Frank Sinatra Trivia: 75 interesting facts about the legend!

Frank Sinatra was one of the most popular and infuential musical artists of the 20th century. Let’s see some amazing facts and  trivia about him!

1.His full name ws Francis Albert Sinatra

2. He was born on December 12, 1915  and passed away on May 14, 1998.

3. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 150 million records worldwide.

4. Born in Hoboken, New Jersey, to Italian immigrants, Sinatra began his musical career in the swing era with bandleaders Harry James and Tommy Dorsey.

5. Frank Sinatra found success as a solo artist after he signed with Columbia Records in 1943, becoming the idol of the “bobby soxers”.

6. He released his debut album, The Voice of Frank Sinatra, in 1946.

7. Frank Sinatra’s professional career had stalled by the early 1950s, and he turned to Las Vegas, where he became one of its best known performers as part of the Rat Pack.

8. His career was reborn in 1953 with the success of From Here to Eternity and his subsequent Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

9. Frank Sinatra released several critically lauded albums, including In the Wee Small Hours (1955), Songs for Swingin’ Lovers! (1956), Come Fly with Me (1958), Only the Lonely (1958) and Nice ‘n’ Easy (1960).

10. Sinatra left Capitol in 1960 to start his own record label, Reprise Records, and released a string of successful albums.

11. In 1965 he recorded the retrospective September of My Years, starred in the Emmy-winning television special Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music, and scored hits with “Strangers in the Night” and “My Way”.

12. After releasing Sinatra at the Sands, recorded at the Sands Hotel and Casino in Vegas with frequent collaborator Count Basie in early 1966.

13. The following year he recorded one of his most famous collaborations with Tom Jobim, the album Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim.

14. It was followed by 1968’s collaboration with Duke Ellington. Sinatra retired for the first time in 1971, but came out of retirement two years later and recorded several albums and resumed performing at Caesars Palace.

15. In 1980 he scored a Top 40 hit with “New York, New York”.

16. Using his Las Vegas shows as a home base, he toured both within the United States and internationally until a short time before his death in 1998.

17. Sinatra forged a highly successful career as a film actor. After winning an Academy Award for From Here to Eternity, he starred in The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), and received critical acclaim for his performance in The Manchurian Candidate (1962).

18. He appeared in various musicals such as On the Town (1949), Guys and Dolls (1955), High Society (1956), and Pal Joey (1957), and toward the end of his career he became associated with playing detectives, including the title character in Tony Rome (1967).

19. On television, The Frank Sinatra Show began on ABC in 1950, and he continued to make appearances on television throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

20. Sinatra was also heavily involved with politics from the mid-1940s, and actively campaigned for presidents such as Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, though before Kennedy’s death Sinatra’s alleged Mafia connections led to his being snubbed.

21. While Sinatra never formally learned how to read music, he had a natural, intuitive understanding of it, and he worked very hard from a young age to improve his abilities in all aspects of music. A perfectionist, renowned for his impeccable dress sense and cleanliness, he always insisted on recording live with his band.

22. His bright blue eyes earned him the popular nickname “Ol’ Blue Eyes”.

23. Sinatra led a colorful personal life, and was often involved in turbulent affairs with women, such as with his second wife Ava Gardner.

24. He went on to marry Mia Farrow in 1966 and Barbara Marx in 1976.

25. Frank Sinatra had several violent confrontations, usually with journalists he felt had crossed him, or work bosses with whom he had disagreements.

26. He was honored at the Kennedy Center Honors in 1983, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan in 1985, and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1997.

27. Sinatra was also the recipient of eleven Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Trustees Award, Grammy Legend Award and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

28. After his death, American music critic Robert Christgau called him “the greatest singer of the 20th century”, and he continues to be seen as an iconic figure.

29. Frank Sinatra weighed 13.5 pounds (6.1 kg) at birth and had to be delivered with the aid of forceps, which caused severe scarring to his left cheek, neck, and ear, and perforated his ear drum, damage that remained for life.

30. Due to his injuries at birth, his baptism at St. Francis Church in Hoboken was delayed until April 2, 1916.

31. A childhood operation on his mastoid bone left major scarring on his neck, and during adolescence he suffered from cystic acne that scarred his face and neck.

32. Sinatra was raised Roman Catholic

33. When Sinatra’s mother was a child, her pretty face earned her the nickname “Dolly”. Energetic and driven biographers believe that she was the dominant factor in the development of her son’s personality traits and extraordinary self-confidence.

34. Barbara Sinatra claims that Dolly was abusive to him as a child, and “knocked him around a lot”

35. Sinatra developed an interest in music, particularly big band jazz, at a young age. He listened to Gene Austin, Rudy Vallée, Russ Colombo, and Bob Eberly, and “idolized” Bing Crosby.

36. Sinatra’s maternal uncle, Domenico, gave him a ukulele for his 15th birthday, and he began performing at family gatherings.

37. Sinatra attended David E. Rue Jr. High School from 1928, and A. J. Demarest High School in 1931, where he arranged bands for school dances.

38. He left without graduating, having attended only 47 days before being expelled for “general rowdiness”.

39. To please his mother, he enrolled at Drake Business School, but departed after 11 months.

40. Dolly found Sinatra work as a delivery boy at the Jersey Observer newspaper, where his godfather Frank Garrick worked,[f] and after that, Sinatra was a riveter at the Tietjen and Lang shipyard.

41. He performed in local Hoboken social clubs such as The Cat’s Meow and The Comedy Club, and sang for free on radio stations such as WAAT in Jersey City.

42. In New York, Sinatra found jobs singing for his supper or for cigarettes.

43. To improve his speech, he began taking elocution lessons for a dollar each from vocal coach John Quinlan, who was one of the first people to notice his impressive vocal range.

