Playboy Classic: Frank Sinatra

Or Blue Eyes is

still considered the

greatest singer who

ever lived. In 1963

he showed himself

to be a lot more than

a typical celebrity

when it came to

politics, religion

and human nature

F

rank Sinatra—Ol" Blue Eyes, the Chair­man of tlie Board, the Voice—is consid­ered by many to be the greatest singer ever. As Elton John put it. Sinatra "was simply the best—no one else even comes close." Even unlikely Ian Jim Morrison of the Doors once said. "No one can touch him."

At the height of a career that spanned five de­cades. Sinatra was the highest-paid nightclub ixrfornier in show business and the biggest of the businessman-stars (with a fortune of $25 million, considered an empire in 1963). He sold more than ISO million records, won 12 Giamniys (includ­ing three honorary awards) and was a seven-lime winner of I'l.uBin's All-Star Jazz Poll. His biggest hits—"My Way." "New York. New York." "Strang­ers in the Night"—still sell.

Sinatra didn't soar only in music. He was also one of his eras biggest movie stars, an Academy Award winner whose now-classic movies include The Man With the Golden Arm. From Here to Eter­nity and the original, brilliant Mamhurian Can­didate. He was a founder of the Rut Pack, a group of show business pals that included Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr.. and he was a close friend of presidents, including John K. Kennedy. Their relationship lasted until the president severed ties with Sinatra because of the singer's connec­tion to Mafia boss Sam Gianeana. Among Sinatra's four wives were the actresses Mia Karrow and Ava Gardner. He had an affair with Marilyn Monroe.

In 1963 PLAYBOY approached Sinatra to sit for an interview. Our interviewer. Joe Hyams, .spent an entire week with the star. The interview took place on the set of the movie Come Moil Your Horn, in Sinatra's Dual-Ghia. during breaks at a recording session with Count Basie. in corridors heading to and from stall summit meetings on up­coming movie and recording projects and in his Beverly Hills home. As PLAYBOY points out in the introduction to the interview, "The conversation that emerged from these catch-as-catch-can tap­ing sessions is a courageous public declaration of private convictions from a major figure in a business wherein most stars seem concerned less with earning good reviews for their performances than with avoiding offense in their personal lives. Many people will be shocked by what he has to say. but many more, we aver, will leel that the candor of his insights adds a new dimension to their understanding of the complex, articulate and thoughtful man who is the chief executive of his profession." When Sinatra died of a heart attack in 1998. the writer Gore Vidal summoned one of the singer's legacies: "I would say that half the population of the United States over the age ol 40 was conceived while their parents were lis­tening to Ins records."

PLAYBOY: Many explanations have been offered for your unique ability—apart from the subtleties of style and vocal equipment to communicate the mo(xl of a song to an audience. How would you define it?

SINATRA: I think it's because 1 get an audience involved, personally involved in a song—l>ecause I'm involved myself. It's not something I do delib­erately: I cant help myself. If the song is a lament at the loss of love. I get an ache in my gut. I feel the loss myself and 1 cry out the loneliness, the hurt and the pain that I feel. PLAYBOY: Doesn't any (continued on page 139)

