Frank Sinatra
One of the most sought-after performers in the entertainment industry, Francis Albert “Frank” Sinatra, often hailed as the greatest American singer of 20th-century popular music. He was born on December 12, 1915 in Hoboken, New Jersey. Frank Sinatra got his first break in 1935 when his mother persuaded a local singing group, The Three Flashes, to let him join. The group was known as the Hoboken Four, and they sufficiently impressed Edward Bowes.
In May 1941, Frank Sinatra was at the top of the male singer polls in the Billboard and Down Beat magazines. His appeal to bobby soxers, as teenage girls of that time were called, revealed a whole new audience for popular music. The rebirth of Frank Sinatra’s career began with the eve-of-Pearl Harbor drama From Here to Eternity (1953), for which he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. By the end of the year, Billboard had named “Young at Heart” Song of the Year; Swing Easy!, with Nelson Riddle at the helm, was named Album of the Year; and he was named “Top Male Vocalist” by Billboard, Down Beat and Metronome. Frank Sinatra 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”. In 1980, Frank Sinatra’s first album in six years was released, Trilogy: Past Pesent Future, garnered six Grammy nominations, winning for best liner notes, and peaked at number 17 on Billboard’s album chart.
Frank Sinatra began to show signs of senility in his last years and after a heart attack in February 1997, he made no further public appearances. After suffering another heart attack, he died at 10:50 pm on May 14, 1998 at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, with his wife Barbara by his side.
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