Original subtitles

Yeah. My name is Frank Sinatra.

What?!

# I've got you under my skin

# I've got you... DEEP in the heart of me

# So deep-in-my-heart that you are a part of me

# I've got you un-der my skin

# I have tried so...tried-tried not to give in

# I have said to myself "This affair is not gonna move so well"

# But why should I try to resist when, baby, I know damn well

# I've got you un-der my skin... #

'Everybody warned me this guy could get very tough. I knocked on his door.'

He said, "What do you want to see me for?" I said I was nervous.

I said, "My knees shake when I hit the stage."

He said, "Don't worry about that. The people will support you.

"If they see you don't care, they won't care. It would be disastrous."

No-one to this day delivers a lyric and conveys a lyric

the way Sinatra does.

I don't care if he talks it. He don't have to sing.

Just talk the lyric and I'll be... Aaaah!

I tried to breathe where would take a breath for a few years.

I didn't have my own story to tell.

I didn't have my own life. I was too young. I didn't have the experiences to tell the story,

the heart-wrenching things he went through.

He creates a mood which very few people are able to do. I can't.

# Cos I've GOT you under my skin

# And I love you

# Under my skin. #

APPLAUSE

Thank you.

On 12 December 1915, hundreds of immigrants

made their way to this harbour from all over the world,

just as they did every other day.

Most had endured great hardship on their journeys.

They had a dream of a new life.

Many had come from Europe, among them, the grandparents of Francis Albert Sinatra.

They settled in Hoboken, New Jersey,

across the Hudson from Manhattan.

Hoboken is where the rest of America begins.

Natalie Gariventi Sinatra gave birth to her son at 415 Monroe Street.

It was a difficult delivery. The baby weighed in at 13½ pounds.

The doctor's forceps left him with a punctured eardrum.

He didn't breathe until his grandmother held him under a cold water tap.

He didn't breathe until his grandmother held him under a cold water tap.

Natalie, known as Dollie, had been married to Martin Sinatra for three years.

Her parents were from Genoa.

She was a midwife and an activist in the local Democrat Party.

Martin Sinatra's parents were from Sicily. He was a fireman and amateur boxer.

Francis Albert was their only child.

I was a boy of about ten or eleven

and I started singing with the school choir,

and the church choir...

and...on picnics and what have you,

whenever there was a chance to sing.

It was then that I realised, that far back, that I wanted to become a singer.

And through school, into high school,

I continued singing with the orchestras at the different dances we had,

school dances and otherwise.

And then it progressed and progressed into working as a professional,

rather than an amateur.

# I get no kick in a plane

# Flying too high with some gal in the sky

# Is my idea of nothing to do

# But I get a kick

# You give me a boot

# I get a kick out of you-ou-ou... #

SINATRA: It was a semi-slum area and it was pretty rough.

There weren't gang wars but there were beefs about our position

and who should cross the line

into where we lived. And who should cross the line into where they lived.

If I went on an errand, I skirted certain areas.

The cry went up, "Kill the dago when he comes through the corner of town."

If you're Italian, you must have had somebody with a bent nose in your family, some mafioso.

The snide condescension -

"the wap" and the irritation you had hearing it said about your mother.

All of those forces.

SINATRA: I showed some signs when I was young

of possibly becoming a civil engineer.

I remember I did pencil sketches of bridges and highways and roads.

My father loved it. Loved the idea.

When I left high school after three years, he was terribly, terribly disappointed

and very hurt because I decided to go into music.

But my mother was always conscious of a show world

and that was there all the time.

My singing on street corners with the kids and at school with the band,

she liked that whole idea.

So she was really the power behind my choosing to go into music.

She was the spark.

It was the blacks and then the next gang that got it was the Italians.

Being an Italian, coming up through the circumstances

his lifestyle at the beginning,

his lifestyle all the way through, his ups and downs and all that -

the Italian temperament, er...

That's his anchor. That is Sinatra's anchor.

# When I was seventeen

# It was a very good year

# It was a very good year

# For small-town girls

# And soft summer nights

# We'd hide from the lights

# On the village green

# When I was seventeen... #

SINATRA: I got together a quartet, the Hoboken Four.

In those days there was a big radio programme on called Major Bowes.

He used to say: BOWES: 'Around and around she goes

'And where she stops, nobody knows.'

Ladies and gentlemen, friends.

again we bring you new talent.

The amateurs of today are the stars of tomorrow.

Who'll speak for the group?

I will. I'm Frank, Major. We're looking for a job. How about it?

All right, let's have it.

The Hoboken Four.

# Folks, we'll shine up to you

# You make the whole world shine

# Shine and sway, you bluesy

# Shine stars with his shoes-y

# You make the whole world shi-i-i-ne. #

They won the biggest vote ever and became part of the touring company.

They received $75 a week between them. Sinatra became a professional singer at 19.

Those were the days when the singing sensation was Bing Crosby.

SINATRA: There's no doubt that when Bing started as a young man

he was influenced by the early jazz musicians from New Orleans

and a whole bunch of those people.

I became influenced by many, many people.

Even Crosby himself.

# It's a long, long while

# From May to December

# But the days grow short

# When you reach September... #

SINATRA: I never wanted to sound like Crosby.

All the kids who wanted to be singers were all boo-boo-boo-ing.

Neither one of us took it as a rivalry.

I admired his work and hoped he admired mine.

He was on my radio show several times and I went on his.

