◆ SpookStack

THE IN. BETWEEN YEARS 1946 came and with it the apparent good fortunes of Frank Sinatra came to a screeching halt. The suddenness of his fall from the heights of popular success was much faster than his rise to the top of the heap. A lot of people discovered simultaneously that Frank Sinatra was washed up. In the thou- sands of music shops that used to sell “Sinatras” like hot cakes, his records collected nothing but dust and the un- complimentary remarks of the store managers... Suddenly there were no more club dates. About the only work Sinatra got in the clubs was of a pugi- listic nature, if you believed the £Os- sip columnists. And Metro Goldwyn Mayer apparently thought they had a has-been on their hands. The studio failed to take up the option on his contract. In the next six years, the only thing that still came Sinatra’s way was publicity. He got plenty of that. It was not the carefully planned, informa- tive handouts of paid publicists. It was not part of a carefully arranged build-up to sell records, or movies, or personal appearances. It was unsched- uled, off-the-cuff news reporting—and the reporters had a field day. Here was a name that almost 25