Frank Sinatra Trivia & Other Interesting Facts
(1) Frank Sinatra’s height was 5′ 7”, one inch below the average height of men in his day.
(2) He was married four times. The list of who, was Nancy Barbato, Ava Gardner,
Mia Farrow, and Barbara Marx, with whom he remained married to for the rest of his life.
(3) He convinced the Rat Pack to help campaign for John F. Kennedy’s 1960 Presidential Election, and was in charge of the entertainment for the Inaugural Ball, in which he enlisted the talents of many of Hollywood’s top celebrities for the occasion.
(4) Two weeks after President Kennedy’s assassination, Sinatra’s son, Frank Sinatra Jr. was kidnapped. Frank was told to call the perpetrators from pay phones. During one call, he ran out of dimes, and was afraid that this had cost him his son’s life. He paid the $250,000.00 ransom, his son was returned, and the kidnappers were promptly caught. From that day forward, he always carried a roll of dimes with him.
(5) In his memoir, “Mr. S. :My Life With Frank Sinatra”, the legend’s valet, George Jacobs, said that Sinatra cried when he heard that the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King had been assassinated, one of the few times he had seen his employer in tears.
(6) Jim Morrison of the Doors was often heard to say that Frank Sinatra was his favorite singer.
(7) F.S. was the first choice to play the lead in the movie “Dirty Harry”, but broke his finger before filming began, and had to pull out of the production.
(8) The Beatles song “Something” was one of his favorite tunes. He became friends with George Harrison, and invited him and his wife into the studio for his epic recording of “My Way”.
(9) He was a gifted amateur painter in the style of abstract.
(10 ) Orange was Frank’s favorite color.
(11) He owned an extensive collection of electric toy trains.
(12) The drink he favored most was Jack Daniels on the rocks, which he would always stir for some minutes before sipping, to let the ice melt a bit, and blend with the whiskey.
(13) The Jack Daniels Company donated a square acre of land on which they distill their whiskey in Kentucky in his name.
(14) Dean Martin introduced him on television in 1960 as “a man whose outlook is never narrow, but who sees everything in terms of the broad.” The Way You Wear Your Hat by Bill Zehme
(15) Sinatra was known to have been able to remember someone’s name and where he had met them, no matter how brief or far back in the past that may have occurred.
(16) F.S. himself hosted or co-hosted the Academy Awards four different times in 1963, 1969, 1975, and 1985.
(17) References to him during his career and lifetime were; “The Voice”, “The Chairman of the Board”, and “Old Blues Eyes.”
(18) He originally didn’t want to record “My Way” because he thought it was “too self- serving and indulgent.”
(19) The Yankees have played Sinatra’s recording of “New York, New York” after every home game win since it’s first release in 1980.
(20) To mark his 80th birthday in 1995, The Empire State Building in New York City glowed blue.
(21) Frank Sinatra died on May 14, 1998, and was buried, according to his wishes, with a bottle of Jack Daniels, a pack of Lucky Strikes, and a roll of dimes. His tombstone reads; “The Best Is Yet to come”, the title of the last song he ever sang in public.
(22) In 2000 he was voted The Greatest Entertainer of the 20th century.
* As an added point of interest, when his best friend Dean Martin died, he was laid to rest (according to his wishes) in a tuxedo. They don’t make guys like that anymore!
