Deep in the heart of me: how I knocked down Frank Sinatra in round one

"The Beatles ruined music" was something my dad used to say pretty regularly when I was growing up. He apparently never got over the sight of the Fab Four shrilly declaiming their cheesy pop songs, shaking their over-long hair, grinning, wisecracking and being proper rascals on fuzzy black-and-white TV. "Shut up dad, don't blame me for the Beatles, I don't even like them", I never quite said. Instead I let him bang on about Frank Sinatra for a couple of minutes ("listen to his phrasing, no-one else can do it like this") and mentally winced when he called him "ol' blue eyes" for the 600th time. Yeah man, this low-key generational psychodrama haunted my childhood. Sort of. Actually, I gradually got used to the paternal Sinatra worship and accepted it as a marginal positive. Better to have a parent who liked music (of some sort or another), than one who doesn't. Anyway, some of this came flooding back this weekend because I've been reading Gay Talese's Frank Sinatra Has A Cold, his semi-famous essay from that golden year 1966. This long splurge of so-called "New Journalism", a very "writerly" exercise which - in this case - involved writing at length about a central protagonist (Mr Sinatra) who the author never personally interviews, didn't, in my opinion, seem especially radical or even unusual, though evidently it was at the time of publication. In any case, I have to say I pretty much hated it. Here's a sample:

"Sinatra with a cold is Picasso without paint. Ferrari without fuel - only worse. For the common cold robs Sinatra of that uninsurable jewel, his voice, cutting into the core of his confidence, and it not only affects his own psyche but also seems to cause a kind of psychosomatic nasal drip within dozens of people who work for him, drink with him, love him, depend on him for their own welfare and stability."

Yes, uninsurable jewel. Showy stuff indeed. Talese appears to go in deep on Sinatra in the 40-odd pages of the essay, deconstructing the sixties uber-celebrity of a man who apparently had a personal staff of 75 (including a valet), his own record company, his own airline, multiple properties, and - gulp - his own "missile-parts firm". Never mind that wonderful vocal phrasing, dad, what about the missiles? But for all that Talese delves into the grotequeries of celebrity - the hangers-on and sycophants, Sinatra's own imperiousness and sullen spoilt child-man behaviour - Talese seems to remain at heart a Sinatra fan. A questioning acolyte, perhaps, but still an acolyte. In one description Sinatra might be moody and withdrawn as he sits in a late-hours club, but "he was, as usual, immaculately dressed". His staff-cum-entourage who hang around with him in bars, in casinos and even in the recording studio, apparently receive a sort of undying loyalty from Sinatra but, says Talese, "they are wise to remember, however, one thing. He is Sinatra. The boss. Il Padrone." Hmm, sounds ominous but characteristically Talese doesn't really take this anywhere. The essay plays out against a backdrop of Sinatra apparently being worried about a forthcoming CBS TV programme which was rumoured to be investigating his alleged links to the mafia and other unsavoury matters. We learn that these fears prove unfounded and the programme ends up being wholly positive but Talese himself leaves the alleged mafioso side of Sinatra untouched apart from the odd lightweight remark about Sinatra's "Sicilian side". In fact I think Talese comes close to glamourising this aspect, saying things like, "A part of Sinatra, no matter where he is, is never there. There is always a part of him, though sometimes a small part, that remains Il Padrone." Sure Gay, he's the padrone (boss man) but he's basically OK, a genial, velvet-voiced king among his admiring court. There's a memorable scene in the essay where Sinatra apparently has a confrontation with a youngish beatnik-hippy type in the poolroom at the back of a private club which Sinatra treats as his personal fiefdom. The person in question was Harlan Ellison, a writer (later well known for his sci-fi fiction) who was evidently wearing clothes that Sinatra disliked, including some hunting boots ("game warden" boots). Talese describes it like this:

"Finally, Sinatra could not contain himself. 'Hey', he yelled, in his slightly harsh voice that still had a soft-sharp edge. 'Those Italian boots?' 'No', Ellison said. 'Spanish?' 'No'. 'Are they English boots?' 'Look, I dunno, man', Ellison shot back, frowning at Sinatra, then turning away again. Now the poolroom was suddenly silent ... Then Sinatra moved away from the stool and walked with that slow, arrogant swagger of his toward Ellison, the hard tap of Sinatra's shoes the only sound in the room. Then looking down at Ellison with a slightly raised eyebrow and a tricky little smile, Sinatra asked, 'You expecting a storm?' Harlan Ellison moved a step to the side. 'Look, is there any reason why you're talking to me?' 'I don't like the way you're dressed', Sinatra said. 'Hate to shake you up', Ellison said, 'but I dress to suit myself'."

After this little outburst of pettiness from Sinatra things apparently fizzled out after Ellison (sensibly) exited the poolroom leaving Sinatra to stew in his own alpha-male juices. Talese tells us all this at length and might almost seem to be critiquing Sinatra, but, says Talese, it "seemed that Sinatra was only half-serious, perhaps just reacting out of sheer boredom or inner despair". Bullying conveniently explained. Afterwards Sinatra is heard telling the club's manager, "I don't want anybody in here without jacket and ties". Possibly I'm doing Talese a disservice here - he does, after all, show us some of these unflattering sides to Sinatra's behaviour. But neverthless, I find Talese's writing too much of a piece with the machismo-heavy values of the era. The women in the essay are either relatives of Sinatra's and therefore part of his charmed inner circle, or they're women hanging around in clubs ("attractive but fading blondes", in Talese's words). We get to hear about an actress who appears in a film with Sinatra - the "sultry blonde actress Virna Lisi" - and the essay ends with a seemingly invented scene where a woman in the street is dazzled by a chance sighting of Sinatra while the great man sits in his car at traffic lights.

Boxing clever?: essays by Gay Talese

No, Talese's account of Sinatra pull its punches even as it mentions the various ex-boxers who hang out with the superstar singer. (Boxing, it seems, is a big thing in Talese's world. My Penguin edition of his essays has no less than three separate pieces devoted to boxers: Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis and Floyd Patterson.) Presumably Talese's employers at Esquire magazine wouldn't have tolerated an article that dug too deep into Sinatra's darker side (lawsuits would no doubt have crashed down on their heads almost instantly) but Talese's supposedly raw, demystifying article does quite a lot of mystifying in its own right if you ask me. It purports to get under the skin of Sinatra but ends up giving his skin little more than a light pre-bout rub-down. "I've got you under my skin /I've got you deep in the heart of me", sings Sinatra in one of his best-known (and typically tiresome) songs. To my mind there's always been something slightly repulsive about the "swing" and finger-clicking, male-bantering swagger of the Rat Pack crowd, with Sinatra the worst of the lot. Rather than what my dad heard when he heard Sinatra's intonations, I hear the insouciance of a bully steeped in hand-me-down romanticism and wounded male pride. Spare me Sinatra and give me Sid Vicious any day.