FRANKLY SPEAKING

You can hardly be surprised at the young lady's reluctance to let her escort talk while Sinatra was working. For Sinatra, my children, is the new idol—the man who, in a few months, has stepped from the role of band singer into a solo spot on a major network show, top billing in one of New York's fashionable night clubs, and a publicity build-up which now has him out on a limb as the biggest thing since Crosby.

I sat watching Sinatra as he weaved his head around in that gentle, persuasive manner while he sang As Time Goes By and Embraceable You. I observed the way he leaned back, swayed slightly and gave the general impression that he was in a reverie. This, I reflected, must be what gets the women. A good voice, plus a sexy delivery. Freud would see it all clearly.

I liked Frank's frankness when, after the show, he answered my question about the report that a woman had fainted while he was singing. "She was simply overcome by the heat. One of the columnists picked up the story and twisted it around..."

Whether or not he can make women faint, Sinatra today is undoubtedly a subject worthy of study. Unable to read or write music, with no musical training or voice study to his credit, he might never have become a singer if he hadn't gone to a Bing movie one night and decided that was the career for him.

Born Dec. 12, 1917, in Hoboken, N. J., he is an only child. At Demarest High School in Hoboken he sang with the school band and helped form the glee club, but achieved more prominence as a swimmer, track man and basketball participant. His parents wanted him to go in for civil engineering, but after school hours he worked on a news truck of the Jersey Observer, throwing the papers off the truck to corner newsstands, and through this he became a copy boy with the paper after graduation. Later he become a college sports reporter for the paper, after a study of shorthand and journalism at Drake Institute.

"Then came Major Bowes," he recalls. "I sang Night and Day on the amateur hour, and it's been my favorite song ever since. It got me a tour with a Bowes unit, headed for the coast. But I got homesick after three months and came back home to do some sustaining radio work.

"Boy, was that a routine. It sustained everybody but me. I was on four local stations and sometimes had it planned so I'd be on the air somewhere or other every three hours all through the day. But the only money I got out of the whole thing was 70 cents carfare from Jersey to the Mutual studios. On top of the 18 sustainers a week I landed a paying job at the Rustic Cabin and earned myself a three-day honeymoon with Nancy."

Then came the curious era when he was dividing his time between three jobs and wound up with a fourth, better than any of them. Still working at the Rustic Cabin, in May, 1939, he went into New York every morning to rehearse with Bob Chester's band. Around 2:30 he would excuse himself and slip off to another studio where another band was rehearsing. All of which triple-life routine turned out to mean very little, since Harry James offered him a job a couple of weeks later!

Frank enjoyed those six months he spent with the early James band. Connie Haines was also with Harry when he joined. The band was still recording on Brunswick, switching to Columbia later that year, and Frank waxed a number of sides with Harry, most of which are obscure and hard to get nowadays. They included From the Bottom of My Heart, Melancholy Mood, My Buddy, Street in Singapore, It's Funny to Everyone But Me, Who Told You I Cared, Every Day of My Life, the vocal version of Ciribiribin, and the song which Frank has lately revived, All or Nothing at All.

Frank was dubious when I asked him which was his own favorite recording. "Don't know whether I have a favorite myself, but Nancy prefers This Love of Mine—because as well as singing it, I wrote the number, in collaboration with Joe Bushkin. Only song hit I ever had.

"Well, I left Tommy September 10, 1942, in Indianapolis, and went to L. A. for a vacation. I did a bit part in Reveille with Beverly at Columbia. No, that wasn't the first movie; I'd done Las Vegas Niglus and Ship Ahoy with Tommy."

Frank came East to go on sustaining at CBS, where he stayed from October until February. He put in a record eight-week stint at the Paramount, and will return there May 19. "Gene Krupa's band will be there, so I'm adding five strings of my own. I'm crazy about strings for a vocal background. Tell you the truth, if James had had strings at the time I was with the band, maybe I'd never have left."

He goes back West June 15 to do a big part in RKO's Higher and Higher, a title that sounds symbolical of his own career at the moment. He has a daughter, Nancy-Sandra, 2˝, so he'll be around awhile yet.

Despite his lack of technical knowledge, Frank is a discerning music lover. Out at the country house near Passaic, N. J., which he bought in January, he has a fine collection of records; about 250 classical albums and 1,000 jazz discs. His number one band? "The Duke, of course. I did three days in a theatre at Hartford when he was there, and believe me, it was one of the biggest kicks of my life. And from a singer's standpoint, I'd say Tommy has the band. There's a guy, now, who was a real education for me, in music, in business, every possible way. I learned about dynamics and phrasing and style from the way he played his horn; and I enjoyed my work because he always sees to it that a singer is given the perfect setting."

He hates loud drummers (speaking from bitter experience, he says) and loud clothes. He prefers night club work to theatres, because he likes to be close to an audience. An exception to this rule is the Paramount, where you're "right on top of 'em."

Right now he's pretty happy about the whole thing. The "Hit Parade" gives him national publicity, even if it doesn't give him a real personal build-up. The Riobamba gives him the audience and atmosphere he wants. The movie contract gives him something important to look forward to. And when recording starts again he will make solo waxings that are sure to increase the gravity of the shellac shortage situation.

All of which adds up to a pretty bright picture for someone who only recently completed his first quarter-century on earth. The only question that's still hotly debated is:—"Do you think Sinatra will ever replace the Bing?"

Time will tell.