# ..Turns the leaves to flame

# And I haven't got time

# For the waiting game

# All the days dwindle down

# To a precious few

BOTH: # September

# November

# And these few precious days

# I spend with you

# These precious days

# I'll spend with you. #

SINATRA: As far as vocalisation is concerned,

the idea of phraseology

and the proper enunciation and the clear sound of the words,

I think we've all taken from each other in the singing world.

Sinatra left the quartet and went solo.

He picked up singing work where he could, sometimes playing for sandwiches or cigarettes.

After bombarding them with letters. he managed to get some dates on WNEW radio by working for nothing.

# When I was 21

# It was a very good year

# It was a very good year for city girls

# Who lived up the stair

# With all that perfumed hair

# And it came undone

# When I was 21. #

February 4, 1939 - Sinatra married Nancy Barbato.

She was a $25-a-week secretary. They'd known each other four years.

They lived on Audubon Avenue in Jersey City.

They hadn't enough for a honeymoon.

Nancy took a $15 advance on her salary to pay for publicity stills

to help Sinatra promote a demo recording.

JAZZ BAND MUSIC

Nancy sent the still to Harry James.

James had recently left the Benny Goodman orchestra.

James went to see Sinatra sing at The Rustic Cabin in Englewood, New Jersey and hired him.

They recorded All Or Nothing At All that August.

# I would be caught in the undertow

# And so you see, I've got to say no, no

# All or nothing at all... #

All Or Nothing At All brought Sinatra to the attention of Tommy Dorsey.

Dorsey led perhaps the most popular white band in America.

# All or nothing at a-a-a-a-all! #

After only seven months with James, Sinatra joined Dorsey's more successful outfit.

SLOW, LINGERING VIOLIN TUNE PLAYS

SINATRA: I was influenced by soloists

in the sense of a violin or a cellist.

They had that sustained quality of notation.

That was in the imperceptible feeling of the fact that the bow across the strings never broke.

There was never the feeling of it stopping and that technically was what I learned from it.

Then when people blew horns like Lester Young and James and others,

I was listening to musicians and how they breathed

and I began to work on that.

So I put that together with the lyrics so there was a sustained feeling of an unbreakable phrase.

So the audience says, "I never heard that phrase sung that way."

That was my objective.

# Sometimes I'll wonder why I spend

# The lonely nights dreaming of a song

# The melody haunts my reverie

# And I am once again with you

# When our love was new

# And each kiss an inspiration

# Ah! But that was long ago

# And now my consolation

# Lies in the stardust

# Of a song... #

There was a certain discipline and tunnel vision that happened with the big bands.

It was focused. It was all you could do. There was no life outside that.

# I'll never smile again... #

Everything was focused on music, and that's why those bands sounded so well.

They were together so much,

it was like a finely tuned engine.

# I'll never laugh again

# What good would it do-o-o-o?

# What good would it do-o-o-o?

# For tears would fill my eyes

# My heart would realise... #

There's nothing better happened to me than spending the years on the bus with the bands.

Because you worked 365 days a year.

If you're gonna be good in any job at all, if you eat, sleep, walk, talk and dream it,

in the end you'll be a big man in it.

Frank and I were roommates when he first joined the band.

He'd made several recordings -

I'll Never Smile Again was his first really important venture

into his own thing.

And he came to me one time and said, "We can't room together any more."

I thought that was strange, since I was paying the bills.

I asked why, and he said, "Chicks are bothering me for autographs and I just won't have the time."

So we went our different ways and I don't know whatever happened to him.

AUDIENCE LAUGHS

What happened was that Sinatra went solo in 1942.

Known simply as "the voice", he was the most popular singer in the USA.

# Come out Come out wherever you are

# Come out Come out from under that star

# Yes and incidentally

# Mentally

# I'm not up to par

# So come out, come out, come out wherever you are. #

You were wonderful!

Wow! Did you hear that? Think he's got something?

That guy is the greatest discovery of my career. Did you see the women's expressions?

If he was the Pied Piper, there wouldn't be a dame left!

# Night and day

# You are the one

# Only you beneath the moon

# And under the sun

# Whether near to me... #

Speculation has always surrounded Sinatra's split with Dorsey.

Sinatra wanted to go solo, but Dorsey wanted him to stay. After complex negotiations and wrangling,

Dorsey gave in, but his contractual hold was such that he demanded 40% of Sinatra's earnings from then on.

Sinatra had to agree. It would be years before he could afford to buy himself out.

# That this longing for you

# Follows wherever I go... #

I decided someone should challenge Crosby, because he'd had the throne

for...I don't know, so many years.

And I thought, "Maybe they're ready for a new kind of singer, a different kind of singer."

So I left the band and took my big shot at it.

INTERVIEWER: And what happened? Well, all hell broke loose!

NEW SPEAKER: It was eight shows a day. Eight shows a day! Look it up!

It was...

I saw two scenes like that in my life in this city in entertainment.

One was when I was in high school and we had to get here at 4.00am

to get into the Paramount to see Frank Sinatra.

And the second scene I saw was when a police inspector at the Paramount upstairs

begged the Beatles not to go near the window. They were out on the street.

They started a conflagration out on the street. It was wonderful! I never saw anything like it.

# There's an oh, such a hungry yearning

# Burning

# Way down inside of me

# And its torment will never be through

# Till you let me spend my life

# Making love to you day and night

# Night and day. #

I was never part of the bobbysox screaming, but I appreciate...

There was always something... I had arguments with people on this thing,

whether it was...just that, you know, that girls fancied him.