SINATRA

{continued from page 105) good vocalist "feel" a song? Is there such a

difference

SINATRA: I don't know what other singers feel when they articulate lyrics, but being an 18-karat manic-depressive and having lived a life of violent emotional contradic­tions, I have an over-acute capacity for sadness as well as elation. I know what the cat who wrote the song is trying to say. I've been there—and back. I guess the audi­ence feels it along with me. They can't help it. Sentimentality, after all, is an emotion common to all humanity. PLAYBOY: Of the thousands of words that have been written about you on this subject, do you recall any which have accurately described this ability? SINATRA: Most of what has been written about me is one big blur, but I do remem­ber being described in one simple word that I agree with. It was in a piece that tore me apart for my personal behavior, but the writer said that when the music began and I started to sing, I was "honest." That says it as I feel it. Whatever else has been said about me personally is unimportant. When I sing, I believe. I'm honest. If you want to get an audience with you, there's only one way. You have to reach out to them with to­tal honesty and humility. This isn't a grand­stand play on my part; I've discovered— and you can see it in other entertainers— when they don't reach out to the audience, nothing happens. You can be the most artistically perfect performer in the world, but an audience is like a broad—if you're indifferent, Endsville. That goes for any kind of human contact: a politician on tele­vision, an actor in the movies or a guy and a gal. That's as true in life as it is in art. PLAYBOY: All right, let's start with the most basic question there is: Are you a religious man? Do you believe in God? SINATRA: Well, that'll do for openers. I think I can sum up my religious feelings in a cou­ple of paragraphs. First: I believe in you and me. I'm like Albert Schweitzer and Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein in that I have a respect for life—in any form. I believe in na­ture, in the birds, the sea, the sky, in every­thing I can see or that there is real evidence for. If these things are what you mean by God, then I believe in God. But I don't be­lieve in a personal God to whom I look for comfort or for a natural on the next roll of the dice. I'm not unmindful of man's seem­ing need for faith; I'm for anything that gets you through the night, be it prayer, tranquil-izers or a bottle of Jack Daniel's. But to me religion is a deeply personal thing in which man and God go it alone together, without the witch doctor in the middle. The witch doctor tries to convince us that we have to ask God for help, to spell out to him what we need, even to bribe him with prayer or cash on the line. Well, I believe that God knows what each of us wants and needs. It's not nec­essary for us to make it to church on Sunday to reach him. You can find him anyplace. PLAYBOY: You haven't found any answers for yourself in organized religion? SINATRA: There are things about organized

religion which I resent. Christ is revered as the Prince of Peace, but more blood has been shed in his name than any other fig­ure in history. You show me one step for­ward in the name of religion and I'll show you a hundred retrogressions. Remember, they were men of God who destroyed the educational treasures at Alexandria, who perpetrated the Inquisition in Spain, who burned the witches at Salem. PLAYBOY: Hasn't religious faith just as often served as a civilizing influence? SINATRA: Remember that leering, curs­ing lynch mob in Little Rock reviling a meek, innocent little 12-year-old Negro girl as she tried to enroll in public school? Weren't they—or most of them—devout churchgoers? I detest the two-faced who pretend liberality but are practiced bigots in their own mean little spheres. PLAYBOY: But aren't such spiritual hypo­crites in a minority? Aren't most Americans fairly consistent in their conduct within the precepts of religious doctrine? SINATRA: I've got no quarrel with men of decency at any level. But I can't believe that decency stems only from religion. And I can't help wondering how many public figures make avowals of religious faith to maintain an aura of respectability. Our civi­lization, such as it is, was shaped by religion, and the men who aspire lo public office anyplace in the free world must make obei­sance to God or risk immediate opprobri­um. Our press accurately reflects the reli­gious nature of our society, but you'll notice that it also carries the articles and advertise­ments of astrology and hokey Elmer Gantry revivalists. We in America pride ourselves on freedom of the press, but every day I see, and so do you, this kind of dishonesty and distortion not only in this area but in reporting—about guys like me, for instance, which is of minor importance except to me; but also in reporting world news. How can a free people make decisions without facts? If the press reports world news as they report about me, we're in trouble.

PLAYBOY: Are you saying that

SINATRA: No, wait, let me finish. Have you thought of the chance I'm taking by speaking out this way? Can you imagine the deluge of crank letters, curses, threats and obscenities I'll receive after these re­marks gain general circulation? Worse, the boycott of my records, my films, maybe a picket line at my opening at the Sands. Why? Because I've dared to say that love and decency are not necessarily concomi­tants of religious fervor. PLAYBOY: If you think you're stepping over the line, offending your public or perhaps risking economic suicide, shall we cut this off now, erase the tape and start over along more antiseptic lines? SINATRA: No, let's let it run. I've thought this way for years, ached to say these things. Whom have I harmed by what I've said? What moral defection have I suggested? No, I don't want to chicken out now. Come on, pal, the clock's running. PLAYBOY: All right, then, let's move on to another delicate subject: disarmament. How do you feel about the necessity and possibility of achieving it?

