Sinatra: The Entertainer

This book is rather reminiscent of Ernest Hemingway's wastepaper basket - a fascinating hodgepodge of miscellanious excellence. The quotes by Sinatra printed here are shamefully rare, and tantalizingly brief bits of articles are both interesting and ironic. For instance a bit of Barbara Walters pre-feud Sinatra adoration; she found him one of the most appealing men of 1971... There are two or three pictures I've never seen before that are marvelous, and the dry, intelligent, sensible voice of Arnold Shaw flavors the pages nicely. One thing I found refreshing was a plentiful supply of POSITIVE Sinatra reviews, of all things! The trend in most biographies is to pick out every bad review ever written on Mr.Sinatra and paste it in blaring color alongside unattractive words like ''bomb'' and ''failure.'' The thing I find almost laughably apalling in the vast majority of Sinatra biographies is the biographers' stubborn insistence that they, being unbiased in their unanimous dislike for the singer, are not about to fall into the trap of sugar-coated reviews and A-list admirers. Ah, no, instead they will print the stark, desperate ''realities'' of Mr.Sinatra's ''failures'' in his career. This is, quite frankly, idiotic, and equally prejudiced, though much nastier than his worshippers. Arnold Shaw, on the whole, does not do that, and the reviews are relatively evenly divided between wonderful quotes by Stanley Kramer, Bogey, Betty Grable, ect., and what I have to grudgingly admit are rather witty disdainful reviews for several of his films. Reading Shaw's previous book on Sinatra, a generally fair and eloquent affair, it's fascinating to note what the author and others predict for Sinatra's future. Now, about fourteen years later, comes the follow-up. Interesting. Too much of the thin volume is devoted to filmography, discography, ect., but I am not the greatest judge since I memorized it all long ago. On the other hand, a 1980 favorite Sinatra song poll is included, and though I suppose I'm a sucker for Sinatra polls, there are probably a lot of other people who will find it fairly interesting, as I did.(That's an akward sentence.Sorry) These vintage biographies are usually loaded with mistakes and sometimes irritatingly blind to the importance of Frank Sinatra, mobsters, bad temper, insults and all. Of course, with the Empire State Building lit in blue twice in his honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Medal of Honor to his name, a still steady stream of Sinatra books and articles, and thousands of people who live their lives to a Sinatra soundtrack( like, well, me) immortality and undimmed significance are ineveitable. Of course in 1969 and 1982 they could not know Sinatra would in legend last forever. He will. Now, nine years after his death, I am fourteen, and I guess it's fairly obvious how much ''the saloon singer,'' in life, in legend, in movies, and naturally music, means to me. I read every Sinatra book I can ge