I said, "It's NOT just that. There is a quality

"that is quite...quite wonderful!"

Wonderful phrasing, that hadn't really been heard before.

NEWSREEL FANFARE

NEWSREEL: In Hollywood, California,

a golfing extravaganza with war bond sales as the objective.

Bing Crosby leads off.

Looking on, Frank Sinatra.

Frank said he couldn't even caddy for Bing

and for that Colossus of the fairways, Bob Hope.

WHOOPING AND CHEERING

Because of the damage done to his ear when he was born,

Sinatra was rejected by the armed forces.

Sinatra was rejected by the armed forces.

The press had already begun to probe into Sinatra's life,

but they couldn't question his commitment to the propaganda effort.

but they couldn't question his commitment to the propaganda effort.

# They'll say "It's all right with me

# People will say

# We're in love. #

APPLAUSE

RADIO: Ladies and Gentlemen, I'd like to introduce "The Voice".

INTRO PLAYS

# Saturday night is the loneliest night of the week... #

I've heard what people said. Frank thought it was because they were lonely.

People thought it was because he was... They felt protective.

But when he sang ballads,

he was singing for every single man what every single girl would like

he was singing for every single man what every single girl would like

in the young man that would be coming back for her.

# Saturday night is the loneliest night of the week

# I sing the song that I sang for the mem'ries I usually seek

# Until I hear you at the door

# Until you're in my arms once more

# Saturday night is the loneliest night of the week... #

TRUMPET SOLO

# Until I hear you at the door

# Until you're in my arms once more

# Saturday night is the loneliest night of the wee-ee-eek. #

'Thank you, Frankie. Just lie down there any place.

'That was Sinatra - the only singer that has given Crosby competition.'

NEWSREEL: 'Beneath the easy sentimentality of American music,

'which would rather sing of love,

'there lies a serious purpose not to be expressed in any song -

'the will to triumph, of democracy at war.

'Time marches on.'

# What is America to me?

# A name

# A map

# Or a flag I see?

# A certain word

# Democracy

# What is America to me? #

During the war, Sinatra appeared in several films, playing the kind of singer he was in real life.

# A house I live in

# A house I live in

# A plot of earth, a street

# The grocer and the butcher

# And the people that I meet... #

The House I Live In was about a successful singer with a conscience.

It was based on an idea Sinatra had. He played the lead and was awarded a special Oscar.

He gave his money to charity.

# ..That's America to me

# The place I work in

# The worker at my side... #

Frank, the readers of Modern Screen magazine

have named you Most Popular Film Star of 1946.

I present you with this bronze bust of yourself.

I present you with this bronze bust of yourself.

Thank you, Mr Mayer. I'm grateful to you and the readers of Modern Screen magazine.

And I'm very happy. Thank you very much.

His working-class background gave him a keen sense of civil rights.

He supported the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

From his youth, he had been a member of the Democrat Party.

By this time, he'd even gone to tea with Roosevelt.

The pilot of that ship was Colin Kelly, an American and a Presbyterian.

And you know who dropped the bombs?

Meyer Levin, an American and a Jew.

Should they have called it off because they had different religions?

Think about that. Use your good, American heads. Don't let anybody make suckers out of you.

Gotta go to work.

What do ya work? I sing. Aw! You're a kid!

The House I Live In's message was America is, and should be, the home of racial and religious tolerance -

the kind of view that could put you out of work in the McCarthy era.

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

To Senator McCarthy, anything liberal smacked of Communism.

His mission was to eliminate it.

He regarded Hollywood with particular suspicion,

and ruthlessly investigated the entertainment world.

Actors, bosses, writers and directors denounced "un-American" colleagues.

Once condemned by the witch hunt,

even the biggest names would be shut out of the entertainment industry.

'Louis B Mayer, MGM production chief.'

Like others in the industry,

I have maintained a relentless vigilance...

Mayer displayed a willingness to condemn all thing "un-American".

Mayer displayed a willingness to condemn all thing "un-American".

Despite his previous enthusiasm for Sinatra's film career,

a year after testifying, he sacked him.

Sinatra recording - take three!

# If you are a dream... #

Although Sinatra was never called before the McCarthy committee,

he was named as a prominent figure with Communist Party sympathies.

# To find that I'm forsaken... #

Sinatra's liberal views had made him a target for the right-wing press of William Randolph Hearst.

His private life was scrutinised, too.

He was said to have affairs with Marilyn Maxwell and Lana Turner.

Sinatra showed his displeasure to the reporters who harassed him,

and he began to acquire a reputation for trouble.

# ..I long to kiss you

# But I would not dare

# I'm so afraid

# That you would vanish in the air... #

One time, he threw a pitcher of water at me.

A big, heavy, glass pitcher.

I had just come off the bandstand.

He went over to the tray - they used to keep a tray of water for the musicians.

I felt this thing whizz across the room.

It smashed into a million pieces.

If it had hit me, I wouldn't be here today.

I think he'd been trying for weeks, just practising!

We had a little beef. We settled things later on.

We're the greatest of friends today.

Is he a brawler?

I think he likes to think he is.

He carries a lot of strange people with him to make sure he wins.

NEW SPEAKER: Great artists -

even the most gentle and pacific artists,

like Spencer Tracey or Gary Cooper, they have within them

a feeling of an explosion.

What makes them stars is that

you feel that they might blow the place to pieces emotionally at any moment.

Frank had that by the tonne.

