reality of our times,

the fact that atom bombs may someday be dropped on our cities.

EXPLOSION

That is a very awkward, uncomfortable set of oppositions

and it shapes American culture in the Eisenhower era.

There's a tremendous amount of economic stability,

but it is accompanied by a tremendous amount of ferment.

We continue to have a protest.

We're at war with the communist half of the world.

A man is either loyal or he's disloyal.

Are you a member

or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?

EXPLOSION

Senator McCarthy, do you believe, sir,

that at least 5,000 American soldiers

have been slaughtered by the Reds?

-I shall go to Korea.

-CHEERING

I called the head of the USO.

I said to him, "I'd like to get over there

"and do some shows for these guys" cos Hope had already been there

and then they were sending over vaudeville actors.

I said, "They need some names over there."

The next thing I know, he calls me and he said,

"There seems to be a problem in Washington in intelligence

"about you're being involved with some youth organisation

"and the Roosevelt campaign.

"They're inclined to think you were part of the Communist Party."

I said, "What? We're going to Washington," I said.

"I ain't going to let them off the hook."

I went to The Pentagon building.

So, I was brought into a sumptuous room.

It looked like a jury when I walked in.

There were three or four grey-haired men -

all true military guys - and a plain-clothes man.

He was from what was then the OSS rather than CIA.

Nobody smiled.

One guy said to me,

"Do you belong to a youth organisation that you joined?"

I said, "I never joined a youth organisation."

Witch hunting. That's what they were doing.

Of course, after that came the blacklist

and I started to get pissed off with these guys.

I said, "Look, gentlemen, has anybody run a check on me?"

General Kastner explained that, over a period of years,

many items had appeared in the public press

which identified Mr Sinatra with the communist line.

As a result, serious questions existed

as to Mr Sinatra's sympathies with respect to communism,

communists and fellow travellers.

Said this to Sinatra's face.

I said, "Gentlemen, if you feel that I'm a risk,

"then you can stick the Korean War in your ass

"and that goes for all of you," I said.

And I got up and I walked out. Fuck you.

If you think I'm a risk to my nation, who the hell needs you?

I said, "I don't need you."

# Baby, you went and broke your faithful promise... #

Frank Sinatra invited attention.

# How could you do a thing like that to me? #

He always complained that he was unfairly tagged as a Commie.

# Didn't I give you everything I promised? #

To his credit, he deftly avoided some of the more horrible things

that happened to entertainers in those days.

He was mentioned in the infamous

House on Un-American Activities Committee hearings,

but never called to testify.

# When my back was turned on you... #

He was just a liberal, left wing entertainer

who was far ahead of his time in the positions that he took,

one of which was speaking out against racism

at a time when no-one was speaking out against racism,

let alone a white crooner from Hoboken, New Jersey.

-APPLAUSE

-Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

Here's a couple of people we've never done on TV before.

The first gentleman, Mr Frank Sinatra.

ORCHESTRA PLAYS

# It was just one of those things... #

-APPLAUSE

-# Yeah, it was just

# One of those crazy things... #

Yeah, Dad.

# One of those... #

People had helped Dad.

Dad would help other people, you know, ascend.

It wasn't easy.

It was most difficult for Sammy, for obvious reasons.

Sinatra, he did not like segregation.

He didn't like that black people were treated

as creatures of inferiority.

He always rebelled against that.

# Those fabulous flights

# It was a trip to the moon on gossamer wings... #

I really became conscious of segregation

when I got involved in the entertainment business.

I found that going through parts of the United States,

travelling constantly and doing one-nighters

with orchestras that were comprised of Negro musicians,

there were a lot of problems. And not only the South,

but in some quarters in the border states

and I began to resent it.

I think it's vile.

I think it's the most indecent way to believe.

I think that we're all created equal.

It's just...it's wrong. It's just basically wrong.

Sinatra felt that important to his life

and to his art and to his whole style

was what he had learned from black culture and black people.

He was very, very close to the African-American scene.

His closeness was never really fully recognised historically

because he did that quietly behind the scenes.

He opened up more doors than any other individual,

black or white, in this business with me.

He set my motion picture salary.

He also was there for me

on a personal basis when I needed him

and without being asked.

He was always there for me.

Sammy is now only 29 years old,

but he spent most of his life in show business -

from Harlem to Hollywood,

with its attendant successes and crises,

the worst about a year ago.

When he was coming back from Vegas

at the latter part of the night after his show

in order to get some sleep in LA

and do a title song for a picture at Universal,

he was coming around the turn on a highway

and two old gals backed a car out of a driveway

and in order not to hit them,

he went across the road and hit a tree.

He had an old Cadillac with the egg in the middle of the steering wheel.

-You know the thing you see that looks like an egg?

-Yeah, sure.

And his eye was popped right out of his head.

I never said goodbye to anybody.

I jumped in my car and I drove to San Bernardino.

I flew down there.

And it's a coloured hospital

and I found out later that they drove around for 40 minutes

-to get a hospital that would take him.

-Oh.

I went to his place in Palm Springs and recuperated with friends, chums.

