From Sinatra's closest confidant and an eventual member of his management team, Tony Oppedisano, comes an extraordinarily intimate look at the singing idol. Deep into the night, for more than two thousand nights, Frank and Tony would converse, about music, family, friends, great loves, achievements and successes, failures and disappointments, the lives they'd led, the lives they wished they'd led
Not many people were allowed inside Frank Sinatra's inner circle. But Tony Consiglio was a boyhood friend of Sinatra's who remained his friend and confidant for over sixty years. One reason Sinatra valued Tony’s friendship is that he could be trusted: Sinatra nicknamed him "the Clam" because Tony never spoke to reporters or biographers about the singer. From the early days when Sinatra was trying to establish himself as a singer to the mid-1960s, Tony worked with Sinatra and was there to share in the highs and lows of Sinatra's life and career. Tony was with Sinatra during his "bobby-soxer" megastar days in the 1940s, and he remained loyal to Sinatra during the lean years of the early 1950s, when "the Voice" was struggling with a crumbling singing and acting career—as well as his tumultuous marriage to Ava Gardner. Tony also had a front row seat to Sinatra's comeback in the 1950s, starting with his Academy Award–winning role in From Here to Eternity and a string of now-classic hit recordings. Tony's friendship with Sinatra allowed him to rub elbows with the Hollywood elite, including Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford, Kim Novak, Ava Gardner, and many others. It also brought him close to the political world of the early 1960s, when Sinatra campaigned for John F. Kennedy and then helped plan the Kennedy inauguration. Tony was even at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis, Massachusetts, when the election results came in. Sinatra and Me will shed new light on the real Frank Sinatra—from the man who knew him better than anyone.
"This is a story of a man who came from humble, tough circumstances and who tried to make something of himself doing the best he could with what he had. He didn't pick the easiest way or the most obvious way too often. He did things the Tony way, which was off the wall and pure genius at the same time. This is a guy who once told me he figured out early on, 'The right way is the wrong way for me.' "Yes, this book is about Sinatra and Gotti, but what might have brought you to page one isn't what makes this story impossible to put down. This is an American story, and a great story at that." -Pat Cooper Jilly's was one of the most popular, famous, as well as notorious nightclubs in New York City during the 1960s, and then again in the late 1970s when it was revived by Tony Delvecchio and Tony Fusco, and hosted by its namesake, Jilly Rizzo, the best friend of Frank Sinatra. The renovated Jilly's once again became the hotspot for A-List celebrities, gangsters, regulars, and wannabes. From John Gotti to Sinatra himself, Jilly's was the place to be - and proprietor Tony Delvecchio ran it day and night with the able service of the fabulous Jilly Girls, plus a few bartenders provided by Mr. Gotti, before his days as the "Teflon Don." Sinatra, Gotti and Me is a lost piece of American pop culture, a missing first-hand glimpse into the lives of the Rat Pack and a long illustrious list of American entertainment, political, sports, and organized crime icons. This is Tony Delvecchio's eye-witness story, unflinchingly told in his own words to author Rich Herschlag.
Taraborrelli is known for capturing and penning the untold stories of icons such as the Hiltons, Michael Jackson, Marilyn Monroe, Diana Ross and the Kennedys and has written a page-turning biography of an extremely talented, sometimes troubled, always fascinating man: the one and only Frank Sinatra. In 1997, Taraborrelli's bestselling Sinatra: Behind the Legend captivated audiences with a never-before seen look at the life of an icon through six years of research and over 425 interviews with associates, friends and lovers. Now, Taraborrelli is back with a completely new and updated lens. Fans of Sinatra--old and new--will be able to delve into the private life and controversy of a musician whose career spans decades. From show business, struggles with depression, his many romances and attaining the American dream, Sinatra's story delivers a captivating and humanizing portrait of the legend for a new age.
"Mr. S: My Life with Frank Sinatra, by former valet-aide George Jacobs with an oh-so-able assist by William Stadiem, has at least five quotable and shocking remarks about the famous on every page. The fifteen years Jacobs toiled for Frank produces a classic of its genre -- a gold-star gossip-lover's dream.... "The rest is showbiz history as it was, and only Ava Gardner, Humphrey Bogart, and Betty Bacall are spared. Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, Juliet Prowse, Noel Coward, Cole Porter, Mia Farrow, Elvis Presley, Swifty Lazar, Dean Martin, Peggy Lee, Sammy Davis Jr., Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, Jimmy van Heusen, Edie Goetz, Peter Lawford, and all of the Kennedys come in for heaping portions of 'deep dish,' served hot. Sordid, trashy, funny, and so rat-a-tat with its smart inside info and hip instant analysis that some of it seems too good to be true....