SINATRA: Well, that's like apple pie and mother—how can you be against it? Alter all, despite the universal and unanimous assumption that both powers—Russia and the United States—already have stockpiled more nuclear weaponry than is necessary to vaporize the entire planet, each power continues to build, improve and enlarge its terrifying arsenal. For the first time in history, man has developed the means with which to expunge all life in one shudder­ing instant. And, brother, no one gets a pass, no one hides from this one. But the question is not so much whether disarma­ment is desirable or even whether it can be achieved but whether—if we were able to achieve it—we would be better off or per­haps infinitely worse off. PLAYBOY: Are you suggesting that disarma­ment might be detrimental to peace? SINATRA: Yes, in a certain very delicate sense. Look, I'm a realist, or at least I fancy myself one. Just as I believe that religion doesn't always work, so do I feel that disarmament may be completely beyond man's capacity to live with. Let's forget for a moment the com­plex problems we might face in converting from a cold war to a peace economy. Let's examine disarmament in terms of man's political, social and philosophical condition­ing. Let's say that somehow the UN is able to achieve a disarmament program accept­able to all nations. Let's imagine, a few years from now, total global disarmament. But imagine as well the gnawing doubts, sus­picions and nerve-racking tensions which must, inevitably, begin to fill the void: the fear that the other side—or perhaps some third power—is secretly arming or still holding a few bombs with which to surprise and overcome the other. But I firmly be­lieve that nuclear war is absolutely impossi­ble. I don't think anyone in the world wants a nuclear war—not even the Russians. They and we and the "nth" countries—as nuclear strategists refer to future nuclear powers— face the incontrovertible certainty of lethal retaliation for any nuclear strike. I can't be­lieve for a moment that the idiot exists in any nation that will push the first button— not even accidentally.

PLAYBOY: You foresee no possibility of world war or of effective disarmament? SINATRA: I'm not an industrialist or an econ­omist; I know I'm way out of my depth when I attempt even to comprehend the complex­ity of shifting the production of a country from war to peace. But if somehow all those involved in production of implements of destruction were willing to accept reason as well as reasonable profit, I think that a shift in psychology might be possible. And if this were to happen, I believe that the deep-seated terror in the hearts of most people due to the constant threat of total destruc­tion would disappear. The result would be a more positive, less greedy, less selfish and more loving approach to survival. I can tell you this much from personal experience and observation: Hate solves no problems. It only creates them. But listen, you've been asking me a lot of questions, so let me ask you a ques­tion I posed to Mike Romanoff [famed Bev­erly Hills restaurateur who falsely claimed to be a Russian prince] the other night. You

know, Mike is quite a serious thinker; when we spend an evening together, we play an intellectual chess game touching on all top­ics, including those we are discussing here. Anyway, I asked Mike what would happen if a summit meeting of all the leaders in ev­ery country in the world was called, includ­ing Red China, at the UN. Further suppose that each leader brings with him his top aides: Kennedy brings [Secretary of State Dean] Rusk, Khrushchev brings [Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrei] Gromyko, Mao brings [Vice ChairmanJ Zhou Enlai. All these cats are together in one room, then—boom! Somebody blows up the mother building. No more leaders. No more deputies. The ques­tion I asked Mike, and the one I ask you, is: What would happen to the world? PLAYBOY: You tell us.

