◆ SpookStack

pounds of weight around when he wishes was indicated by a situation that devel- oped when he held his Summit _—+ting at his favorite Miami Beach h this past March. Sammy Davis, Jr, was un- der exclusive contract to another hotel; his contract stated he could not appear, even in an informal, impromptu way, . anywhere else in Miami Beach. Sinatra. made a telephone call to the manager holding the contract. “When Frank wants something, he drips charm,” a friend says. He wanted Davis. Before the man- ager could object, Sinatra had proposed a solution, ue about, making an ex- ception? he’ said. “We ‘won'l advertise him; as far as the general public knows, you'll still have bim exclusively.” And he promised to make it seem that Davis had just dropped in to sce his pals. Then he promised a favor to the manager; the Jatter agreed ; Sammy Davis, Jr., appeared. What all of this means to you is that Francis Albert Sinatra exercises a most powerful control over much of what you enjoy {or don’t enjoy} in films, on tele- vision, on records, on the radio, in night- clubs—indeed, in every medium of en- terfainment except newspapers and mag- azines. To Sinatra's apparently intense disgust, there is very little he can do about controlling the press. Nevertheless, he tries. When any clearly independent writer is about to do a story on him, he throws a blanket of silence over all his companions. Sometimes he threatens law- suits. Occasionally he actually does sue when a published article displeases him. Sinatra’s influence es a pace setter is unparalleled in Hollywood. The infer- mality of many recent TV extravaganzas (shows in which a couple of singers sim- ply stand around and sing snatches of tunes) is an attempt to copy the success- ful shows Sinatra has done. Sinatra also has tremendous influence on the changing styles of music. It used to be that most singers sang ballads with strings or soft reeds as a hackground. Sinatra has always liked to sing with a strong beat. In recent years he has been making more and more records with Nelson Riddle, an arranger known for his use af dynamics and for his contrasts in brass and strings. Many other sing- ers are hiring Riddle-oriented arrangers and leaders. FULty aware of all these facts, Si- natra still does not seem to live com- fortably with them. He continues to as- sert himself as though he were climbing and not yet on the top. The root of Sinatra's behavior—which. because he ix both powerful and seem- ingly insatiable, could conceivably deter- mine the quality of the entertainment you eee and hear—may lie in his chilling awareness that if he has net yet begun to slip he ultimately will. All performers fall out of favor eventually to ~ome de- gree: this is as sure as the change of searons in nature. Yet Sinatra evidently refuses to recognize inevitability: he is, he seems hound fo proclaim over and aver, the indestructible exception. Hi« attitude seen tn he that failure must nor happen to him. He will fight it off by sheer power. 180 tidal wave of his personal popularity. Failure is qniy for those he calls the “clydes”—the “squares,” the inepts, those on whom fortune has not smiled. In 1951 and 1952 Sinatra himself a) peared to have reached the end of one of the most fantastic ropes ever woven by pure appeal to the ticket-buying pub- lic. From 1945 on he had been earning over a million dollara a year: highbrow © magazines were printing articles about his unprecedented hold on not only the swooning teen-agers but also their par- -ents and even their grandparents. His rise had made those of Rudy Vallee and Bing Crosby seem like ripples beside the LL A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, his home film studio, was disturbed by his habit of pro- ducing unfavorable headlines; his rec- ords were not selling as well as they had. been; even in nightclubs he was not drawing as he once had. He seemed to be washed up. He was broke, and he was borrowing from friends. His second mar- Tigge, to Ava Gardner, was falling apart. . He was as low as a man of his former eminence could get. Then he pulled him- self off the floor. Buddy Adler, now production chief at Twentieth Century-Fox, was a Columbia Pictures producer under the bombastic and autocratic Harry Cohn. Sinatra went to Adler and offered to play Maggio in From Here to Eternity for nothing. (Or his agents made the offer; there are as many versions of this story as there are people to tell it.) Adler tested him re- luctantly, Sinatra finally got the part and was given eight thousand dollars for his services—plus, eventually, an Acad- emy Award; plus, almost at once, an even greater measure of esteem than he had had hefore. Hit films followed. one after another. He was red-hot again. Today Sinatra refuses to admit he was ever down and close to being out. “What do they mean, I was finished?” he once shouted, a friend reports. “I was never finished!” “You were close. Frank.” the friend said placatingly (nearly ali Sinatra's friends are accustomed to speaking to him in soothing tones). “I was never finished!” he yelled. ac- cording to this friend. “I showed them, didn’t I?” There is no denying it. But somewhere, under the red-faced belligerence, there may be a small, pulsating vein of. un- certainty. Of late Sinatra has been getting enough had reviews to unsettle the average per- former. Few critica saw anything valid in his performance in Some Came Run- ning; the picture was received almost as badly asx James Jones's original book had been. In the London Daily Express, critic-pianist Robin Douplas-Home wrote of Sinatea’s last long-playing reeerd: {He is nat] “up to brifliant standard, . . . The roundness of his vaice of the carly days seem= to have given way recently to a harsher, coarser tone thal gels more pronounced with each new record... .” John Croby, the television and radio col. umnist, revently eaid, “I have always “and more. “with, a mental : group,. Jed. at once, Sinatra was in trouble. came digeeeetaieden ween ~ thought he ~~ formers th columnist for a news magazine ree wrote of Sinatra’s performance in| Can; “His tired voice and gestures suggest to moviegoers ... that < is setting in.” ~ ER GINATRA bh himself i is hoarding and “ banding “the Voice.” Except wi cording, he usually tries to av with a big, - ‘dynamic ban show coming up. He want at once. He offered to fly 1 Goodman « substitute ‘musician, th send Norvo back. When it became < that Norvo could not make proper. con nections in time, Sinatra was furio - at himself, for forgetting. : = ' Many of Sinatra’s rages are directed eat himself. Before he moved ‘into the $250,000 house he now occupies in scific = Palisades, he lived in a small da ec Be erly Hills. Agent Irving Paul L Laiar next door, in a mirror-image. apartment:}A | decorated, as Sinatra’s had been,'- by: Loretta Young's mother, Mrs. Gladye: 3 Belzer. Often Lazar would come homey lata at night end sae Cinatra alana tn | sSte Of Mignt ana set Sinstra aione ims flat, hunched over a table with a and a glass hefore him, brooding ; something he had done or had failed “t do, the hi-fi aystem rattling ‘desolate! against the walls. “I used to try to ché he got in one of those moods, th nothing anybody could do,” does some nice things. Once, on i in Spain, he was furious at one 9 prop kids for something; he said -b would have him fired. Then, later, wh he was feeling better, he’ heard the’ on himself than he is on. i . Using Norvo': 's-acoomips the only way in which rh preserve his voice. Three 3 yea ago, nightclub date, -he would come: stage, eyes blazing, fingers snapp sing 15 or. 20 ‘songs ins CCCMEIC sponding -to the ~tumu with a half-dozen’ encores. In, pearances I have seen hi iox make, as dom has sung g more LAR One ¢DOK any given song. has sung , and often has abandoned: ‘sme x after « few lines, Alea. of late, he heen resorting to such tricks<as Wwe his own words and brates ia help him get over the