Biography of Famous Popular Singers Frank Sinatra Part 2

About the famous popular singer Frank Sinatra, history and biography of ol' Blue Eyes.

Frank Sinatra (1915- ).

It took 5 years for Sinatra and the aforementioned George Evans to find each other. Evans hired bobby-soxers, as teen-agers were then called, at $5 per girl to fill the Paramount Theater, to faint, swoon, scream, cause a mob scene, and make page one of every newspaper in New York. Not so incidentally, Sinatra's income rose from $15 to $25,000 a week. His star ascendency rose, too: In 1943 he made his movie debut in Higher and higher. In 1945, he received a special Oscar for his performance in The House I Live In, a short subject devoted to the theme of tolerance. In 1953 he won an Oscar for his supporting role of Maggio in From Here to Eternity. In the decade after Higher and Higher, his personal life went lower and lower. During his marriage to Nancy there were 3 children: Nancy Jr., Frank Jr., and Christina. The marriage broke up. In 1951, he married screen-star glamor-girl Ava Gardner. They divorced in 1957. He was subsequently to marry actress Mia Farrow in 1966, and divorce her in 1968.

He had frequent overpublicized altercations with newspapermen and photographers. He starred in some memorable films, however, among them Anchors Aweigh, Till the Clouds Roll By, It Happened in Brooklyn, The Miracle of the Bells, and On the Town.

But he literally begged the producer and head of Columbia Pictures, Harry Cohn, for the Maggio part in Eternity, offering to work for almost nothing. He got the role. After Eternity, he was able to diversify: He did heavy drama in The Man with the Golden Arm and The Detective; musical comedy in Guys and Dolls; and comedy-drama in Von Ryan's Express.

In 1965, his television special Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music won a Peabody Award and several Emmys. In 1971, he announced his retirement in a tear-choked concert at the Los Angeles Music Center.

That retirement lasted all of 2 years. He is back at work recording, doing TV specials, and appearing at benefits.

As for his private life, even fearless news-writers hesitate to challenge the legend. He is volatile: Witness his outbursts to a news-woman in Washington, D.C., and his headlines in Australia during a 1974 tour. He is kind: Innumerable unknowns in dire need have received financial help from Sinatra. He would be the 1st to deny it. He is a political activist. He is fiercely loyal. He is a sex symbol. There are few women who would refuse a date with him. Apocryphally, he zoomed Wheaties stock sky-high years ago, when he jokingly credited the cereal for his prowess.

He is a perfectionist as an entertainer. One of a kind. Although there are times when if one closes one's eyes and listens to Frank, Jr., just possibly . . .

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