SINATRA: I told Mike I thought it might be the only chance the world has for survival. But Mike just shook his head and said, "Frank, you're very sick." Maybe so. Until someone lights the fuse, however, I think that continuation of Cold War prepared­ness might be more effective to maintain the peace than the dewy-eyed notion of total disarmament. I also wonder if "total" disarmament includes chemical and bacte­riological weapons—which, as you know, can be just as lethal as nuclear weapons. Card players have a saying: "It's all right to play if you keep your eyes on the deck"— which is another way of saying "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." PLAYBOY: Do you feel, then, that nuclear testing should be continued? SINATRA: Absolutely not. I think it's got to stop, and I think it will stop—because it has to stop. The name-calling in the UN and the finger-pointing at peace conferences is just a lot of diplomatic bull. Both sides have to live on this planet, and leaders in

all countries know that their children and grandchildren have to live here too. I sus­pect that when the limits of strontium 90 in the atmosphere get really dangerous, scientists in both camps will persuade the politicians to call a final halt to testing— probably at precisely the same time, with no urging from the other side. PLAYBOY: You spoke a moment ago of the fear and suspicion that might nullify any plan for lasting and effective disarmament. Isn't continuing nuclear preparedness— with or without further testing—likely to engender these emotions on an even more dangerous scale?

SINATRA: Fear is the enemy of logic. There is no more debilitating, crushing, self-defeating, sickening thing in the world—to an individual or to a nation. If we continue to fear the Russians, and if they continue to fear us, then we're both in big trouble. Neither side will be able to make logical, reasoned decisions. I think, however, that their fear and concern over the ideologi­cal balance of power in some areas is far from irrational. Our concern over a sovi-etized Cuba 90 miles from Key West, for instance, must be equated with Russian concern over our missile bases surround­ing them. It is proper that we should be deeply concerned, but we must be able to see their side of the coin—and not let this concern turn into fear on either side. PLAYBOY: On a practical level, how would you combat Communist expansion into areas such as Cuba, Laos and the emerging African nations?

SINATRA: It strikes me as being so ridiculously simple: Stop worrying about communism; just get rid of the conditions that nurture it. Sidestepping Marxian philosophy and dialectical vagaries, I think that communism can fester only wherever and whenever it is

encouraged to breed—not just by the Com­munists themselves, but by depressed social and economic conditions, and we can always count on the Communists to exploit those conditions. Poverty is probably the great­est asset the Communists have. Wherever it exists, anyplace in the world, you have a potential Communist breeding ground. It figures that if a man is frustrated in a mate­rial sense, his family hungry, he suffers, he broods and he becomes susceptible to the blandishments of any ideology that prom­ises to take him off the hook. PLAYBOY: Do you share with die American right wing an equal concern about the sus­ceptibility of our ozm country to Commu­nist designs?

SINATRA: Well, if you're talking about that poor, beaten, dehumanized, discriminated-against guy in some blighted Tobacco Road down in the South, he's certainly in the market for offers of self-improvement. But you can't make me believe that a machinist in Detroit, ending a 40-hour week, climbing into his 1963 Chevy, driving to a steak bar­becue behind his $25,000 home in a tree-lined subdivision, about to begin a weekend with his well-fed, well-clothed family, is go­ing to trade what he's got for a party card. In America—except for tiny pockets of pri­vation which still persist—Khrushchev has as much chance of succeeding as he has of making 100 straight passes at the crap table. PLAYBOY: In combating Communist expan­sion into underdeveloped areas here and abroad, what can we do except to offer massive material aid and guidance of the kind we've been providing since the end of World War II?

