Sinatra, Chairman of the Board, Mister "S"

FUN FACT ...

We might never have heard of Frank Sinatra if it hadn't been for Louise Tobin. Who?

Louise was a 1930s big band singer who urged her husband, Harry James to audition a singer she'd heard at a New Jersey Roadhouse bar, Rustic Cabin. Louise had also performed with Benny Goodman, Will Bradley and Bobby Hackett -- she had a few hits with Goodman.

Her husband hired the singing waiter on a year-long contract for $75. a week.

Louise Tobin died at her Texas home in November 2022 -- she was 104 years old.

Francis Albert Sinatra was born in Hoboken New Jersey on Dec. 12.  If he were alive in 2022, he'd be 107 years old.

He started as a singer with the Harry James and Tommy Dorsey big bands and always referred to himself as a "saloon singer". Perhaps because of his apprenticeship in the roadhouses and bars of New Jersey, like the Rustic Cabin where he was a singing waiter

accompanied by a piano player, Bill Miller -- 60 years later, they'd still be together.

Sinatra's popularity and success as a band singer actually meant the end of Big Band Music.

Fans wanted to see Sinatra Jo Stafford Peggy Lee Doris Day and Billy Holiday and Ray Eberle.

Not Tommy Dorsey and Harry James or Artie Shaw.

Sinatra's effect on the business of music at that time was the same as the effect Jackie Robinson had on Major League Baseball at his time.

Black baseball fans wanted to see Jackie. His arrival in the Majors was the end of a very successful business, the Negro Baseball League. Fans only had a limited amount of money to spend on entertainment - they had to choose.

During his six-decade career, many considered Sinatra to be the best pop music singer in the world. Artists who sat in with him on recording sessions claimed he had a sixth sense for music. Not bad for a singer who, like Beatles, Paul McCartney, couldn't read music.

Sinatra recorded 1,400 songs and starred or was featured in 59 motion pictures, resulting in way too many awards and citations to mention here.  He led the way for Robert Mitchum

and Steve McQueen James Dean and Paul Newman to be considered cool.

He learned the fine art of coolness from "Skinny" D'Amato the super smooth mafia-connected owner/operator/pimp of The 500 Club who established illegal -- then legal gambling in Atlantic City.

The young Sinatra performed at "The Five". Martin and Lewis as well. Once famous, they all returned regularly to pay respects to "Skinny", work free and put some money in the till.

Atlantic City came to a stand-still when Sinatra signed on for a week every year.  Doing five or six shows a night and finishing at 5 a.m. was common. Everybody made money when Sinatra played AC. 

In the 1950s Sinatra invented $100 tips.

I became a fan because of my sister. I was about ten years old. Our parents would go shopping on Saturday and leave her to clean the house, something she apparently couldn't do without Sinatra playing on the record player.

It was always loud.

Not exactly sure how my connection happened. It may have been the songs the way he sang them or the music that filled the house. I don't know. I was ten.  He wasn't quite done. All of it left some sort of imprint on me.

In the 1960's Life Magazine did a feature on Sinatra. I was working at the Toronto Star newspaper at the time and the company's promotion manager saw the same piece I did.

Sinatra claimed he was going to do just one more tour of concerts and then retire. My guy contacted Sinatra's people to see if Toronto could be added to the list of one-last-time stops.  A deal was worked out for Toronto's O'Keefe Centre. The promotion guy was over the moon that he was able to broker this concert - Sinatra's only provision was that there had to be "reasonably priced tickets for the average working guy to take his girl on a date".

The promo guy packaged it all with the Toronto Star as the event sponsor and excitedly presented it to the publisher, Beland Honderich.  The response was, "We can't do something this big ... what would we do next year?"  Although it was a promotional loss by a short-sighted businessman and the paper, Sinatra was just testing the waters with his threat to retire.

He continued to tour through the 1960s and '70s and even played Toronto's Skydome in the late 1980s.

