The Sinatra Files

The Sinatra Files

Author: Kuntz, Tom/ Kuntz, Tom (EDT)/ Kuntz, Phil (EDT)
Category: Entertainment & Performing Arts - General
ISBN: 9780812932768
Format : Paperback
Publisher : Times Books

  

Published for the first time are details of the FBI's startling file on an American icon, Frank Sinatra--bringing to light a 1,275-page dossier recording 50 years of surveillance stemming from J. Edgar Hoover's belief that Sinatra had Mob or Communist ties. From the Publisher When he died in May 1998, Frank Sinatra already was one of the most chronicled celebrities of the 20th century. Since his death, his fame has only increased, with several new books written by Pete Hamill, Bill Zehme, and others. Now, as a result of privacy laws, a detailed record of his life, taken from a different perspective, has come to light: files the FBI kept on the singer, beginning in the mid-1940s, as it investigated whether he had mob or Communist affiliations. This 1,275-page dossier is more than a historical curiosity. It's a treasure-trove, not only for the glimpses it offers into Sinatra's life, but also for the dark insights it offers into the workings of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI and the paranoid obsessions of the era. Chapters include: Sinatra and Politics (including Sinatra's friendship with JFK and Peter Lawford and later with Nixon, plus Hoover's attempts to get both presidents to end their associations with him), Sinatra the Bad Boy (including a notorious incident in Las Vegas's Sand Hotel when Howard Hughes cut off his gambling credit, prompting Sinatra to trash his room and drive a golf cart all over the hotel lobby), Sinatra and the Mob, Sinatra and Communism, etc.