The actor in Sinatra

If you are a fan of old films, like I am, it is likely that you must have seen the movies From Here to Eternity (1953), Ocean’s 11 (1960), Manchurian Candidate (1962). These movies have somethings in common. They starred the Chairman of the Board Frank Sinatra and remakes of these movies have been done. Ocean’s 11, the remake had an ensemble cast of George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts and Matt Damon. The Manchurian Candidate had Denzel Washington in the lead character. And some critics say Sinatra’s From Here to Eternity is better than Ben Affleck’s Pearl Harbor drama many times over.

From Here to Eternity, aside from being the biggest winner at the box-office in that year (1953) won eight Academy Awards: Best Picture – Buddy Adler, producer; Best Supporting Actor – Frank Sinatra; Best Supporting Actress – Donna Reed; Best Cinematography, black-and-white – Burnett Guffey; Directing – Fred Zinnemann; Best Film Editing – William Lyon; Best Sound, Recording – John Livadary; Best Writing, Screenplay – Daniel Taradash. The film tells the story of the lives of American servicemen at a military camp in Hawaii before the Japanese’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

The 1962 Manchurian Candidate, which was adapted from the 1959 novel written by Richard Condon, is listed in Time Magazine’s "100 Best Films of all Time." Directed by John Frankenheimer, it also starred aside from Sinatra, Laurence Harvey and Janet Leigh. It tells the story of how a son of a political family is brainwashed into becoming an unwilling assassin for the Communist Party. The 2001 version of Manchurian Candidate, in spite of the good reviews, fared poorly at the box-office.

The original Ocean’s 11 directed by Lewis Milestone starred the Rat Pack: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Joey Bishop, Peter Lawford, Angie Dickinson, Cesar Romero, as well as a cameo by Shirley MacLaine. The Ocean’s 11 remake appeared in 2001 followed by its sequel Ocean’s 12 in 2004.

The younger generations may not know Sinatra was a good actor. To them, he was a singer and allegedly connected with the Mafia.

Sinatra was the only child of a Sicilian immigrant Anthony Martin Sinatra who worked as a fireman. He was interested in serving the US army but his punctured eardrum made him skip military service and Sinatra pursued the field of entertainment instead.

Sinatra started his singing career as part of the group called Hoboken Four. Then he was hired by trumpet player Harry James and they recorded together. After a year, Sinatra left James to join the Tommy Dorsey orchestra, where he became famous as a singer. Sinatra appealed to teenage girls, and a new audience for popular music was born.

In the ’50s, he reinvented himself through adult albums, like In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning which brought him back to the spotlight. During this time, he had five of his albums on the Billboard chart simultaneously.

Sinatra appeared in movies usually in musicals but he became a full-fledged dramatic actor in the Pearl Harbor drama From Here to Eternity where he won the Oscar Best Supporting Actor. He has done more than 50 movies.

After the hit movie From Here to Eternity, his singing career was given a new life. Under Capitol Records, he worked with many of the finest arrangers of the era, like Nelson Riddle, Gordon Jenkins and Billy May. And by the early ‘60s, he was big enough a star to start his own record label: Reprise Records. His position with the label earned him the long-lasting nickname "The Chairman of the Board."

In the ‘50s and ‘60s, he became the most popular attraction in Las Vegas. Some of his most popular recordings were Night and Day; I’ve Got You Under My Skin; Fly Me To The Moon, Love and Marriage, One for My Baby, Angel Eyes; Drinking Again; It Was A Very Good Year; Summer Wind; That’s Life; My Way; New York, New York; Strangers in the Night, among others.

Sinatra left a vast legacy of recordings. From his collaboration with the Harry James orchestra in 1939, the vast catalogs at Columbia in the ‘40s, Capitol in the ‘50s, and Reprise from the ‘60s onwards, up to his 1994 album Duets II.

Sinatra won 10 Grammy Awards during his career, including Album of the Year for Come Dance With Me in 1959, September of My Years in 1965 and A Man and His Music in 1966, and Record of the Year for Strangers in the Night in 1966.

In 2001 BBC Radio 2 named Sinatra the "Greatest Voice of the Twentieth Century." He was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1980. Sinatra’s voice is pop music history. He virtually invented modern pop song phrasing.