Following his retirement announcement, I saw him at Kobo Hall in Detroit in 1968, Detroit's Olympia hockey arena in 1974 and Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens three times.

If I got you this far into the story you might think that I'm about to tell you that we'd actually met and shared some Jack Daniel's.

That never happened.

Maybe that was a good thing. Sometimes, as we know, meeting someone special doesn't end up being very special when you discover who they really are. All Sinatra's good and bad stuff is well documented in a hundred books and I'm not sure the good stuff outweighs the bad stuff. There are hundreds of Sinatra biographers who have described every great and gory detail of his life. Hundreds of thousands of books have been sold about him.

My story is not really about him ... it's about his place, his home, the compound in Palm Springs. 

Not to be confused with his first Palm Springs home,  Twin Palms, on Alejo Rd.  that he shared with wife number two, Ava Gardner.

Go online, you can rent it for $2500 a night. He also had a mansion at  915 N Foothill

around the corner from the Beverly Hills Hotel - just up the street from Rodeo Dr. His wife sold it for $7 million and the new owner tore it down and put up a 3-bedroom home in its place. Why? 

If you are a fan you know about the compound. It was often mentioned in Movie Magazines.

"Twin Palms" is shown here on Alejo Drive. But, he moved to Rancho Mirage.

The compound was featured in Architectural Digest Magazine, Dec. 1998.  The piece showcased the compound and mentioned that a Canadian businessman, Jimmy Pattison had bought it for $4 million.

Lorraine and I were planning a first-ever Palm Springs trip during the school break holiday in 2001. Wouldn't it be crazy for me to contact billionaire Jimmy to see if he would mind allowing us to go to the compound and have a look around?

Yeah, crazy.

I sent him an email. "We are huge Sinatra fans. We know we are asking a lot. We certainly understand if it's not possible. Do you think we could? Oh, and yes, it's Lorraine's birthday."  Within 24 hours Jimmy's personal assistant called to say, "When do you want to go?"

Before going further, before I forget, and I know I'm getting way ahead of myself but after we had our visit, I sent Jimmy a very special photo I took of his Sinatra property and thanked him for his generosity.

I told him, "There's so much to see ... our 3-hour tour only scratched the surface". 

His response was ... "Well, why don't you go again?" We went back the following year.

However, our first visit had to be special.

Lorraine couldn't know. 

On day one of arriving in Palm Springs, I drove by the compound in Rancho Mirage,  70588 Frank Sinatra Drive (formerly Wonder Palms Rd).  I wanted to know exactly where we were going on the appointed day -- it was a dry run.

Ya ... The Kid from Hoboken

When that day arrived we were set for 10 am.  I tried my best to hustle Lorraine out of our hotel without letting her know where we were going.  Frank Sinatra Dr. is a very busy street with a high-speed limit

... they don't want you to slow down.

The compound property is 2 1/2 acres, 4 lots side-by-side and backing onto the 17th hole of the Tamarisk golf course, as pictured above. The fence fronting the property is only 7' high. You can't actually see any buildings from the street, everything's one-storey. There's nothing special about the outside. Everyone but me just drives by.

On our tour day, I pulled into the short driveway with the electric gate. Lorraine was horrified ..

"What are you doing? This is Sinatra's house!" 

Just then, magically, the gate opened and we were met by the property manager.

She explained that her boss, Jimmy had previously been a Sinatra neighbour.

One night while visiting with him and his fourth wife, Barbara, he recognized some tension. 

Frank's first wife, Nancy had moved into a condo on the golf course directly behind his compound. 

He'd wander over to visit in the middle of the day and fall asleep on her couch. Barbara didn't like it. 

She wanted to move. Jimmy smelled a bargain,  $4 million was stated and Jimmy agreed.

Done deal.

Sadly, Frank Sinatra was to lose his home, his compound - the place of legend - the place where he had entertained everyone in Hollywood, even president-to-be, John Kennedy.