Sammy never learned to swim in his life.

Deathly afraid of the water.

So, I taught him to swim

and then I said to him, "Sam, I'm not a physician,

"but the loss of your eye is going to cause you to have an imbalance.

"I think you ought to teach me to Time Step."

And he's looking at me.

Toe, heel, toe, heel, toe, heel.

Next afternoon, I said to him, "OK, it's your turn."

And, you know, we had trouble for about a half-hour

because he was trying to make moves and he was tilting.

He was tipping the other way.

I took a guess. I didn't know. What the hell did I know?

Your friends rally around you,

psychologically, there's a time when that can happen

and it picks you up and it gives you the strength you need

to take that second start.

Timing is everything and he knew that.

# Just remember that sunshine always follows the rain

# So, wrap your troubles in dreams

# And dream, dream your troubles away. #

Frank, you do have a great presence. There's no question about it.

You seem to be in command of yourself and the situation.

Is that a facade? Do you feel in command?

Are you ever in a situation where you feel inadequate?

Oh, I think that happens to me about ten times a day.

CHEERING

No matter where she might appear,

they all worshipped the face, the fame, the figure

of the world's most beautiful Ava.

It wasn't much of a secret.

Frank had heard about it in New York.

He knew I was dating Luis Miguel Dominguin.

Luis Miguel

was the most famous bullfighter in the world.

He was still in love with Ava Gardner.

It was the first and only time that someone else had done the leaving.

# I'm a fool to want you... #

We were sort of reluctant to go.

I mean, he had been building such a head of steam

for this visit with Ava that it seemed sort of intrusive.

# To want a love that can't be true

# A love that's there for others too... #

And she arrived with three or four men,

none of whom spoke English, dressed to the nines.

She looked smashing.

And she disappeared

and there was much giggling and carrying on.

This was clearly going to be a romantic night.

# To seek a kiss Not mine alone

# To share a kiss the devil has known... #

So, after due time, they rejoined us.

Dinner was wonderful

and she left the table after the first course, excused herself.

And her purse was there and her gold cigarette box

and I guess I thought she was going to the powder room.

Well, she didn't come back, didn't come back, didn't come back

so someone went to check. "Oh, she left."

She just walked out

and when he caught on, it was devastating.

I mean, devastating.

# Pity me

# I need you... #

What his music finally evolved into after Ava,

it's got a note of stoicism in it.

"All right, I've lost you.

"I got knocked on my ass. I'm getting up now."

# I can't get along

# Without

# You. #

Why don't you want to talk about Sinatra?

Well, I don't want to talk about Sinatra

because Frank and I

have not had a relationship

since 1959.

I think that's quite a while ago.

I can't really remember how it all began.

There must have always been a special feeling alive

between Frank and me from earlier days.

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall

are among the better-known husband and wife acting teams in Hollywood.

Bogie always liked Frank.

He enjoyed his fighting windmills and Frank made him laugh.

When Bogart passed away,

Dad was devastated cos he loved him so much.

He felt loss harder than anyone else I know

and maybe it made him face his own mortality, you know.

# She may be weary

# Women do get weary

# Wearing the same shabby dress... #

Toward the very end of Bogie's illness,

Frank seemed instinctively to be there at the key moments.

# And when she's weary

# Try a little tenderness... #

Having lived the better part of a year in the atmosphere of illness,

I guess I not only began to depend on his presence,

but look forward to it.

I wanted something to look forward to.

I hated feeling that my life was over at 32.

# Things she may never possess... #

Certainly, he was then at his vocal peak

and was wildly attractive, electrifying.

In 1958, he proposed marriage and she accepted.

They agreed to keep it a secret,

but word leaked out and it hit the headlines.

Clearly, he thought I'd given it away.

# It's not just sentimental

# She has her grief and her care... #

Foolishly, I was pleading to be forgiven

for something I'd had no part in.

He couldn't deal with the press. They were driving him crazy.

His attitude remote

and under this circumstance, the pressure was too great.

He felt trapped.

-Do you think your boiling point is low?

-Always. Always.

I have apologised a great many times in my life

and I will continue to do so, obviously,

because the blow-ups are just valves going off here and there.

I suppose they have to go off. I suppose it's necessary.

# It's all so easy

# Try a little tenderness. #

Well, needless to say, I mean, if I had ended up with Sinatra,

we would have lasted for about 20 minutes.

# She gets too hungry for dinner at eight

# She likes the theatre

# Never comes late

# She'd never bother

# With people she'd hate

# That's why the lady is a tramp... #

Lady Is A Tramp he did, as Nelson Riddle said,

with a particular kind of salaciousness,

which fit the image that he was wearing in 1957.

# Dressed up in ermine and pearls

# She won't dish the dirt

# With the rest of those girls

# That's why this chick is a tramp... #

Frank was a womaniser.

He wanted to be in the sack with everybody.

# Her life's without care

# She's broke, but it's oke... #

I think the public is constantly putting itself

in the position of the performer.

They want to think about him

as they believe him to be or they'd like to be.