SINATRA: I don't know. I'm no economist. 1 don't pretend to have much background in political science. But this much I know: Attending rallies sponsored by 110 percent anti-Communist cultists or donning white sheets and riding with the Klan—the one that's spelled with a K—isn't the answer. All I know is that a nation with our standard of living, with our Social Security system, TVA, farm parity, health plans and unemploy­ment insurance can afford to address itself to the cancers of starvation, substandard housing, educational voids and second-class citizenship that still exist in many backslid­ing areas of our own country. When we've cleaned up these blemishes, then we ran go out with a clean conscience to see where else in the world we can help. Hunger is inex­cusable in a world where grain rots in silos and butter turns rancid while being held for favorable commodity indices. PLAYBOY: Is American support of the UN one of the ways in which we can uplift global economic conditions? SINATRA: It seems to me that a lot of us consider the UN a private club—ours, of course—with gendemen's agreements just like any other exclusive dub. Only instead of excluding a person, a race or a religion, die members of the UN have die power to ex­clude enure nations. I don't happen to diink you can kick 800 million Chinese under die rug and simply pretend that they don't exist. Because diey do. If die UN is to be truly rep­resentative, dien it must accept all die nadons of die world. If it doesn't represent the united

nations of the world, then what the hell have you got? Not democracy—and certainly not world government. Everybody seems to have forgotten that President Kennedy, before he became president, in his book Strategy of Peace, plainly advocated recognition of Red China. So I'm not too far out on the limb, am I? PLAYBOY: With or without mainland China in the UN, what do you feel are the pros­pects for an eventual American rapproche­ment with Russia?

SINATRA: I'm a singer, not a prophet or a diplomat. Ask the experts or read the Rockefeller brothers' reports. But speak­ing just as a layman, an ordinary guy who thinks and worries, I think that if we can stay out of war for the next 10 years, we'll never have another war. From all I've read and seen recently, I'm betting that within the next decade the Russians will be on the credit-card kick just as we are. They're going to want color TV, their wives are going to want electrified kitchens, their kids are go­ing to want hot rods. Even Russian girls are getting hip; I've seen photos of them at Rus­sian beach resorts, and it looks just like the Riviera. They're diinning down, and I see they're going the bikini route. When GUM department store in Moscow starts selling bikinis, we've got a fighting chance, because tlial means the girls are interested in being

girls and the boys are going to stop thinking about communes and begin thinking connu­bially. I've always had a theory that whenev­er guys and gals start swinging, they begin to lose interest in conquering the world. They just want a comfortable pad and stereo and wheels, and their thoughts turn to the good things of life—not to war. They loosen up, they live and they're more apt to let live. Dig? PLAYBOY: We dig.

SINATRA: You know, I'd love to visit Russia and, sometime later, China too. I figure the more I know about them and the more they know about me, the better chance we have of living in the same world in peace. I don't intend to go there with a mission, to sell the American way of life; I'm not equipped to get into that kind of discussion about gov­ernment. But I'd love to go and show them American music. I'd take Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald with me and we'd do what we do best. We'd wail up a storm with real American jazz so that their kids could see what kind of music our kids go for, because I'm sure that kids are the same all over the world. I'm betting that they'd dig us. And thal'sgot to create some kind of goodwill, and man, a little goodwill is something we could use right now. All it takes is goodwill and a smile to breach that language barrier. When the Moiseyev dancers were in Los Angeles,

Eddie and Liz Fisher gave a party for them, and although I couldn't speak a word of Russian, I got along fine. I just said, "Hello, baby" to the dancers and they shouted, "Allo, babee" back at me. We had a ball. PLAYBOY: Frank, you've expressed some negative views on human nature in the course of this conversation. Yet one gets the impression that—despite the bigotry, hypocrisy, stupidity, cruelty and fear you've talked about—you feel there are still some grounds for hope about the destiny of Homo sapiens. Is that right? SINATRA: Absolutely. I'm never cynical, never without optimism about the future. The history of mankind proves that at some point the people have their innings, and I think we're about to come up to bat now. I think we can make it if we live and let live. And love one another—I mean really love. If you don't know the guy on the other side of the world, love him anyway because he's just like you. He has the same dreams, the same hopes and fears. It's one world, pal. We're all neighbors. But didn't somebody once go up onto a mountain long ago and say the same thing to the world?

Excerpted from the February 1963 issue.