At this point in his life, he was too old to argue so he objected the best way he knew how. He didn't leave for six months. By then Jimmy had enough, wanted the property and resorted to a court order to move him along.

Mister "S" with Yul

Jimmy got a spectacular bargain. Think of the number of Sinatra fans around the world -- people with real money who would have lined up to pay way more than Barbara's asking price.

If you're still with me, how about a tour?

As you enter the front gate, there's a 15-space covered carport to the right sealing the south end of the property.

The garden directly in front is a perfect circle. It's big, and its dimensions look familiar. Originally, Sinatra had a helipad created there to land his helicopter. Neighbours complained about the 4 am noise so he made it into a beautiful garden with a galloping bronze racehorse as its centrepiece.

There are too many mature, beautifully trimmed lime and lemon trees to count. The property's manicured grass looks like a putting green and it's spotted with dozens of cactus plants. Hidden amongst the dozens of spectacular plants that are indigenous to the desert were the most powerful sound speakers. For our enjoyment, our host had cued up a terrific Sinatra song list to help us properly inhale the place.

There's a small log cabin titled "All Aboard"

The town of Hoboken in miniature

that houses his train sets.

Imagine a 30' x 20' room devoted to electric trains.

The room's centrepiece is a scale model of his Hoboken neighbourhood -- everything in miniature -- shops, buildings and five trains running at break-neck speed.  He apparently would sit by the hour playing with his trains.  It was all set up for me to test.

Once everything was running, it was noisier than a real train station.  I asked if I could wear Frank's conductor's hat while running the trains, but I couldn't. He had a surprisingly small melon.

In the 1930s, the Lionel Electric Train Company (which is presently owned by rocker, Neil Young) created an electric train for girls -- the whole train set was pink. The pink train set didn't sell. Sinatra had a full set ... in the original boxes ...and never opened.

What would that set or the one that was given to him as a gift from Pope Pius XII be worth? The drawers below the Hoboken set-up had every Lionel car and engine ever made. They were all dated and categorized. If you'd never had an interest in trains you'd still be impressed by the remarkable collection. If the train room had been valued at a million dollars I wouldn't have been surprised.

Now it was Jimmy's.

Compound employees, everyone on the payroll actually, called him Mister S ... 

they couldn't use Mr. Sinatra- too formal or Frank, too informal.

The Caboose 

They gave him a gift in 1971. An actual, full-size train caboose sitting on a proper rail

-- it was set up directly beside his train set log cabin. What a conversation piece to have in the backyard.

Sinatra had the inside customized. It's called "Chicago".  When you enter the first section is a poker room with a card table and six chairs.  The middle of the car is set up with a massage table and barber chair and the rear of the car is the steam room/shower. No doubt he created the first, original man-cave.

The compound is several buildings totalling 18 bedrooms and 23 bathrooms.

The main house, titled "The house I live in", is the only building with a front door -- with a welcome mat that says, "Go Away".

The Sinatras named all of the compound's rooms after one of Frank's songs.

Inside the main house is a huge living room with a sunken bar, ("Goldfish" crackers were Frank's preferred bar snack). The bedroom that Jack Kennedy slept in has long since been transformed into a library with a wall plaque noting the sleep-over of the most popular president-to-be.

1960s $100,000 kitchen

There's a dining room for 25, a hotel-sized fully equipped kitchen with a walk-in refrigerator and freezer and huge gas stoves. The must-have, full-sized pizza oven was set up outside in the breeze-way

to challenge the desert heat.

Frank's nicely appointed office had a full electric train set running full tilt on a track around the room just inches away from the ceiling and of course, his office has a fully equipped bathroom.

Two things that caught my eye ... kitschy sofa cushions everywhere embroidered with movie sayings like Edward G. Robinson's "You Dirty Rat", and a Beautifully decorated living room with "Don't Get Mad - Get Even.

