(From the
Guestbook page and the online book
Frank Sinatra: An American Legend by Nancy Sinatra
)
SEPTEMBER 17–22, 1984: Six shows at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
SEPTEMBER 13–23, 1982: At a Carnegie Hall concert, a young woman who was an admitted fan of rock music was quoted by the
New York Times as saying, "Frank Sinatra is one thing I can agree with my parents about. They've been playing his records since I was born, and I don't ordinarily like that kind of music much, but he's a great singer."
SEPTEMBER 8–20, 1981: He played a two-week engagement with George Shearing at Carnegie Hall. George, who was blind, called Frank "Old Blue Eyes" and himself "Old No Eyes."
SEPTEMBER 8–20, 1980: Frank returned to London for memorable concerts at the Royal Festival and Royal Albert Halls.
[See September 8th]
SEPTEMBER 8–20, 1975: FS, Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald co-headlined for two hugely successful weeks at New York's Uris Theater, grossing more than $1 million. After one show, Dad escorted Jacqueline Onassis to the "21" Club.
SEPTEMBER 20, 1973: My husband, Hugh Lambert, did the choreography and staging for the television event
Ol' Blue Eyes Is Back. Gene Kelly was Frank's special guest star. The audience invited to the taping was jeweled, black-tied and glamorous—who's who of Hollywood, a guest list that could unnerve even the most seasoned performer. Gene and Frank were visibly excited and nervous. The show was a hit. But Dad said later, "When I haven't sung for a while, my reed gets rusty. If you don't sing all the time, when you go back it's a whole new voice. No bottom; you gotta pound on it for a while." He reached out to his old friend, Metropolitan Opera star Robert Merrill, for help: "We met at his hotel, the Waldorf Towers. He sang for me and I gave him exercises—scales to do to relax his throat. See, the trick of singing well is to have the throat open, relaxed."
Robert Merrill: "You have to let [the voice] flow. It's like getting out of a sickbed and trying to walk right away. You have to practice and vocalize. Frank understood and he did the exercises and his ten performances with no problems. Then he went on TV and talked about the trouble he'd had and said, 'I have a great teacher—Bob Merrill.' Well, I'm not a teacher professionally, and suddenly I started getting calls from all sorts of people who wanted to study with me!"
Dad and Gene rehearsing "Can't Do
That Anymore" for Ol' Blue Eyes Is
Back. [Photo: 1973, David Sutton]
SEPTEMBER 20, 1965: In
Assault on a Queen, Dad starred opposite Virna Lisi as a modern-day pirate who salvaged a sunken German U-boat in a bid to hijack the luxury liner Queen Mary and loot its cargo and its well-heeled passengers. The most memorable things about this film are the fact that Duke Ellington wrote the score and Rod Serling wrote the screenplay.
SEPTEMBER 10–30, 1947: Hearst columnist Westbrook Pegler, fueled by Lee Mortimer and the FBI...
[See September 10th]
[Dates of new entries highlighted in blue]