He had this demon in his belly.

That demon gave him his adrenaline and his excitement

and his impact when he came and played live in a theatre.

That was part of his personality.

And to pretend that that didn't exist would be stupid.

But if you admire what you see in the theatre

of this extraordinary phenomenon of Sinatra,

then you cannot pretend

or fail to have some minute understanding of what drove him.

And sometimes that drive manifest itself

in unfortunate circumstances.

# Hello, young lovers

# Whoever you are

# I hope your troubles are few

# All my good wishes

# Go with you tonight

# I've been in love like you. #

Sinatra's high profile, his combativeness, his life on the road and his affairs with other women

all put a strain on his marriage.

We had "this is what happened" calls.

Dad would say, "You're gonna read this in the paper

but this is what happened.

# ..Cling very close to each other... #

That's the one thing you can count on with him - his honesty.

He never lies. Never.

News of his affair with Ava Gardner became public in 1949.

After a stormy and public courtship, Sinatra left the family home to live with her.

Sinatra and Gardner were married in September 1950.

I just... I fell in love with her, too.

She was exquisitely beautiful.

Beauty that takes the breath out of you.

We were used to his not being in the same town because of his work.

He was a little like a travelling salesman.

But the difference there was that my mother was suffering

because again, it was a public situation.

'Frank Sinatra at a film preview with his new wife Ava Gardner.

'Frank Sinatra at a film preview with his new wife Ava Gardner.

'The showing of Meet Danny Wilson, in which Frankie stars,

'is attended by Milton Berle, who gets in a little fast work with the new bride.

'The cameraman catches an unusual close up of Dagmar, whose face is also her fortune.

'Sporting chin whiskers, Robert Preston.

'Mama and Papa preview Danny Wilson, in which a young singer wins fame and fortune.'

Sinatra had other troubles.

A problem with his vocal chords caused him to lose his voice often.

His style of music was giving way to newer singers like Frankie Laine.

# Jezebel

# Jezebel

# Jez-e-bel! #

Worst of all, Columbia acquired a new A&R man with ideas quite different from Sinatra's.

Mitch Miller was the king of the novelty song.

His records sold millions and Sinatra loathed them.

Miller's idea of the right song for the voice was a duet with Dagmar, a household name.

The song was called Mama Will Bark.

'Now, ladies and gentlemen, the Paramount Theatre presents

the spectacle of the age - Dagmar!

Mr Sinatra. Yes, ma'am? Why did you call me a spectacle?

Well, because you're so good for the eyes!

APPLAUSE AND LAUGHTER

# It was the doggonest thing you ever heard

# She said Mama will bark

# You look lovely in the moonlight Yes, but Papa will bark

# Your eyes are shining like the starlight But Mama will bark

# Your lips are so inviting, darling, give me one more kiss

# Your lips are so inviting, darling, give me one more kiss

# Mama will spank The night is young and you are here... #

It didn't work. Sinatra's sales declined and the label sacked him.

It was a time for re-appraisal.

I got rid of a lot of personal problems.

I went to new management.

And I went to new attorneys and accountants.

I cleared the field and got a brand new start,

like I was just beginning,

except that the experience I had had was always there.

I realised at that point there was another way I wanted to use it.

"In the beginning was the word," the saying goes.

No-one is more conscious of the importance of words than film-makers.

It's been my good fortune to appear in motion pictures which began as words on a printed page.

Exciting words, which made stories that had something to say.

This one started the dramatic ball rolling for me.

The book and the film raised a lot of eyebrows.

Fred Zinneman was planning to film From Here To Eternity,

a popular book by James Jones.

SInatra became desperate to play the puny but obstreperous Maggio.

He seemed to see his own character in this underdog beset by bullies.

He got the part, but it came back to haunt him.

In The Godfather, there is a portrayal of an Italian American crooner whose career is flagging.

He's convinced he'll be back on top

if he can only land a part he's obsessed with getting in a war movie.

He enlists the Mafia to persuade the producer to cast him.

A notion took hold that the crooner character's story was based on Sinatra's need to play Maggio.

Despite adamant denials by Mario Puzo, Fred Zinneman and Sinatra himself,

the story became part of the Sinatra mythology.

Sinatra, from the beginning,

kept sending cables to us calling himself Maggio,

saying that he was the person to play that part.

As it happened,

we couldn't get Eli Wallach, so we decided to test Sinatra.

He was in Africa with Ava Gardner, who was working with John Ford on Mogambo.

Cohn cabled him saying that if he came back at his own cost, we would make a test.

He was very careful with the pennies.

And so Sinatra came back.

He made a test. It was Sinatra in uniform and it was good.

Why it's Oslo Maggio! Greetings!

There you are, dues all paid up!

Who's playing the piano there?

RICHARD ATTENBOROUGH: People say, "He's only playing himself.

To play yourself, you reveal yourself and peel the onion skins.

Frank did that.

But that's what Frank could do.

He was not a character actor.

Frank presented his own magical personality.

It's funny I came in and saw you sitting here...

Knock it off!

I'll play if I want, you little wap! "Little wap"?!

Mess with me and I'll bust you up!

You must want trouble, wap.

Wait for me, will you? Yeah, sure.

This Mussolini is trying to... He wants to bust my ears with his noise!

Break it up! Come on.

Only my friends call me "wap"!

You know who that guy is? Who is he?

Fatso Judson - sergeant of the guard.

Leave him! I saw him nearly murder a guy!