And although he couldn't play a note, his living room was home to the most magnificent Bosendorfer grand piano, a gift from Oscar-winning songwriter and party animal, Chester Babcock.

He was a fat bald guy and thought he'd attract more female attention if he changed his name to Jimmy Van Heusen. He did.

Pre-Barbara Marx, the entire house was outfitted in Frank's favourite colour, orange. She got rid of it all. She either had a very good taste or hired someone who did - all the rooms on the property were well-appointed and understated.

Frank's bedroom - only for one Frank's very simple, plain bedroom, titled "I Sing the Songs" in the main house had a steel door with quad-locks, a very small double bed, obviously for one.  The night table had a statue of Francis of Assisi and, in the drawer, a loaded 38 revolver.

Barbara had her own separate lavish bedroom and workout room. 

The sliding glass doors of Frank's bedroom opened onto the deck and pool.

The original pool had a huge Queen of Diamonds playing card painted on the bottom of the pool.

Do you remember the posthypnotic trigger that was used in the plot of the Manchurian Candidate movie?

Frank would occasionally walk out onto the deck and fall into the pool in the middle of the night, so he had the original pool moved. The new pool didn't have the Queen of Diamonds playing card on the bottom.

Besides the main house, each separate building is a steel structure measuring about 50' x 12'. When you enter through the sliding glass door you are in the living room with a fully equipped and stocked bar and wood fireplace. Through the right hallway is a beautifully appointed bedroom and a separate his-and-hers bath with a similar set-up on the opposite side of the building.

The walls of the "New York-New York" cottage were decorated with framed copies of Frank's movie posters -- all of them, all original, all now Jimmy Pattison's.

If you were visiting you'd be assigned one of those cottages and only get into the main house for dinner.

There were two cottages that stood out.

The John Kennedy/Marilyn Monroe bedroom had the most unique wall piece ... a framed, autographed photo of Kennedy and Monroe and a lock of their hair beside each picture. The closet was full of Monroe dresses and movie outfits -- likely assembled for display by Jimmy Pattison's company, Ripley's Believe it or Not.

The other special cottage was at the very back of the property and had its own pool and a beautiful mature pine tree. It was titled the Christmas Tree House and was the almost exclusive visitor-residence of Sinatra's long-time friend, Gregory Peck.

"Everybody" was in this room following dinner, all the guests would congregate in the projection room/party room - a separate building - titled "Send in the Clowns" as featured on the entrance floor mat. The walls were covered with over 100 framed photos of all his friends (and every president he'd spent time with).

A huge room containing super comfortable furniture for 25, a piano, an organ and a full-sized motion picture projector.

There was a huge abstract Sinatra-created painting on a wall that disappeared with the push of a button to reveal the movie screen. The room had a fabulous sunken bar. Sinatra wanted his bartender to be eye to eye with his guests.

He hired only the best local musicians to provide the noise when Judy Garland decided to entertain after dinner.

Getting singers to sing and comedians to tell stories in front of Hollywood's biggest stars in Sinatra's party room was just expected.

Every get-together would finish up with a not-yet-released movie featuring guests who were in that room -- many of them seeing their finished movie for the very first time.

They didn't call him the Chairman of the Board for nothing.

The middle of the property had a tennis court.

Sinatra would host tennis parties and contests but never played himself.

               Zeppo and the trophy wife

One of the guests who attended the tournaments regularly was Barbara Marx. 

She was Zeppo Marx's much younger, Vegas show-girl wife and she was an exceptional tennis player.

Zeppo's home was directly across the fairway behind Sinatra's house.

Barbara could just walk across the course

                   Frank and Mrs. #4 

and enter the compound through the back gate. She did it often.  One day she forgot to go home. 

She and Sinatra were married in 1976.  For a wedding gift, he gave her a Rolls Royce.

According to Tina Sinatra's book, "My Father's Daughter", she and her siblings had no use for their step-mom, "the quintessential gold-digger".

