Frank Sinatra was a man of many names — “The Sultan of Swoon,” “Ol’ Blue Eyes,” and “Chairman of the Board,” to name just a few — but it was his reputation as “The Voice” that made him one of the most popular entertainers of the 20th century. He began his career in 1935 when he joined a local singing group called the 3 Flashes (later known as the Hoboken Four), and within five years, he had recorded his first big hit, “Polka Dots and Moonbeams,” with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. By 1942, the U.S. was fully in the grips of “Sinatramania.”
His fame continued to grow over the next several decades, thanks to songs such as “My Way,” “Fly Me to the Moon,” and “New York, New York,” as well as acclaimed performances in films including From Here to Eternity, Guys and Dolls, and The Manchurian Candidate. His personal life was the stuff of legend, too — full of glitz, glamour, and controversy. The crooner rubbed elbows with (and even romanced) some of Hollywood’s biggest stars — including actresses Ava Gardner and Mia Farrow, whom he married in 1951 and 1966, respectively — but he also reportedly fraternized with certain unsavory types. Read on for the story behind that and other fascinating facts you may not know about the singular star.
He Was Thought to Be Stillborn at Birth
Sinatra was born on December 12, 1915, in Hoboken, New Jersey — and his birth was complicated, to say the least. He weighed 13 pounds and had to be delivered using forceps, which left his face permanently scarred, and when he came out, he was blue and unresponsive, so doctors thought he was stillborn. If not for the heroic efforts of his grandmother, who ran her newborn grandson under cold water and slapped his back, Sinatra might never have lived his remarkable life.
He Was One of America’s First Teen Idols
Fourteen years before Elvis Presley’s swiveling hips incited a frenzy on The Milton Berle Show, 27-year-old Frank Sinatra caused a commotion with his own surprisingly huge teenage fangirl following. On the first night of a series of shows at New York City’s Paramount Theater in December 1942, Sinatra came face-to-face with a throng of screaming girls. “The sound that greeted me was absolutely deafening,” Sinatra recalled years later, adding that he “was scared stiff” by the pandemonium.
That encounter was just the first of many. Young fans — known as “bobby-soxers” because of the ankle socks they often wore — pledged their love and loyalty to the crooner and made a show of swooning over him in public. In the early days of his career, his publicist George Evans added to the hype by auditioning and paying young women to act extra-enthusiastic, but this supposedly faux love affair turned genuine as America fell under the spell of “Sinatramania.”
The FBI Kept a File on Him for 40 Years
Bobby-soxers weren’t the only ones who followed Sinatra’s every move. The FBI kept a massive file on him, detailing his life and relationships for four decades. They were especially interested in his alleged ties to people involved with organized crime. Sinatra reportedly had a friendship with Chicago crime boss Sam Giancana, and was also said to have received gifts from Joseph and Charles Fischetti, who ran an illegal gambling operation. The file even includes an account of him making an appearance in Atlantic City during the wedding of Philadelphia mob boss Angelo Bruno’s daughter.
Sinatra wasn’t exactly shy about his social interactions with mafiosi — they owned many of the establishments where he performed, after all — but he steadfastly denied having any close personal or business connections to the mob, and resented the many rumors implying otherwise. He famously took issue with The Godfather because of the perception that the character Johnny Fontane, a singer with ties to organized crime families, was based on him. According to author Mario Puzo, who wrote the novel that inspired the film, he and Sinatra got into an argument over the insinuation at a restaurant near Beverly Hills.
Sinatra’s FBI file wasn’t just a record of his own comings and goings, of course. It also included threats made against him by would-be extortioners and blackmailers, as well as details of the bureau’s investigation into the 1963 kidnapping of his son Frank Sinatra Jr. (Frank Jr. was rescued, and all three kidnappers were caught and convicted.)
He Was a Member of Two Rat Packs
The Rat Pack is best known as a group of entertainers including Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Joey Bishop, and Peter Lawford. They frequently teamed up both on- and off-screen, most famously in the 1960 heist film Ocean’s 11 and as regulars on the Las Vegas circuit. But the Rat Pack most of us know was actually the second iteration of the group.
The first Rat Pack formed in the 1950s around actor Humphrey Bogart, whose wife, actress Lauren Bacall, came up with the name after a wild weekend in Vegas with friends including Sinatra, Judy Garland, and David Niven. The story goes that Bacall took one look at the disheveled and sleep-deprived crew and told them they looked like a “rat pack.” The sobriquet stuck, and a Hollywood legend was born. After Bogie’s death in 1957, Sinatra took over the group and added some of his close friends as members, though they reportedly referred to themselves as “the Clan” or “the Summit.”
He's Credited With Creating the Modern Concept Album
Sinatra’s contributions to and influence on the music industry cannot be overstated. There’s a reason he was known as “The Voice” — his singular baritone set the standard for many well-known tunes in the Great American Songbook. He is also credited as one of the first artists to pioneer and popularize the modern concept album. Pop records used to be simple collections of songs with one or two hits and little to no connective tissue between them, but Sinatra changed that with 1955’s In the Wee Small Hours. For his ninth studio album, he aimed to create a pervasive feeling of loneliness and heartbreak that stretched from the first song ("In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning") to the last ("This Love of Mine"), and even to the melancholy cover art.
Sinatra went on to create several other thematic albums over the next few decades — standouts include 1956’s Songs for Swingin’ Lovers! and 1970’s Watertown — but eventually artists such as the Beach Boys and the Beatles adopted the idea and cemented the concept album as an indelible piece of rock ’n’ roll canon.
He Has an Asteroid Named After Him
Frank Sinatra left this world on May 14, 1998, at the age of 82, but his star power lives on in an actual celestial body. Named 7934 Sinatra in the singer’s honor, the asteroid was discovered in September 1989 by E. W. Elst at the European Southern Observatory. It’s located in an orbit between Mars and Jupiter, where it can “play among the stars” and “see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars.”