Frank Sinatra was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, to Italian immigrants
Natalina Della (Garaventa), from Northern Italy, and Saverio Antonino
Martino Sinatra, a Sicilian boxer, fireman, and bar owner. Growing up
on the gritty streets of Hoboken made Sinatra determined to work hard
to get ahead. Starting out as a saloon singer in musty little dives (he
carried his own P.A. system), he eventually got work as a band singer,
first with The Hoboken Four, then with
Harry James and then
Tommy Dorsey. With the help of George Evans
(Sinatra's genius press agent), his image was shaped into that of a
street thug and punk who was saved by his first wife,
Nancy Barbato Sinatra. In 1942 he started his solo
career, instantly finding fame as the king of the bobbysoxers--the
young women and girls who were his fans--and becoming the most popular
singer of the era among teenage music fans. About that time his film
career was also starting in earnest, and after appearances in a few
small films, he struck box-office gold with a lead role in
Urlaub in Hollywood (1945) with
Gene Kelly, a Best Picture nominee at
the 1946 Academy Awards. Sinatra was awarded a special Oscar for his
part in a short film that spoke out against intolerance,
The House I Live In (1945).
His career on a high, Sinatra went from strength to strength on record,
stage and screen, peaking in 1949, once again with Gene Kelly, in the
MGM musical Das ist New York (1949) and
Spiel zu dritt (1949).
A controversial public affair with screen siren
Ava Gardner broke up his marriage to
Nancy Barbato Sinatra and did his career little good, and his record sales
dwindled. He continued to act, although in lesser films such as
Zu allem entschlossen (1952), and a
vocal cord hemorrhage all but ended his career. He fought back, though,
finally securing a role he desperately wanted--Maggio in
Verdammt in alle Ewigkeit (1953).
He won an Oscar for best supporting actor and followed this with a
scintillating performance as a cold-blooded assassin hired to kill the
US President in Der Attentäter (1954).
Arguably a career-best performance--garnering him an Academy Award
nomination for Best Actor--was his role as a pathetic heroin addict in
the powerful drama
Der Mann mit dem goldenen Arm (1955).
Known as "One-Take Charlie" for his approach to acting that strove for
spontaneity and energy, rather than perfection, Sinatra was an
instinctive actor who was best at playing parts that mirrored his own
personality. He continued to give strong and memorable performances in
such films as
Schwere Jungen, leichte Mädchen (1955),
Schicksalsmelodie (1957) and
Verdammt sind sie alle (1958). In
the late 1950s and 1960s Sinatra became somewhat prolific as a
producer, turning out such films as
Eine Nummer zu groß (1959),
Die siegreichen Drei (1962) and the very
successful
Sieben gegen Chicago (1964).
Lighter roles alongside "Rat Pack" buddies
Dean Martin and
Sammy Davis Jr. were lucrative,
especially the famed
Frankie und seine Spießgesellen (1960). On the
other hand, he alternated such projects with much more serious
offerings, such as
Botschafter der Angst (1962),
regarded by many critics as Sinatra's finest picture. He made his
directorial debut with the World War II picture
Der Lohn der Mutigen (1965),
which was the first Japanese/American co-production. That same year
Colonel von Ryans Expreß (1965) was
a box office sensation. In 1967 Sinatra returned to familiar territory
in Sidney J. Furie's
Der Mann am Draht (1967), once
again playing as assassin in his only film to be shot in the U.K. and
Germany. That same year he starred as a private investigator in
Der Schnüffler (1967), a role he reprised in
the sequel, Die Lady in Zement (1968).
He also starred with Lee Remick in
Der Detektiv (1968), a film daring
for its time with its theme of murders involving rich and powerful
homosexual men, and it was a major box-office success.
After appearing in the poorly received comic western
Dirty Dingus, der scharfe Bandit (1970),
Sinatra didn't act again for seven years, returning with a made-for-TV
cops-and-mob-guys thriller
Das Cherry-Street-Fiasko (1977),
which he also produced. Based on the novel by
William Rosenberg, this fable of
fed-up cops turning vigilante against the mob boasted a stellar cast
and was a ratings success. Sinatra returned to the big screen in
Die erste Todsünde (1980),
once again playing a New York detective, in a moving and understated
performance that was a fitting coda to his career as a leading man. He
made one more appearance on the big screen with a cameo in
Auf dem Highway ist wieder die Hölle los (1984) and a
final acting performance in
Magnum (1980), in 1987, as a
retired police detective seeking vengeance on the killers of his granddaughter,
in an episode entitled Laura (1987).