OK, bully-boy, let's dance, huh?

First I gotta calm down.

Let's go to a phone booth where I'll unveil a fifth of the whisky I have hidden here!

See you, pal!

The winner is Frank Sinatra!

He obviously was an extremely astute actor,

in that he was aware of the confines of his talent.

One of the things that he could do was to tell a story in his acting.

He could convince you of circumstances and emotion and so on.

Nothing complex or sophisticated, but he could convince you of his feelings at that moment.

A lot of his songs, apart from the velvet sound of his voice, were performed stories.

I'm deeply thrilled... and very moved.

I really don't know what to say.

This is a whole new kind of thing, you know.

Song and dance man type stuff.

# The famous places to visit are so many

# So the guidebooks say

# I told my grandpa I wouldn't miss on any

# We got just one day

# Gotta see the whole town right from Yonkers on down to the bay

# In just one day

# New York, New York, it's a wonderful town

# The Bronx is up and the Battery's down

# People ride in a hole in the ground

# New York, New York, it's a wonderful town!

# When I was 35

# It was a very good year

# It was a very good year

# For blue-blooded girls of independent means

# We'd ride in limousines

# Their chauffeurs would drive

# When I was 35... #

Hollywood was home to the record company so associated with his name.

Here Sinatra developed the sound that made him a legend.

# Fairtales can come true

# It can happen to you

# If you're young at heart

# For it's hard you will find

# To be narrow of mind

# If you're young at heart

# You can go to extremes with impossible schemes

# You can go to extremes with impossible schemes

# You can laugh when your dreams fall apart at the seams

# And life gets more exciting with each passing day

# And love is either in your heart or on its way... #

Nelson Riddle was the key to Sinatra's Capitol sound.

He had a brilliant command of symphonic scoring,

modernising the big-band style Sinatra used before.

The result was a cool, easy-swinging sound,

balanced by lush, intimate ballads.

He invented a new kind of album, one evoking a single mood or theme.

# I gotta song that I sing, I can make the rain go

# Any time I move my finger

# Lucky me

# Can't you see I'm in love?

# Life is a beautiful thing... #

SINATRA: What I didn't know was that in order to explain a lyric properly,

there must be some acting involved.

There must be.

# I got the world on a string... #

With your hands and your actions on the stage

and the crescendos and diminuendos in your voice.

All of that came to the foreground for me.

And then it broke open and I knew I was fine.

# Life's a wonderful thing

# Just as long as I hold that string

# I'd be a silly so and so

# If I should ever let it go

# I've got the world on a string

# Sitting on a rainbow

# Got the string around my finger

# What a world

# This here is mine!

# And now I'm in lo-o-o-ove! #

APPLAUSE

DINAH SHORE: An album is a mood.

One of the biggest arguments you had making an album was about its mood.

That's what we tried to do. Frank was the first one to have enough clout to be able to do that.

If you have a swinging album, let it swing.

And then come down to a ballad if you want to.

But don't try to break it up. You've broken a romantic mood.

That's what albums were for, or they were for "up" - for dancing.

The arrangements he always chose. HE chose the arrangers.

Then he would sing the songs to the arrangers and set the mood, saying, "This is the mood I want."

Then, on the date, it would be perfect.

If you listen to any of his recordings, from his first ones on,

there's nothing like them, no-one will ever...

It's like he weaves a spell.

And, er, there'll never be another Frank Sinatra.

Nelson and I met years before that. He was arranging for Tommy Dorsey

after I had left the orchestra.

And we were friendly through the years till the time we began to work.

When I heard the things that he had been doing with Nat,

I said, "I've got to work with this guy. He's marvellous."

And he really did some beautiful orchestrations, wonderful ones.

And, er, he and Nat fitted so well,

that I was trying to be as successful as a vocalist with Nelson as Nat was.

I never did find out whether we made it or not.

# The moment that you speak

# I wanna go and play hide and seek

# I wanna go and bounce the moon

# Just like a toy balloon

# You and I

# Are just like a couple of tots

# Runnin' across a meadow

# Picking up lots of forget-me-nots

# You make me feel so young

# You make me feel there are songs to be sung

# Bells to be rung

# And a wonderful fling to be flung

# And even when I'm old and grey

# I'm gonna feel the way I do today

# Cos you make me feel so young

# You make me feel so young

# You make me feel so spring has sprung

# And every time I see you grin

# I'm such a happy

# Individual

# The moment that you speak

# I wanna go and play hide and seek

# I wanna go and bounce the moon

# Just like a toy balloon

# You and I

# Are just like a couple of tots

# Running across the meadow

# Picking up lots of forget-me-nots

# You make me feel so young... #

In the mid '50s, Sinatra appeared regularly in Las Vegas.

During this time, he made 18 albums for Capitol, considered to be classics.

He also made 20 films. This was Sinatra at the height of his powers.

# It's great

It's great!

# It's grand

So grand

BOTH: # It's wo-wo-wo-wo-wo-wo-wo wonderland!

# La la - la la La la la la la la yudder bom bom bom

# La-laa, la la Yudder, yudder, yudder, bom bom

# We sing!

We sing

# So rare

So rare

# Like old camembert

# Like bar, bar rum

Bom bom bom bom!

# Don't dig that kind of croonin', chum...! #

You must be one of the newer fellas!

# Have you heard - it's in the stars

# Next July we collide with Mars

# Well, did you ever

# What a swell party

# A swell party

# A swell-i-gant, elegant party

# This is! #

I got a feeling people are staring.