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • With a new afterword by the author in honor of Frank Sinatra’s 100th birthday This is the book that Frank Sinatra tried—but failed—to keep from publication, and it’s easy to understand why. This unauthorized biography goes behind the iconic myth of Sinatra to expose the well-hidden side of one of the most celebrated—and elusive—public figures of our time. Celebrated journalist Kitty Kelley spent three years researching government documents (Mafia-related material, wiretaps, and secret testimony) and interviewing more than 800 people in Sinatra’s life (family, colleagues, law-enforcement officers, friends). The result is a stunning, often shocking exposé of a man as tortured as he was talented, as driven to self-destruction as he was to success. Featuring a new afterword by the author, this fully documented, highly detailed biography—filled with revealing anecdotes—is the penetrating story of the explosively controversial and undeniably multitalented legend who ruled the entertainment industry for fifty years and continues to fascinate to this day. Praise for His Way “The most eye-opening celebrity biography of our time.”—The New York Times “A compelling page-turner . . . Kitty Kelley’s book has made all future Sinatra biographies virtually redundant.”—Los Angeles Herald Examiner
Barbara Sinatra’s first public love letter to the husband she adored, she celebrates the sensational singer, possessive mate, sexy heartthrob, and devoted friend that she found in Frank in Lady Blue Eyes. For more than two decades, Barbara was always by Frank Sinatra's side, traveling the globe and hosting glittering events for their famous friends, including presidents, kings, queens, Hollywood royalty, and musical legends. Among them were Sammy Davis, Jr., Princess Grace of Monaco, Bob Dylan, and Ronald Reagan. Each night, as Frank publicly wooed his bride with love songs from a concert stage, she’d fall in love with him all over again. From her own humble beginnings in a small town in Missouri to her time as a fashion model and her marriage to Zeppo Marx, Barbara Sinatra reveals a life lived with passion, conviction, and grace. A founder of the Miss Universe pageant and a onetime Vegas showgirl, she raised her only son almost single-handedly in often dire circumstances until, after five years of tempestuous courtship, she and Frank committed to each other wholeheartedly. In stories that leap off the page, she takes us behind the scenes of her iconic husband’s legendary career and paints an intimate portrait of a man who was variously generous, jealous, witty, and wicked. Coupled with revealing insights about many of Frank’s celebrated songs, this is much more than the story of a showbiz marriage. It is a story of passion and of a deep and lifelong love.
Just in time for the Chairman’s centennial, the endlessly absorbing sequel to James Kaplan’s bestselling Frank: The Voice—which completes the definitive biography that Frank Sinatra, justly termed the “Entertainer of the Century,” deserves and requires. Like Peter Guralnick on Elvis, Kaplan goes behind the legend to give us the man in full, in his many guises and aspects: peerless singer, (sometimes) accomplished actor, business mogul, tireless lover, and associate of the powerful and infamous. In 2010’s Frank: The Voice, James Kaplan, in rich, distinctive, compulsively readable prose, told the story of Frank Sinatra’s meteoric rise to fame, subsequent failures, and reinvention as a star of live performance and screen. The story of “Ol’ Blue Eyes” continues with Sinatra: The Chairman, picking up the day after he claimed his Academy Award in 1954 and had reestablished himself as the top recording artist. Sinatra’s life post-Oscar was astonishing in scope and achievement and, occasionally, scandal, including immortal recordings almost too numerous to count, affairs ditto, many memorable films (and more than a few stinkers), Rat Pack hijinks that mesmerized the world with their air of masculine privilege, and an intimate involvement at the intersection of politics and organized crime that continues to shock and astound with its hubris. James Kaplan has orchestrated the wildly disparate aspects of Frank Sinatra’s life and character into an American epic—a towering achievement in biography of a stature befitting its subject.
Frank Sinatra was the best-known entertainer of the twentieth century—infinitely charismatic, lionized and notorious in equal measure. But despite his mammoth fame, Sinatra the man has remained an enigma. Now James Kaplan brings deeper insight than ever before to the complex psyche and turbulent life behind that incomparable voice, from Sinatra’s humble beginning in Hoboken to his fall from grace and Oscar-winning return in From Here to Eternity. Here at last is the biographer who makes the reader feel what it was really like to be Frank Sinatra—as man, as musician, as tortured genius.