# That's why the lady is a tramp

# She gets much too hungry, babe

# To wait there for dinner at eight... #

Do you think the moral standards have dropped,

lowered considerably, in this country?

Yes, I do.

Have you had any part to play,

do you think, in that, by any chance?

I don't believe so.

What I do with my private life, having been divorced,

I don't think leant that much to the demoralisation of a nation.

# Never makes the trip up to Harlem

# Pushing shiny Lincolns and Fords

# And she doesn't mess

# With those other broads

# That's why this chick is a tramp

# She loves the free, fine, wild, groovy, knocked-out

# Wind in her hair

# Her life's without care

# She's broke, but it's oke

# She hates California because it's cold and it's damp

# That's why the lady

# That is why the lady

# That's why the lady is a tramp. #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thank you.

# When they said you was high-class

# Well, that was just a lie

# Yeah, they said you were high-class

# Well, that was just a lie

# Well, you ain't never caught a rabbit

# And you ain't no friend of mine

# You ain't nothing but a hound dog crying all the time

# You ain't nothing but a hound dog crying all the time... #

Frank Sinatra was never a fan of rock music. Not at any time.

Rock and roll was on the ascendancy

and, of course, the kind of music that Frank was identified with

was on the decline.

He didn't like the songs. He thought they were silly.

He didn't like the rhythms.

# When they said you was high-class... #

You don't see a danger, then, that that little grey-haired couple

in 1995 is going to grab hands and weep a little tear

when they play I'm Nothing But A Hound Dog

-and say, "That's our song"?

-No, no, I don't think so.

There's a market for that and the kids like it. Fine.

My kids are the same way. They buy all of the records.

Years later, when I first brought him Yesterday,

threw it on the floor.

The Beatles. You must be kidding! You know?

So contemptuous, you couldn't believe it.

Mr Sinatra, over a period of time, even from your very early days,

-you still carry out this policy of singing standards.

-Mm.

Have you found that this has paid off?

I know that, by the sales of our albums,

it's really paid off. It's been marvellous.

He was such a big artist to Capitol

and, of course, that got him thinking about

maybe doing his own thing and starting a record company.

# Blue moon

# You saw me standing alone

# Without a dream in my heart

# Without a love... #

He was very, very unhappy with the way

then existing labels treated their artists.

He wanted to create an environment

which would be creatively and economically attractive to artists.

Frank, I understand that you're going to release

a new record label out here.

-Is that correct?

-Reprise, yes. Reprise Records.

I met with Frank's manager

and he asked me to head up Reprise,

but I also had to get approval from Frank.

Frank was doing The Devil At 4 O'clock

with Spencer Tracy.

And they took me out on the set to meet him for the first time.

Well, you could imagine how anxious and nervous I was.

And when I walked up on the set...

..there was Frank engaged in an enormous argument

with the director.

I mean, Frank in a tantrum

displaying all of his anger

-is scary.

-HE CHUCKLES

And I then went on to Frank's dressing room

and waited for him

and he came in and he did, like, a 180 degree turnaround.

He was up, he was positive, he was charming.

He could not have been more excited

about the prospect of the record company.

Then I went around and I think I talked to all my chums

and suddenly we had a stable of names this long.

Each person who came along with me

had the option to buy their own masters.

We have on the label Sammy Davis and Mort Sahl and Joe E Lewis,

a nightclub comic in the States.

We started Reprise primarily with a lot of Frank's friends.

People who were out of the big band era

who did the same kind of music that Frank did.

# Like the wallpaper sticks to the wall... #

Frank forbade us to sign any rock and roll artists

and so we were struggling because we weren't being competitive.

# Never get rid of your shadow

# You'll never get rid of me... #

And finally, I said to him,

"Frank, unless we end up signing artists

"from the rock and roll scene, we're not going to compete

"and I don't think we're going to be able to survive."

And to his credit, even though he hated that kind of music,

he had good enough business instincts

to recognise that what I was saying had some validity.

APPLAUSE

The Frank Sinatra Timex Show.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Elvis, right in the thick of his up-and-coming fame,

was put into the army

and that was the welcome back show, 1960.

-# When the kissing starts... #

-SCREAMING

# A team of wild horses couldn't tear us apart. #

Elvis...I tell you something, it was great.

It was great and I'm glad to see the army hasn't changed you.

-Wasn't it great?

-Thank you, Frank.

It's the first time I ever heard a woman screaming at a male singer.

-LAUGHTER

-Oh, I'm sorry.

Well, do you remember me there, Charlie?

-LAUGHTER

-I'm sorry, Mr Presley,

but would you think it presumptions of Frank to join you in a duet?

And it was a great coup

to put the heart-throb of the new generation

and the heart-throb of the current generation

on television together.

You do Witchcraft, OK? And I'll do one of the other ones.

LAUGHTER OK, Nelson.

ORCHESTRA PLAYS

We work in the same way, only in different areas.

