Product Description

In 1941, at age twenty-five, Sinatra told a friend, 'I'm going to be the best singer in the world'. Two years on, the bobbysoxers were already weeping and screaming for him in their thousands. Half a century on Bono defined him as 'the Big Bang of popular music'. 'To hell with the calendar,' a music critic wrote before his death in 1998, 'The day Frank Sinatra dies, the twentieth century is over.' There have been many books about Sinatra, but the last comprehensive biography was Kitty Kelly's "His Way", published in 1986. it has taken renowned biographer Anthony Summers years to research this new biography, which promises to be the definitive story of a musical and film career spanning six decades. In this massively documented book, meticulous investigation is coupled with sensitivity to examine every aspect of Sinatra's life, public and private, from his obscure beginnings in an immigrant neighbourhood in Jersey City to his twilight years as a living legend in Palm Springs. It tells the human story of an American icon who was irresistible to women and who was plagued throughout his life by scandal and hints of links with the Mafia. In this book, Summers finally uncovers the whole truth.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #52261 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 592 pages

Daily Mail
'After reading this unsparing biography by a renowned investigative journalist, forgiveness comes hard...Good on the Mafia connections.'

Irish Times
'A compelling account of a tantalizing life...An instant bestseller.'

Irish Independent
'Startling...sensational new information.'

Customer Reviews

Read this book!
Having read the George Jacobs book and being a fan of his music I bought this with some prior knowledge of Frank but the detail in this book was beyond anything I expected. His early days, the mob, the Kennedy's, Communism, Ava Gardner etc. are covered here with an objective view neither condemning nor condoning. Well researched and written, I couldn't put it down and I'd recommend it to anyone. It was a very good book.....

Informative and easy to read
Though containing none of the controversial or explosive material often associated with Summers' books, this is one of the better biographies of Sinatra.

Much of it is taken from other published sources, which is slightly disappointing, but as a comprehensive and easy-to-read biography it has great merit. Certainly for anyone new to Sinatra's life this book will be informative and save many a pound on buying other, less thorough biographies of the man.

Summers remains on the whole neutral in this work, presenting fact, fiction and anecdote for the reader to interpret, but while leaving few dark areas unexplored he gives recognition to Sinatra's hard work and determination to get to the top and stay there.

A good one to have on the shelves for a well-rounded look at the life of this complex man.

Good but probably not the best Sinatra biography available
I read Anthony Summers' book 'File on the Tsar' many years ago and was impressed with the depth of research. I was similarly impressed with the depth of research involved with this biography of Frank Sinatra, unquestionably one of the greatest entertainers of all time. But I finished it feeling just a little let down; it incorporates a considerable amount of material, some old, some not so new, about Sinatra's already well documented connections with the Mafia. It is also unsparing in its description of Sintra the flawed human being. I just couldn't help feeling that it almost needed more material about Sinatra the artist, genius or not, to balance it up a little, or at least to round it off; certainly I finished it with the overriding impression that Sinatra was a thoroughly unpleasant character, and certainly not a sympathetic one.

On top of that is the book's deceptive size: the whole volume has a total of 573 numbered pages. The actual narrative, however, takes up only 389 of those pages; the remainder comprises extensive 'Notes and Sources' (and an index), plus acknowledgements.

So although I generally enjoyed it, if anyone were to ask me for my personal recommendation for the best Sinatra biography available, I would unhesitatingly say the (earlier) one by J. Randall Taraborrelli.