44. Sinatra’s phenomenal success in 1965, coinciding with his 50th birthday, prompted Billboard to proclaim that he may have reached the “peak of his eminence”.

45. In June 1965, Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Dean Martin played live in St. Louis to benefit Dismas House, a prisoner rehabilitation and training center with nationwide programs that in particular helped serve African Americans.

46. While Sinatra never formally learned how to read music, he had a fine, natural understanding of it, and he worked very hard from a young age to improve his abilities in all aspects of music

47. Voice coach John Quinlan was impressed by Sinatra’s vocal range, remarking, “He has far more voice that people think he has. He can vocalize to a B-flat on top in full voice, and he doesn’t need a mic either”.

48. As a singer, early on he was primarily influenced by Bing Crosby,[37] but later believed that Tony Bennett was “the best singer in the business”. [350] Bennett also praised Sinatra himself, claiming that as a performer, he had “perfected the art of intimacy.”

49. His timing was impeccable, allowing him, according to Charles L. Granata, to “toy with the rhythm of a melody, bringing tremendous excitement to his reading of a lyric”

50. Frank Sinatra had three children, Nancy (born 1940), Frank Jr. (1944–2016), and Tina (born 1948), all with his first wife, Nancy Sinatra (née Barbato; born September 11, 1917) (m. 1939–1951).

51. Frank Sinatra had met Barbato in Long Branch, New Jersey in the late 1930s, where he spent most of the summer working as a lifeguard.

52. He agreed to marry her after an incident at “The Rustic Cabin” which led to his arrest.

53. Sinatra had numerous extra-marital affairs, and gossip magazines published details of affairs with women including Marilyn Maxwell, Lana Turner, and Joi Lansing.

54. Sinatra was close friends with Jilly Rizzo, songwriter Jimmy Van Heusen, golfer Ken Venturi, comedian Pat Henry and baseball manager Leo Durocher.

55. In his spare time, Sinatra enjoyed listening to classical music, and would attend concerts when he could.

56. He swam daily in the Pacific Ocean, finding it to be therapeutic and giving him much-needed solitude.

57. He would often play golf with Venturi at the course in Palm Springs, where he lived, and liked painting, reading, and building model railways.

58. Though Sinatra was critical of the church on numerous occasions, and had an Albert Einstein-like view of God in his earlier life, he turned to the Roman Catholic Church for healing after his mother died in a plane crash in 1977.

59. He died as a practicing Catholic and had a Catholic burial

60. Sinatra became the stereotype of the “tough working-class Italian American”, something which he embraced.

61. Sinatra commented that if it had not been for his interest in music he would “probably have ended in a life of crime”.

62. In his early days, Mafia boss Willie Moretti, Sinatra’s godfather and notorious underboss of the Genovese crime family, helped him for kickbacks and was reported to have intervened in releasing him from his contract with Tommy Dorsey.

63. Sinatra was present at the Mafia Havana Conference in 1946, and when the press learned of Sinatra being in Havana with Lucky Luciano, one newspaper published the headline, “Shame, Sinatra”. He was reported to be a good friend of Sam Giancana, and the two were seen playing golf together.

64. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) kept records amounting to 2,403 pages on Sinatra, becoming a natural target with his alleged Mafia ties, his ardent New Deal politics and his friendship with John F. Kennedy.

64. The FBI kept Sinatra under surveillance for almost five decades beginning in the 1940s. The documents include accounts of Sinatra as the target of death threats and extortion schemes.

65. The FBI documented that Sinatra was losing esteem with the Mafia as he grew closer to President Kennedy, whose brother Bobby was leading a crackdown on organized crime. Sinatra denied Mafia involvement.

66. In 1960, Sinatra bought a share in the Cal Neva Lodge & Casino, a casino hotel which straddles the border between Nevada and California on the north shores of Lake Tahoe. Though it only opened between June and September, Sinatra built the Celebrity Room theater, which attracted the other Rat Pack members, Red Skelton, Marilyn Monroe, Victor Borge, Joe E. Lewis, Lucille Ball, Lena Horne, Juliet Prowse, the McGuire Sisters and others.

67. By 1962 he reportedly held a 50% share in the hotel. Sinatra’s gambling license was temporarily stripped by the Nevada Gaming Control Board in 1963 after Giancana was spotted on the premises. Due to ongoing pressure from the FBI and Nevada Gaming Commission on mobster control of casinos, Sinatra agreed to give up his share in Cal Neva and the Sands.

68. That year, Sinatra’s son, Frank Sinatra, Jr., was kidnapped, but was eventually released unharmed. Sinatra restored his gaming license in February 1981, following support from Ronald Reagan.

69. Sinatra died with his wife at his side at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on May 14, 1998, aged 82, after a heart attack.

70. Sinatra had ill health during the last few years of his life, and was frequently hospitalized for heart and breathing problems, high blood pressure, pneumonia and bladder cancer. He was further diagnosed as having dementia

71. He had made no public appearances following a heart attack in February 1997.

72. Sinatra’s wife encouraged him to “fight” while attempts were made to stabilize him, and his final words were, “I’m losing.”

73. Sinatra was buried in a blue business suit with mementos from family members—cherry-flavored Life Savers, Tootsie Rolls, a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, a pack of Camel cigarettes, a Zippo lighter, stuffed toys, a dog biscuit, and a roll of dimes that he always carried—next to his parents in section B-8 of Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California.

74. His close friends Jilly Rizzo and Jimmy Van Heusen are buried nearby.

75. The words “The Best Is Yet to Come”, plus “Beloved Husband & Father” are imprinted on Sinatra’s grave marker.
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