LAUGHTER

# Love me tender Love me sweet

# Never let me go

# You have made my life complete

# And I love you so

-# Those fingers in my hair... #

-SCREAMING

# That sly, come-hither stare

# That strips my conscience bare

-# It's witchcraft... #

-SCREAMING

# Love me tender Love me true

# All my dreams fulfilled

# For, my darling, I love you

# And I always will

-# It's such an ancient pitch

-SCREAMING

# But one I wouldn't switch

# Cos there's no nicer witch than witchcraft... #

HE CHUCKLES # I love you

# And I always will

-BOTH:

-# For, my darling, I love you... #

Man, that's pretty. LAUGHTER

-BOTH:

-# And I always will. #

We have this notion that,

when Elvis Presley came along, the world changed.

But Sinatra had a really good run in the early '60s.

Las Vegas, Nev.

You know why I fly up there so often?

I go to look at money. And here's living proof.

The place - the Sands. The time - in the wee small hours.

# Luck be a lady tonight

# Luck be a lady tonight

# Luck, if you've ever been a lady to begin with

# Luck be a lady tonight... #

Frank put a flavour to that town and practically made Vegas

and because he went, others went.

They'd say, "Hey, let's go to Vegas. Frank's there."

There's Frank, there's Dean, Bing Crosby and...somebody else.

Oh, yeah, me.

We have Frank Sinatra and Ernie Kovacs,

Eddie Fisher, Sammy Davis Jr and Tony Curtis.

Every celebrity in the world and VIP was there.

They were in Las Vegas on opening night with their friends

on home ground

and it's what the Rat Pack,

or the Clan, as Sinatra called it, was all about.

# Luck be a lady... #

There was a Rat Pack prior to the Sinatra Rat Pack.

Humphrey Bogart and his cronies, including Sinatra,

had been in Las Vegas for a kind of debauched weekend

and Lauren Bacall walked in on them

after they'd been partying for a few days and said,

"Jeez, you all look like a rat pack."

After Bogart's death, Sinatra drew on that energy

and put together his own coterie of friends.

Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr,

Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop.

It was dizzying, the glamour of it all.

Ladies and gentlemen...

When they started to perform, they were masters of the universe.

They sucked the air out of the room.

-# This is my first affair... #

-# I've got you... #

LAUGHTER

-# Please be kind... #

-# Please be kind... #

-Wait for me. Wait for me.

-LAUGHTER

You've got a beat like a cop. LAUGHTER

# Please be kind

# Cos if you leave me, dear

# I know my heart will lose its mind

# If you love me

-# Please be kind

-# Yeah, please be...

# Oh, yeah! Oh, yeah! Yeah!

# This is my first affair, so

# Please be kind

# Cos if you leave me, babe

# I know my heart's going to lose its mind... #

You already lost it. You lost it! Yeah! Yeah!

THEY LAUGH

# Baby, please be kind

# Be kind

# Be kind. #

APPLAUSE

Yeah!

Yeah! Sing it again. I didn't hear it.

How many more do you think he's going to do, Sam?

I don't know, but he sure sing good for a white fella, don't he?

Frank doted on Dean,

thought he was the funniest guy in the world.

Dean was like water running downhill -

cool and relaxed, no ego.

This is only a gag. I don't drink any more.

I...I freeze it now and I eat it like a popsicle.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

You know, I wanted to say one thing in all seriousness.

I feel sorry for you people that don't drink. I mean it.

Cos when you wake up in the morning,

that's as good as you're going to feel all day.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Not only we were on stage.

While we were on stage, such notables as Rickles,

Red Skelton, Milton Berle

all came and got up on stage with us.

-The crowd must have gone wild.

-Oh, they went crazy.

-Yeah!

-ALL:

-# Gave birth to the blues... #

And people, comics of all sorts, came to see what we were doing.

We never had a writer.

We didn't have anybody have jokes written for us.

It all came together.

-ALL:

-# Gave birth to the blues. #

We always had the rule to ad-lib on stage,

but, for instance, Dean picking me up, saying...

I'd like to thank the NAACP for this wonderful trophy.

-Put me down!

-LAUGHTER

Well, that was an ad-lib.

That night, when we came off, we all turned to each other.

I said, "Dynamite." Frank said, "Lock it in."

So, that's how we found the material,

since our minds were fertile at that time

and everybody was thinking, "What can I do?

"This, that and the other. What can we do to break them up?"

If you speak to old-timers in Vegas,

they all credit the Rat Pack with saving the town.

In the mid-'50s, Vegas became built up very quickly,

but the tourism wasn't matching the construction

and suddenly, there was this big tourist attraction

in Las Vegas - the Rat Pack.

And these guys would walk around the casino.

The idea you could go to Las Vegas

and maybe Sammy would show up at the Riviera

and get on stage with the lounge act drew a lot of people to the city.

It was also, on a serious basis, it was the very first time

that we saw the decline of racism in Vegas.

# Hey-oh!

# Hey-ey-ey-oh... #

At the beginning, you just were not permitted to play there. Period.

And then, eventually,

when the star power became so inordinate,

they knew that they had to begin to invite black stars to participate

because the revenue was not to be ignored.

But they lay down very strict rules.

Lena Horne and Fats Domino had to eat in the kitchen.

They couldn't go in the casino.

They had to live across town cos it was racist as hell.

