Sinatra by Robin Douglas-Home

I read the news I was approved for reading Sinatra by Robin Douglas-Home, published by Endeavour Press while I was to the city drinking a granita at a bar, because an extremely warm morning.

I downloaded the eBook and well, I started to read it as I do all the time I download eBooks. A first look, the first pages for a quick idea. I couldn't stop to read it! Enchantingly beauty and real. Captivating writing-style, incredible story, I stayed at the bar more than the necessary while the first chapters were flying away.

I have always been a great fan of Frank Sinatra, The Voice, Blue Eyes. Always.
When he afforded to Italy for a tour in the 1980s I remember I bought a special issue of a weekly magazine with stunning articles, pictures of Sinatra.

The work done by Douglas-Home with this singer, actor, business man incredibly good, real and felt.

Robin Douglas-Home tells he maybe listened "I've got you under my skin" hundreds of times, and what he would have wanted to do was to discover mainly this artist, more than the man. Everyone knew Sinatra as a Latin-lover, and as it is still happening, people are sometimes more interested in gossip than not to discover who an artist is.

And again as a reporter, I know what it means to try to give a good idea to the readers and to myself of who we have in front of us.

I interviewed in fact artists sometimes and what I did it all the times was for trying to discover the real artist and man.

What did Robin Douglas-Home once he fell in love for Sinatra's songs and voice?
He tried.
He tried to contact the staff of Frank Sinatra without to receive an answer.
He wanted to try to understand his geniality.

Not obtaining answers he waited other two years. Then, he thought: maybe I should write directly to him. And he does it. Sinatra shares the letter with his staff, this time curious and trying to understand who this young man is. So people close to his staff starts to contact him.

No one, they said, asked for an interview like this one. In general reporters too busy with divorces, new marriages, extra-relationships, his friendships, but not with serious stuff.
And Sinatra in this sense didn't have patience with paparazzi or reporters.

And so Robin Douglas-Home insisting obtained the biggest dream of his life: two months in company with The Voice, his idol.


The author remembered that "He stabbed, not saw you, with that eyes" Beautiful blue eyes with little grey touches, and extremely penetrating.

He flew in his private jet, he spent time at his recording studio, where Sinatra loved to sing only after 8:30 PM because his voice said was better and where he completed an album in three hours or less.
A truly cathartic Sinatra, completely transformed by the power of music, his interpretation of songs stunningly felt each time.
But a friend of Sinatra admitted: Music is like sex.

Precise, devoted to his work, the reporter started his interview with this legendary man  from the beginning.

Sinatra told him he wanted to become someone and he had a good voice and so he left his house  dropping school and starting to join some bands in NYC. Sure at first it was starving time but then when there is real talent, it can't go unnoticed and in his case Tommy Dorsey asked him to join his band and Sinatra in less than 5 years recorded 40 songs.
Dorsey's band was great, all the members were great, but Frank Sinatra felt the urgency of becoming a solo artist.
The split with Dorsey pretty upsetting.

But Sinatra was born for flying very very high and he did it
although most of the luck went away when he split up at some point from his historical companion and wife Nancy Sinatra with which he had had three children and started to dating Ava Gardner, a big love but also pretty destructive.

Once the two split up, Sinatra in the while had taken part at several movies but not reaching a big success, the arrival of success in movie industry with High Society and many many more and thanks to new songs. The real success back and it won't abandon him anymore.

He also created his own recording label for being more independent. He helped also artists in difficulties. He brought to his reality wagons and wagons of great artists, starting from Dean Martin.

The main characteristics of Sinatra: the big intelligence first of all, voice apart. He hasn't been only a singer, and what a singer! The Voice, an actor, but also a business man in various fields.
Every week tells Robin Douglas-Home, Sinatra organized in a special place a meeting with his collaborators. Meetings started in the morning 'till evening each time.

In one of the houses of Sinatra at the door bell there was written something like this: You must have a good reason for ringing this door-bell.

During the two months they spent together,  Robin Douglas-Home  studied the real Frank Sinatra becoming enchanting by what he saw.

Someone extremely generous with his friends, with unknown people, someone in love for helping people in need, like when he decided to organize a tour around the world starting in Japan for helping children in needs. An experience that one that touched him profoundly. 

An artist with strong and good health sometimes can't understand certain situations. Sinatra did it, admitting that he didn't know previously many realities he had discovered touching with hands various realities. In various part of the world people dedicated to him various places for thanking him for his generosity.

Sinatra was a strange generous man. He was simply munificent with other people, friends, relatives, unknown people in need, and he loved to present gifts personally (but he hated to receiving them for example) but he paid attention at his personal expenses. He justified this with the reporter saying that he was poor two times and rich other two times and he didn't want to lose this status because he didn't want to return to be poor another time.

In this sense he was pretty frugal with food as well. He loved to give all the best in terms of food and  beverages to his guests and friends during luncheons and dinners, he was always very elegant, a wonderful host, but he didn't eat at all a lot, just little food.

When he had a concert he was extremely disciplined and serious. He went to bed at the proper time for being fresh for the concerts. When he was free to do what he could do, he loved to read. The author remembers wagons of books of various and diversified genre in his houses and magazines of every sorta. He loved to hang out with his friends, in most cases returning home only after dawn.

Great friends of family Kennedy, Sinatra has been not only an icon for various generations but an immortal myth.

In the book you will find long long long interviews of with Sinatra with the reporter, so that you can understand exactly also technically the work of a singer and of an actor and a business man according to this legend.

I strongly strongly strongly suggest you this book with a stunning and dreaming cover as well! I think I read it in just 2-3 hours! It's wonderful! A real celebration of a wonderfully talented legend that surely won't never die.


Thanks Netgalley!

Anna Maria Polidori