Mister S had a single cottage, "Just in Time", devoted to his painting. There was an actual painting-in-progress still sitting on the easel, maybe a Chinese symbol, waiting for his return. Barbara was so determined to leave, that she threw all his paints and brushes into the garbage. One of Jimmy's employees retrieved them and put them back in their rightful place. I know nothing about abstract paintings or their value. However, the compound walls featured about 30 of his pieces, each signed and dated by the artist. What do you think one of these items would be worth?

The Sinatra art collection also went to Pattison for the compound's purchase price.

I mentioned the bronze horse in the garden.  It was actually a mould of one of the Terra Cotta soldier's horses (from China) presented to Mr. S by the televangelist, Robert Schuller from Pasadena's Crystal Palace Cathedral. How'd he smuggle that out of the country?

Also, the huge abstract in the party room had a special meaning to the artist. 

Sinatra told Pattison that those two pieces would not be part of the sale, "they're deal breakers!"

"No they're not." said Pattison "They stay." Barbara was so anxious to get out, that she agreed to Pattison's demands ignoring the pleas from her husband. She clearly wanted him to have no further connection

to the compound.

You may wonder why Sinatra's children didn't get first dibs on the property instead of selling it to a Canuck. It's reasonable to assume they wouldn't be able to pay the operating costs and taxes. During the compound's glory years as Hollywood's party palace, Mr. S had a staff of 26 on the property full-time just to make sure everything ran Sinatra-style.

From what I saw, now, without the Sinatra parties, there would have to be at least 8 to 10 full-time workers to look after the gardens, the cottages, the pools, the security and the kitchen.

Jim Pattison should be complimented for his concern for keeping the property exactly the way it was when he bought it. The only change he made was to include some British Columbia art in the dining room.

Frank Sinatra was the very first "Rock Star". 

He had the talent, the fame, the fortune, the lifestyle, the homes - especially the compound and his disregard for anyone and anything who didn't allow him to do what he wanted.  

He was despised and loved.

At the beginning of his career, he had fans crooning. In the middle, he couldn't make a successful record and nobody wanted to hire him for a film. Then, he not only re-created himself but also earned an Academy Award and sold more records and albums than at any time in his history.

 

Did things "His Way" 

The "King of Rock n Roll", Elvis Presley, covered Sinatra’s "My Way". The song was a joke.  Elvis did nothing his way. Everything he did, every move he made was orchestrated by his manager, Colonel Tom Parker.  Elvis never performed in Europe because Parker didn't have or qualify for a passport.

"The King" never moved until he was told to do so.

The current day rock star, Bono of U-2, said, at Sinatra's 80th birthday party, 

"Frank walks like America, cock-sure.  He's heavier than the Empire State building."

His last performance was a benefit for Palm Spring's Children's Hospital, on Feb. 25, 1995.

When he passed away from heart failure on May 12, 1998, at 82, he had a life very well lived.

 Some might say he had the life of ten people.

                   Ruth Lowe

The sorrowful song, "I'll Never Smile Again" launched Sinatra's career when he was with Tommy Dorsey. It was his first, great hit.

It was created by Toronto-born, CBC radio studio musician, Ruth Lowe as a tribute to her husband who'd died a year after they were married.

Lowe also wrote a second Sinatra signature song, "Put Your Dreams Away" (for another day).

Of all the songs that could have been played at his funeral, this was the one that was chosen.

His children put a roll of dimes in his casket, remembering that when his son, Frank Jr., had been kidnapped, Frank Sr. didn't have enough coins in his pocket to phone the kidnappers. They also included a bottle of Jack Daniels a package of Camels and his trusty Zippo lighter.

On the door of his bedroom at the compound, there's a small plaque that reads:

I believe in the sun even when it's not shining.

I believe in love even when not feeling it. I believe in God even when he's silent.