Frank wasn't having that, so he was assigning one rumba to each guy,

so that if anybody looks at him funny,

he'd break both of their legs.

When I found that all of the black performers

were living on the other side of the town,

I began to make noise about it.

A few threats, like, "I'll walk. I'll go back to LA."

And I think a few other entertainers began to pick up on that too

and they hollered.

But I guess I had the biggest mouth in the town.

When asked about it, he said, "Any of my Negro friends

"have a right to live where they want.

"And especially if they're bringing in the pokie,

"why shouldn't they live there?"

Frank was always there to give a boost to our cause.

He stepped to the table

and not only gave money for the civil rights movement,

well, he went to the mob and they gave money because he said so.

That was no secret to anybody.

Even the KGB knew about the mob and the Rat Pack.

-They boasted about it.

-GUNFIRE

# And my gun will hum

# While I'm blasting some rival gang out... #

GUNFIRE

# Well, there's no-one I know gets oh, such a glow

# Out of bang, bang like me. #

-GUNFIRE

-What he said to me was,

look, did I know these guys?

Of course I knew these guys.

I worked in saloons in the '30s and '40s.

They were the old bootleggers

who now were doing legitimately what used to be illegitimate.

Um, he kept knowing them because of Las Vegas.

I don't think Sinatra was the kind of guy

who would have loved hanging around with a dope peddler,

but that old bootlegger, I think he liked that.

What were the qualities about him that you liked, Frank?

Strange kind of warped sense of humour.

-Funny jokes.

-Yeah, right.

A nice guy. Generous. Generous son of a bitch.

You like it? Boom, give you the ring off his finger

-with a sapphire in it.

-Right.

-They were all like that, all those guys.

-Right, right.

We were all individually as big as we were to ever get

and when we did the Summit meetings while we were working on Ocean's 11,

it created something a town still takes vows for.

Peter owned Ocean's 11.

He found it, brought it to Frank, Frank bought it.

You know, that kind of thing.

They knew each other under contract at MGM.

MGM. They were...they were friends.

Sergeant Ocean.

DRUM ROLL

BUGLE CALL

This is our objective. Las Vegas, Nevada.

Mission - to liberate millions of dollars.

The movies were very disciplined.

I mean, these guys came on set, nobody blew a line.

It's just the energy was a teenage energy.

It was, "Let's have fun."

And then, in the evening, after they did their shows,

they stayed up gambling and playing

and making the casino guys go crazy and never, ever sleeping.

All these girls would walk up to give us a room key.

God, it was good.

When the movie was cut together, he enjoyed it.

He would screen it at his house over and over again for all his friends

and he really loved it

because this was the first film that was kind of his production.

I think that's why it was so close to him.

It really did depict America at the time.

Pretty happy, pretty optimistic about...

..perhaps a young, beautiful new president.

When he started running for president,

Jack Kennedy came to Las Vegas to do some fundraising,

but ended up hanging out with Sinatra at the Sands.

# I've got the world on a string

# And I'm sitting on a rainbow

# Got the string around my finger

# What a world, what a life I'm in love... #

His grandfather was mayor of Boston. His father was ambassador to London.

Studied at Harvard. Football star. Navy skipper. Newspaper reporter.

Senator. Married to a most attractive bride.

# What a world

# This is life

# And now

# I'm in love. #

APPLAUSE

I met the then Senator Kennedy

and, of course, I'd known Pat Lawford and Mrs Lawford a good many years.

From early on, Sinatra was introduced to Kennedy

by Peter Lawford, who was a Kennedy in-law.

This is in the late 1950s.

And eventually, I got to know the rest of the family

and Mr Kennedy Sr and we became rather close friends.

Consequently, I did what I could for the election of Kennedy.

# Everyone is voting for Jack

# Cos he's got what all the rest lack

# Everyone wants to back Jack

# Jack is on the right track

# Cos he's got high hopes

# He's got high hopes

# 1960's the year for his high hopes

# Come on and vote... #

The Kennedy motorcade was preceded by a sound truck

playing Frank's revised recording of his hit High Hopes.

This particular year,

you've taken a very strong stand in favour of Kennedy.

Don't you run a career risk in taking a political side?

I don't think so, Paul.

Every individual has a right to say what he thinks

and to speak up for the candidate of his choice.

Dad gets a phone call from the old man Joe Kennedy.

He said, "I need a favour.

"I'm going to ask you to give me some help

"in Illinois and West Virginia."

They needed those two states and he said,

"I want you to talk to the guys that you know, the mob,

"to get the unions in both states to vote for John Kennedy."

Dad got it and he went off and called Sam Giancana.

As a boss, no-one promoted Giancana because they liked his blue eyes

or his personality

or anything like that.

It was because he had simply killed enough people

that he moved up through the mob and eventually got to the top.

He was, in almost every respect, a savage.

The mobster liked to hang out with Sinatra because he was famous

and Sinatra liked to hang out with mobsters because he was a bad boy.

# Should I reveal exactly how I feel?

# Should I confess I love you? #

Giancana had a vested interest in courting Sinatra

because he wanted to get the FBI to back off its crack down on the mob.