I got a feeling people are staring.

Miss Shirley MacLaine. Shirley.

Sinatra made Las Vegas his base of operations.

The Sands was synonymous with the Rat Pack - Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr, Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop.

This raucous group had Sinatra at its head. The line between their on- and off-stage lives was a blur.

# Can take me just so far

LAUGHING: # Talk to me, talk to me, talk to me... #

If you're gonna laugh, go sit down there. We don't need you on stage.

For God's sake, someone out there talk to him!

# You set me all aflame

# And it's so pleasing

# It'd be a goddamned shame if you were only teasing

# So, my love, before you go

# Turn off the light and grab the dough... #

He's a very powerful gentleman.

I've never seen him use it destructively.

He does take positions.

If he doesn't like you, if you've done something that deserves his disfavour,

he's fair about it. He doesn't say, "He's out, he's in."

That's not the way he operates, or he didn't.

INTERVIEWER: What things would earn his disfavour?

Um...dishonesty - someone saying, "You can do that," then change their mind.

Cos the implication of "if Frank likes you, you're in", is that if he doesn't like you, you're out.

This does have a faintly sinister implication.

That again comes through the media.

Through the years that he has gathered this aura or whatever around him,

that he can just snap his fingers.

And he can. But, being redundant, I have never seen him use it to really hurt anyone.

We've had our differences through the years.

The last time we didn't talk was for, like, seven years.

Hello, yourself. And greetings from your Pal Joey. That's me.

Course, my name's Frank Sinatra.

But, in my latest picture...

I play Pal Joey.

The film Pal Joey was no match for the Rogers and Hart soundtrack.

Sinatra played a character that mirrored the playboy role he'd chosen in real life.

Joey has his own "slanguage", made up purely of Joey-isms.

We'll start with the word "mouse".

This is a mouse - a beautiful mouse called Kim Novak.

# There

# Each day is Valentine's Day. #

I suppose you think the plural is "mouses".

Mice. And here's some dandy examples.

Wow-ee, wow-wow-wow!

Now, you must know Joey's philosophy.

Treat a dame like a lady and a lady like a dame.

# She gets too hungry

# For dinner at eight

# She likes the theatre

# Never comes late

# She'd never bother

# With people she'd hate... #

His marriage to Ava Gardner had always been tempestuous.

Infidelity was rumoured, and Sinatra even admitted to attempted suicide.

We saw a great deal of them as a couple. Volatile, to say the least.

When there were screams and shouts,

things thrown about, out came Ava: "I'm leaving that son of a bitch!"

So, Frank took off in a rush, and the whole time she was saying,

"He's impossible, the conceited son of a bitch. He's not so great."

And we arrive at the Ambassador and on comes Frank and he starts to sing.

And he starts to sing RIGHT to her.

And she says, "Oh, look at him, isn't he wonderful?" Floods of tears.

And I said, "I thought you hated him." "No, he's wonderful! Look!"

Crazy. They adored each other. Fought the whole time.

The inevitable announcement came in 1959. They divorced due to irreconcilable differences.

PIANO PLAYS A JAZZY TUNE

WOMAN: I think he was the love of HER life. I know he was.

Everything I've learned - definitely.

Why didn't it work?

In my opinion?

In retrospect? Too many outside pressures. Mostly career pressures.

She was on location doing this, he was there doing that.

Not enough "together" time.

# It's quarter to three

APPLAUSE # There's no-one in the place

# 'Cept you and me

# So, set 'em up, Joe

# I got a little story

# You oughta know

# We're drinkin', my friend

# To the end

# Of a brief episode

# Make it one for my baby

# And one more for the road

# I got the routine

# So, put another nickel

# In the machine

# I'm feelin' so bad

# Can't you make the music

# Easy and sad?

# I could tell you a lot

# But you've got to be

# True to your code

# Make it one for my baby

# And one more for the road

# You'd never know it

# But, buddy, I'm a kind of poet

# And I got a lot of things I wanna say

# And when I'm gloomy

# You've gotta listen to me

# Till it's talked away

# Well, that's how it goes

# And, Joe, I know you're gettin'

# Anxious to close

# And thanks for the cheer

# I hope you didn't mind

# My bending your ear

# But this torch that I've found

# Gotta be drowned

# Or it soon might explode

# So, make it one for my baby

# And one more for the road

# The long...

# The long...

# The long... #

He doesn't do anything half way. Whenever he would do an album,

the night before, he would always study the lyric and treat it like a poem.

So he knew the story content, the highs, the lows and what he was gonna do with it,

and how it phrased properly like a poem.

So when he went to record the next day, he was ready.

# When love comes in

# And takes you for a spin

# Ooh-la-la-la... #

Sinatra met Juliet Prowse on the set of Can Can in 1960.

They got engaged, but were never to marry.

# It's the wrong time

# And the wrong place

# Though your face is charming

# It's the wrong face

# It's not her face

# It's not her face

# But such a...charming face

# That it's all right

# With me

# It's the wrong song

# In the wrong style

# Though your smile is lovely

# It's the wrong smile

# It's not her smile

# But such a...lovely smile

# So, it's all right

# With me. #

When Kruschev visited the set of Can Can,

he wanted to meet one of the most famous celebrities in the world.

Sinatra held a grand lunch for the Soviet premier.

Having it all in showbusiness, Sinatra began to look to wider horizons.