At the top of his tombstone, it says, THE BEST IS YET TO COME

If you haven't had enough, there's more ... but just personal observations of mine ...

Now you've had the tour and been backstage at one of the most famous residences in the world.

The following are some personal thoughts:

I've been a Sinatra fan for more than 60 years.

I've heard all his songs, I've enjoyed his films and looked away when he embarrassed himself.

He was the only singer I've ever heard in concert who acknowledged the words and music creators of his song list, before or after every song.

He made people take notice of Sammy Kahn Jimmy van Heusen Harold Arlen Quincy Jones and another songwriter/singer from Ottawa, Paul Anka.

His valet, George Jacobs, wrote a very revealing book, "Mr. S ... My Time With Frank Sinatra".

I sent it to a friend. He wrote back to me, "This book is disgusting ... I couldn't put it down."

My favourite song was "Cycles". It's a superb example of Sinatra's phrasing and emotion.

Did you know he had blue eyes? Until ... "Ol Blue Eyes is Back."

My favourite album was "Sinatra at the Sands" with Count Basie... a gift from my wife in 1968.

Sinatra and his pallies, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. got a lot of mileage out of the Rat Pack.

You could only imagine all the shenanigans they got into. However, if you drill down into the rumours and history and read as many books about the threesome as I have, you'll find a huge discrepancy. After work, Dean Martin wasn't part of it. He had an addiction that prevented him from enjoying the benefits of being a Rat Pack member. His addiction was golf. He had to be first off the tee every morning. Nothing interfered with golf. Not his career his family or even Sinatra.

Sinatra appeared to have a great rhythm as he displayed with dance genius, Gene Kelly, in the films they did together. However, when he performed at a concert he never moved. Just stood in one place, usually beside the piano and tapped his shoes - he called them his Mary Janes.

He was wealthy. In addition to his movie and music and worldwide concert tour money, he owned the rights to Budweiser in San Diego and got a piece of every beer bought in that town. He was the first singer to own his own record company, Reprise. He sold it for millions and gave the money to his first wife and kids.

It's well documented that Sinatra was "connected". It wasn't unusual. Any performer from the 1940s to the '70s who expected to make it, anywhere, knew he was being paid by the Mafia. Paul Anka and Jay Leno speak often and freely of the connection.

Following a punch-up at The Sands in Vegas, Sinatra lost his two front teeth. From that point on nobody messed with him because he always had a group of bodyguards everywhere he went. Big guys. Scary guys.

Wife number three was Mia Farrow. After they divorced she married Woody Allen. 

Sinatra always divorced but forever remained devoted to each of his former wives.

I thought Woody literally dodged a bullet when he treated Mia poorly. At the very least, I thought one of those big, scary guys would show up and we'd read about Woody being fished out of the East River.

I thought "the boys" might have also paid a visit to the folks at Hugh Hefner's LA mansion after they published an 8-page Playboy all-revealing photo spread of Frank's eldest child, Nancy, in the May 1995 issue - she was also on the cover.

In October 2003, Lorraine and I planned a trip to Manhattan. Sinatra performed on the Radio City Music Hall stage for the last time, in 1994.

Coincidentally, a new Sinatra show:  "His Voice. His World. His Way". produced in cooperation with his family using archive film projected on a 40' multi-dimensional screen, a full orchestra and the fabulous rockette dancers was being premiered during our visit.

The show was sold out - 3 performances a day for 11 days. I scrounged 2 tickets - very back, the last row but we were in the building. Aside from the great show, there was something equally great and surprising. 

Before the performance started, Lorraine and I stood in the magnificent Radio City Music Hall lobby at the top of the staircase. I was mesmerized by what I saw ... the people entering the theatre. They were young and old and white and black and brown. Some were dressed in evening wear, others golf shirts and some looked like skateboarders. People wore saris and turbans.

Who was this performer? How could he and his music straddle so many socio-economic groups, so many age groups, and so many different races?

Only one person. Mister “S”