All of the goons around Giancana

were all concerned about pressure from the FBI.

The agents were around there all the time

and were surveilling him night and day.

Sinatra offered a way for them to get friendly with Kennedy

when he started running for president.

Sinatra liked power, whether it was legitimate or illegitimate

and, um...

..Kennedy and Sinatra both liked sex.

It was Sinatra who introduced John Kennedy

to a former girlfriend of his, Judith Campbell,

who we now know became his mistress.

Judy, she was an extremely beautiful young woman.

I mean, there's no question.

She was in the, you know, Liz Taylor class.

Among his peers, Jack Kennedy was like...oh, my God.

I mean, Marilyn Monroe would come and see him.

He was so magnetic. He could get anybody.

It also turns out that Judith Campbell was dating

a guy named Sam Giancana.

Once you start hanging out with mobsters,

you're inviting attention to yourself

and once you start hanging out with mobsters

and the man who's to become president of the United States

simultaneously, this is a problem.

Of course, I called Jack right away.

He would always say, "Don't worry about it.

"You have nothing to be afraid of.

"You've never done anything wrong in your life

"and you know Sam works for us."

Giancana dispatched an associate

to get local sheriffs and powerful coal miners' unions

to deliver votes

and the election to Kennedy.

January 20, 1961 saw Washington crowded

with hundreds of thousands of visitors

here to see Mr Kennedy take the oath of office,

administered by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Earl Warren.

Then the new president is congratulated

by vice president Johnson

and the man he defeated, Richard Nixon.

When the time came for the inaugural celebration,

no better person could have been chosen to mount it

and to orchestrate it than Sinatra.

So, it was very classy.

The Kennedys had a very specific way of thinking and doing things

and at one point, Dad's friendship with Sammy Davis Jr,

who was soon to marry May Britt,

became a political rub for them.

She was a beautiful, white, blonde actress

and they didn't like the idea of the interracial marriage.

This is the Kennedys.

You would have thought the reverse of them.

Dad got a phone call

and he was asked to disinvite Sammy Davis to the inaugural gala

and he actually had to do it.

I know we're all indebted to a great friend, Frank Sinatra.

APPLAUSE

Long before he could sing,

he used to poll a Democratic precinct back in New Jersey.

That precinct has grown to cover a country.

But long after he has ceased to sing,

he's going to be standing up and speaking for the Democratic Party

and I thank him on behalf of all of you tonight.

-APPLAUSE

-The son of an immigrant,

Dad had risen from the streets of Hoboken

to become the biggest and most powerful star in show business.

It was a moment to savour for a lifetime.

# Fly me to the moon

# Let me play up there with those stars

# Let me see what life is like on Jupiter and Mars

# In other words, hold my hand

# In other words, I do love you

# Why don't you fill my heart, fill it up with song?

# Let me sing forevermore

# Because you are all I long for

# All I worship and do adore

# In other words

# Please be true

# In other words

# In other words

# I, I love

# You. #

APPLAUSE

Word got out that the election was fixed.

# When I walk through a jam... #

Republicans were screaming for an investigation.

# No-one knows who I am... #

Joe Kennedy tells Jack to appoint Bobby as attorney general.

# And I'm Mr Success... #

He said, "Who do you think we are? We don't fix elections.

"We don't do that kind of stuff!"

After the election, the mob expected Frank Sinatra

to get the Kennedys to go easy on them.

Instead, President Kennedy appointed his brother,

who was an anti-mob crusader from way back,

as attorney general and the crack down only intensified.

Would you tell us if you have opposition from anybody,

that you'd dispose of them by having them stuffed in a trunk?

-Is that what you do, Mr Giancana?

-I decline to answer

cos I honestly believe my answer might incriminate me.

Can you tell us anything about any of your operations

or will you just giggle every time I ask you a question?

I decline to answer cos I honestly believe

my answer might incriminate me.

I thought only little girls giggled, Mr Giancana.

HE GIGGLES

In the Chicago gangster world,

everybody was just bashing Giancana for this,

that he didn't, you know, put it all together properly.

He should have had a guarantee

they weren't going to appoint somebody like Bobby Kennedy.

Sam Giancana and his associates can be heard on tape

just fuming that Sinatra hadn't made good

on his promise to get the FBI to back off.

Later, these underworld figures

are fantasising about assassinating Sinatra,

maybe his friend Dean Martin.

At one point, they talk about poking Sammy Davis Jr's other eye out

and one mobster actually fantasises

about throwing a bomb in the face of Bobby Kennedy

and says he'd gladly go to jail for the rest of his life

if he had a chance to do that.

Judith Campbell was associated with Sam Giancana,

so the FBI started watching her.

Then they noticed that not only was she talking to Sam Giancana

and Frank Sinatra at the same time,

that she was, on a fairly regular basis,

calling the White House.

J Edgar Hoover wrote a memo to Robert Kennedy.

That started a chain of events

that caused Robert Kennedy to finally confront his brother

about basically his relationship

with both Sinatra and Judith Campbell

and as a result of that,

President Kennedy backed off Sinatra.