# He's got high hopes

# 1960's the year

# For his high hopes

# Come on and vote for Kennedy

# Vote for Kennedy and we'll come out on top... #

Sinatra was introduced to John F Kennedy, the Democrat candidate for president in 1960, by Peter Lawford,

who was Kennedy's brother-in-law.

Joseph Kennedy asked my father if he could get Sam Gene Connor

to help him get his son elected as president of the United States.

And my father said, "I'll try."

And my father said, "I'll try."

And he spoke with Sam, who owned several nightclubs where he worked.

Sam Gene Connor was a mobster with massive influence,

especially in America's most powerful union, the Teamsters.

If you trace the story of the Mafia,

from, um, the time of Prohibition in the States in the '20s.

and you move to the music clubs, from the speakeasies,

and then you migrate west to Las Vegas, where they owned all the hotels,

and along the way they got involved in publishing, things like that.

It was impossible to work in showbusiness in the '30s, '40s, '50s and '60s in America

without coming into contact with these people.

# ..Vote for Kennedy And we'll come out on top... #

Sam was very connected to the big unions like the Teamsters union

and wielded a certain power with the voters of these unions.

And Sam, um, agreed to help in a very big way

to sway the election to Kennedy.

And my father had to pay him back, in that sense,

because one hand washes the other.

He had to work for nothing in Sam's clubs. His friends did the same.

That was the deal that they struck.

Senator Kennedy will be the next president of the USA.

But there was certainly nothing underhanded about it, or anything that would be illicit.

Sinatra campaigned all that summer.

The Rat Pack became associated with Kennedy's inner circle

and Sinatra hosted the inauguration ball when Kennedy was elected.

In the same year, he bought into a casino

at Lake Tahoe, literally built on the California-Nevada border.

It was a haven and showcase for his friends.

How long have I been on?

# When you're drinkin'

# When you're drinkin'

# The show looks good to you

# When you're drinkin'

# You get stinkin'

# It helps your point of view

# But when you're sober

# The skies all seem grey

# Yeah, when you're sober

# Life's a pain

# So, keep drinkin'

# That's what I'm thinkin'

# Cos it's what I sorta like to do

# I love Las Vegas... #

NEWSREEL: In a few seconds, you will witness a scene often viewed by the residents of Las Vegas,

but more of a thrill for the visitor.

100 miles from here, scientists detonated an atomic device.

Watch closely for a man-made sun.

ELVIS PRESLEY: # Well, it's one for the money, two for the show

# Three to get ready Now go, cat, go

# But don't you Step on my blue suede shoes

# You can do anything but stay off of my blue suede shoes... #

Presley challenged Sinatra for the position of the most famous singer,

as Sinatra had challenged Crosby.

# 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

# What I wouldn't switch

# Cos there's no nicer witch

# Than... witchcraft

# I love you

# And I always will

BOTH: # For my darling

# I love you... #

Man, that's pretty!

# And I always will. #

FANS SCREAM

I was driving along, and I hear this man singing one of my songs.

Are you out of your goddamned mind?

The arrival of rock 'n' roll put the world of the Rat Pack into a new perspective.

Their high jinks and cool demeanour looked stale and self-absorbed.

Sinatra never came to terms with rock 'n' roll, and he didn't take to the new recording techniques.

He felt a singer should record with the orchestra live in the studio,

and that overdubbing destroyed the interplay between singer and musicians.

He formed a record company, Reprise, and persuaded friends like Ella Fitzgerald and Sammy Davis

to sign for the label.

He was in control of all aspects of his work, or so it seemed.

In 1963, when Sinatra applied to renew the Cal-Neva's gaming licence,

allegations that he was associated with the Mafia surfaced for the first time.

Sam Giancana had been barred by the state authorities from entering any Nevada casino.

I had a telephone call from Eddie King, one of our employees.

He said, "Giancana's here with a lady, and we just broke up a fight."

And at that point I said,

"Get him off the property."

I never invited Mr Giancana to Cal-Neva, I never hosted for him and I never saw him there.

Not everyone in Kennedy's entourage was as enthusiastic about Sinatra as the President had seemed to be.

Bobby Kennedy, in particular, had declared war on organised crime.

Can you tell us anything about your operations?

I decline to answer, as the answer might incriminate me.

I thought only little girls giggle. GIANCANA GIGGLES

The White House increasingly distanced itself from Sinatra after the Cal-Neva incident.

At Palm Springs, Kennedy rejected Sinatra's invitation and stayed with Bing Crosby, a Republican.

At the end of 1963, Kennedy was assassinated. Sinatra's influence at the White House was over.

So too would be his high-profile association with the Democrats.

He abandoned all attempts to renew his gaming licence.

He sold Reprise to Warners for a third of their stock and $3.25 million.

INTERVIEWER: Were you frightened when you went out on the night they returned the boy?

SINATRA: When I didn't find him? I was scared to death when I didn't find him.

16 days after Kennedy's assassination, Frank Sinatra Junior was kidnapped

from a hotel in Lake Tahoe where he was working as a singer.

As a father, were you confident that you'd get your boy back safe?

I had trepidation - I was worried.

But then as I began to get more phone calls, I began to get more heartened.

I thought perhaps that they were...

they weren't out to hurt him, they just wanted the money.

We were pleased to give the money.

At the start, I was pretty frantic.

As a father, I may have been too much of a father from time to time.

Not that my kids are spoiled

but I was so crazy about them, I just crowded them a lot.

The loved it and so did I.

All three of them were great kids.

How did Frankie's mother react?