There was some reaction among those who...

That apparently small group that's in the anti-Sinatra area.

Criticism that perhaps this was going to hurt Kennedy.

Did you get any of that?

No, I must say that that sounds rather ridiculous, actually,

because nobody imposed themselves anywhere

that I can remember.

I'd never been a witness to anything either visually or audibly.

I'd never been aware of anything like that.

Um...

What was ridiculously called a clan

were several people who had only goodness in their hearts

wanting to help, if they could,

and they did whenever they were asked to,

which was many times.

And that's about the extent of what we did.

At one point, in March of 1962,

Sinatra was supposed to host Kennedy at his home in Palm Springs.

Sinatra actually built a separate structure for him...

He used to call it the little White House. I saw it.

..and was so proud, you know.

Suddenly, Jack got cold feet about Frank

and he ended up staying with Bing Crosby in Palm Springs,

who was a Republican!

They said it was due to security factors.

You know, it was some lame excuse

and Dad knew it was Bobby and said so

and it was pretty clear that Bobby was looking to sever any ties

with the very people that helped get his brother in office.

And it was a very low point in my dad's life.

He felt very hurt, very let down, very disappointed.

He never...

He never blamed Jack for it.

But I think he thought that there was a betrayal.

It was Joseph P Kennedy who was calling the shots

and he could not depend on John F Kennedy

to be the hatchet man.

On the other hand, his third son, Bobby Kennedy,

was perfectly willing to smile at you

and stick a knife in your stomach at the same time.

It bothered Jack too because that was a retreat.

The president always had great fun there because there was a pool.

There were always girls.

If he wanted to smoke a joint, he could do it there.

It was a real...a haven for him.

The thing about Kennedy that's so important -

his love affair was never with women.

It was always with men. Men loved him.

# Don't worry 'bout me

# I'll get along

# Forget about me

# Be happy, my love

# Look out for yourself

# Should always be the rule

# Give your heart and your love to whomever you love

# Don't you be a fool. #

He was being excluded from the aristocracy of success.

He was frozen out of power.

The very thing that success is meant to access.

# If you can forget

# Don't you worry 'bout me. #

With all the contradictions like that.

On the one hand, emptiness, on the other hand, adoration.

He was, as all great stars are, incredibly charming.

He was also incredibly violent. He was incredibly generous.

He was also incredibly dismissive and tyrannical.

Al. Al.

# The summer wind

# Came blowing in from across the sea

# It lingered there

# To touch your hair and walk with me

# All summer long we sang a song

# And then... #

That period of the '60s,

it was certainly the beginning of his entrepreneurial business life

and he loved it!

What are your interests today?

Well, aside from having an independent picture corporation,

we have, uh, a recording company.

We have several music publishing companies.

We've gone into a titanium manufacturing business.

We've recently put together an airplane charter service.

# Come fly with me

# Let's fly, let's fly away. #

One of the things that defined Sinatra is his inability

to stop moving.

# Let's float down to Peru. #

He was always on the move. He was so restless. It's 12 o'clock.

He was bored. Let's get on a plane.

His plane will fly to Las Vegas, we'll do something there.

# Come fly with me, let's take off in the blue. #

Shalom.

I just completed my world tour on behalf of underprivileged children

and back home in Hollywood I've gone over the films we took on this trip.

Tokyo, Hong Kong, Athens, it's all very exciting.

# Around the world

# I've searched for you. #

In 1962, Sinatra visited many countries and raised millions

and millions of dollars for charity.

He called himself an over-privileged adult

and he decided it was time to put something back.

# Somehow... #

I went to all of the hospitals for which I performed.

I went to see the kids and that's the biggest...

Actually, that's the biggest kick of doing this kind of thing,

in all the nations, to go to see the children themselves.

# No more will I go all around. #

International tours happen all the time

and the singers make a lot of money on it.

# For I have found my world in you. #

He didn't make a nickel. He paid for everything.

'There's no scheduled airline that would take Sinatra

'to the unlikely places he goes

'at the unlikely times he wants to go there.'

'One of the unlikely places Sinatra wanted to get to recently was

'Lorton Penitentiary near Washington DC.'

# Now they call you Lady Luck

# But there is room for doubt. #

I remember it like it was yesterday.

We played that prison, it was a black prison in Washington DC.

Frank just wanted to let the White House know he was in town

and didn't say hello.

-LAUGHING:

-And they were so upset.

# And so the best that I can do is pray. #

You ought to say hello to my man here.

The Count Basie and his wonderful orchestra.

And Mr Quincy Jones. Thank you.

# Luck be a lady tonight

# Luck be a lady tonight. #

And the musicians loved Frank.

They just loved him cos he was like a jazz musician, you know?

# ..a lady to begin with

# Luck be a lady tonight. #

Back then, the only singers that anybody considered a real singer

was the ones that knew how to sing like a jazz saxophone player played.

# I know the way you treated other guys you've been with

# Luck be a lady. #

Pap! You know, he used to trick me on that all the time to see

if he could sing it faster than I could hit those backgrounds.

# Luck be a lady... #

-CHUCKLING:

-You know? And he'd test me out every time.

# Tonight

# Tonight

# 11! #

I watched him through the years as he became more deeply

involved with black music, certainly with jazz.

And all the things that he did in relationship to race

and progressive social agenda.

He did a huge benefit at Carnegie Hall in an evening

with Lena Horne.

Sinatra at the time was filming in Los Angeles.

They wanted him to appear to raise money for the NAACP.

He finally got himself away from the film, got on an airplane and flew

to New York and from the airport

he went on the stage, no warm-up, and he sang Ol' Man River.

# Ol' man river

# That ol' man river

# He must know sumpin'

# But he don't say nothin'

# He just keeps rolling

# Keeps on rolling along. #

I was up in the balcony and I recognised Dr King sitting there

and here was very moved by this.

# And he don't plant cotton

# And them what plants 'em are soon forgotten

# But ol' man river

# He just keeps rollin' along. #

Now, you would have considered they would have had one of the black

operatic stars do it.

But here is Frank Sinatra singing this song

and Martin Luther King, he wept.

# Tote that barge and lift that bale

# You get a little drunk then you land

# In jail

# I gets weary

# And sick of trying

# I'm tired of living

# But I'm scared of dying

# And ol' man river,

# He just keeps rollin'

# Along. #

The concert that they did was a huge success.

And he declared himself for Dr King and for our movement.

With this faith

we will be able to transform the jangling discords

of our nation

into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.

With this faith, we will be able to work together,

to pray together, to struggle together,

to go to jail together,

to stand up for freedom together,

knowing that we will be free one day.

-Hey, why don't you have a little snack?

-What is it?

-Sandwiches.

All right, folks, put on your sheets and we'll start the meeting.

Oh, come on!

Go bore a few holes in that and be somebody.

Then there came a time,

when for reasons that were never quite understood,

Sinatra and Joey Bishop and Dean Martin

began to do these outrageously racist jokes with

Sammy Davis Jr as the brunt.

He's just, you'll excuse the expression, a carbon copy.

Sammy Davis Junior half danced his way through it

and played second banana and went into a period of buffoonery.

And the rest of us were very critical of Sammy for not

resisting and behave in a manner that we considered more dignified.

I thought since we're all on the same label of reprieve we might

-possibly...

-Zelda. Zelda, look. I'll go out and I'll drink with you.

I'll go pick cotton with you. I'll eat oranges with you.

I'll go to school with you, but don't touch me.

It was out of step, but you have to understand that humour,

as offensive as it may have been, it didn't disturb all of America.

It disturbed the black segment of America.

The rest of white America had this dynamic with racist behaviour

and opinions.

So there was a country divided.

Ladies and gentlemen...

I give you the next president of the United States!

PRESIDENT SPEAKS IN BACKGROUND

GUNSHOT

'Here's a bulletin from CBS News.'

From Dallas, Texas, the flash apparently official,

President Kennedy died at 1pm Central Standard Time.

Two o'clock Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago.

VP Lyndon Johnson has left the hospital...

Dad went to Palm Springs after that and virtually disappeared.

Even I couldn't reach him.

For three days, while the Kennedys and the nation publicly mourned,

my father grieved alone, locked away in his bedroom.

Afterward he said of John F Kennedy,

"For a brief moment he was the brightest star in our lives."

# I'll never smile again

# Until I smile at you

# I'll never love again

# What good would it do? #

'This is the North Lodge of Harrah's Club straddling

'the California Nevada border.

'From this building, nearly 48 hours ago,

Frank Sinatra Jr was kidnapped.

Approximately nine or a few minutes before,

there was a knock on the door.

Frank said, "Come in."

The fellow entered wearing a hooded parka,

said he had a package for Mr Sinatra.

As he straightened up, he had a revolver in his hand.

The kidnapping happened on a Sunday night, the second week of December.

It was dark and cold

and my mother came running down our hallway yelling,

"Your brother's been kidnapped!"

So I said, "What do we do?" She said, "I don't know.

"Your father's just called and he's on his way to Reno."

I get the chills when I think about it. I was a basket case.

I get a call the next morning from Edgar Hoover.

"Frank!" "Yes, sir, Mr Director, how are you?"

He said, "I'm fine, but I'm pissed off about these little

"rat clown bastards," he said.

"We'll get them, Frank. Don't worry about it."

About an hour later I get a call from Bobby Kennedy saying to me...

"Frank, everything is being done. Just want you to know that.

"We'll get your son back," he said. "Don't worry about it.

"Don't have any cares, we're going to get him back."

For such a traumatic moment, did it bring Frank

and Frank Jr closer together?

You know, their relationship was actually always

very warm and loving. They were never not close.

But there was something about the nature of their lifestyles

that kind of kept them apart.

Because he was doing his thing all the time,

I was growing up.

And then when I became an adult, I was doing my thing.

We do a Sinatra song in every show, ladies and gentlemen.

I come from a very unusual family, you see.

Did he come to see you?

Sure. I was singing with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra at that time.

I had to sing the same songs that he had made famous.