She was pretty stoic, I might say, but she had her moments.

I've always lived with a dark spot in the back of my mind that this could happen to us,

or any family in the public eye.

At 19, Mia Farrow was famous as a star in the soap opera Peyton Place.

Sinatra met her while starring in Von Ryan's Express. His lot was next to hers at 20th Century Fox.

RICHARD ATTENBOROUGH: I felt it was absolutely real.

She adored him. She absolutely adored him.

He was dependent on the girl. He was very gentle with Mia.

It was a very different relationship than the one with Ava.

The one with Ava you felt might blow up.

The one with Mia was much more gentle.

It was almost an old married couple, you know,

although this "child" was so much younger than him.

PIANO PLAYS: "My Way"

The marriage lasted two years, its brevity put down to the pressures of their different working lives.

SINATRA: I tried to be as good a husband as I could be.

It didn't always work.

It didn't work, but I still has as much love for every one of my mates as it's possible to have.

# And now

# The end is near

# And so I face the final curtain

# My friend, I'll make it clear

# I'll state my case, Of which I'm certain

# I've lived a life that's full

# I've travelled each and every highway

# And more, much more than this

# I did it

# My way

# I've loved

# I've laughed and cried

# I've had my fill, my share of losing

# But now, as tears subside, I find it all

# So amusing

# To think I did all that

# And may I say

# Not in a shy way

# No, no not me

# I did it

# My way

# For what is a man, what has he got?

# If not himself, then he has not

# To say the things he truly feels

# And not the words of one who kneels

# The record shows

# I took the blows

# And did it

# My way

# My way. #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Sinatra claimed never to be that crazy about My Way, but it became his most famous song.

It was astonishingly successful all around the world.

It was in the British charts for two years.

Then he announced his retirement.

And so began, "the longest farewell concert in history".

What shall we talk about?

Your colleagues have honoured you again, are you really retiring?

Yes, that's permanent. That's the answer to it all for me.

Would a really good part get you out of retirement? In a film? No.

Not even a recording.

What are your plans? For the next year - nothing. Just nothing.

Just going to relax? I want to take it easy for a year, or six months or seven months.

I just want to take my wristwatch off and take it easy.

What about a song that you might really dig? I'll tell you in a year.

In 1976, he married for the fourth time - to Barbara Marx.

The marriage endured, but retirement was a vain ambition.

He was performing after three years.

And he was a national institution - honoured all over the world.

The old liaisons withered and he became a republican in support of his old friend Ronald Reagan.

The Rat Pack scattered and he re-hashed old routines with even older pals.

I think everybody went his own way.

Dean is practically a recluse now.

I don't see much of him. We talk a lot on the telephone.

I don't see much of him.

I talk to Sammy a great deal. Recently, he was in Reno,

and I was in Tahoe - but we didn't get to see each other as we work the same hours.

The rest of the guys I hardly see. I don't know where they are any more.

It's one of those things. You don't work together again, that's what the problem is.

It's the same in most industries. You make friends in one division of a job, then someone moves jobs,

and then that's it.

Is it what you expected? It wasn't all that I expected. It wasn't enough? No, not quite enough.

Did you get a lot of pressure to come back? That really started it - all the pressure we've had.

How so? Mail, phone calls. Just talking to people.

'I just feel that every time I went to bat,

'to do something in my work,

'I wanted it to be the best.

'It didn't always happen because there were...

of the frailties of human nature,

with maybe a bad throat or being a bit impatient on a recording session

and saying, "Let's press it, anyway."

But what I've been trying to do all these years is to take popular singing

and make it an art - I believe it's an art all by itself.

# ..A beautiful melody

# From some enchanted land

# Down deep in my heart

# I hear it say

# Is this the day? #

I sighed a lot when he sang at Paramount Theater, New York.

And the most surprising thing happened. I was his co-star,

and my knees began to knock.

I realised the "fan" in me was taking over the leading lady.

I was very excited about meeting my favourite crooner.

I never told Frank that.

# I alone have heard

# This lovely strain

# I alone have heard this glad refrain

# Must it be forever inside of me?

# Why can't I let it go?

# Why can't I let you know?

# Why can't I let you know

# The song my heart would sing?

# That beautiful rhapsody of love and youth and spring

# The music is sweet

# The words are true

# The song is you. #

Frank...

AUDIENCE LAUGHS

I thought there was another guy here. Speak up in here.

It's my pleasure, and honour,

to present you with this wonderful award.

APPLAUSE

Thank you very much, Jimmy.

Thank you - all of you who put this thing together. It's absolutely thrilling.

It really knocked me out. Absolutely knocked me out.

I couldn't have been...more lucky than I've been in my life...

..because of the friendship I had with Jimmy Stewart, Gene Kelly and a whole bunch of people like that.

They all helped along the way, because I...

They won't mind this - I was a little younger than them.

LAUGHTER

But I've loved every minute

that I've had in my life in showbusiness, and without showbusiness.

And I thank you all for coming this evening. There's not much more I can say...

APPLAUSE

# But now the days are short

# I'm in the autumn of the years

# And now I think of my life

# As vintage wine from fine old kegs

# From the brim to the dregs

# It pours sweet and clear

# It was a very good year... #

# Night and day

# You are the one

# Only you beneath the moon

# And under the sun

# Whether near to me or far

# It's not matter, darling

# Where you are

# I think of you

# Day and night

# Night and day

# Why is it so?

# That this longing for you follows... #