Sinatra: The Life

Packed with revelations, this is the first complete account of a career built on raw talent, sheer willpower—and criminal connections. Anthony Summers—bestselling author of Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe—and Robbyn Swan unveil stunning new information about Sinatra’s links to the Mafia, his crowded love life and his tangled relationships with U.S. presidents. Exclusive breakthroughs include the discovery of how the Mafia connection began—in a remote Sicilian village—and moving interviews with his lovers. Never-before-published conversations with Ava Gardner get to the core of the tragic passion that dominated his life, came close to destroying him, and made his best work heartbreakingly personal. Sinatra delivers the full life story of a complex, flawed genius.

Packed with revelations, this is the first complete account of a career built on raw talent, sheer willpower--and criminal connections. Anthony Summers--bestselling author of Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe--and Robbyn Swan unveil stunning new information about Sinatra s links to the Mafia, his crowded love life and his tangled relationships with U.S. presidents. Exclusive breakthroughs include the discovery of how the Mafia connection began--in a remote Sicilian village--and moving interviews with his lovers. Never-before-published conversations with Ava Gardner get to the core of the tragic passion that dominated his life, came close to destroying him, and made his best work heartbreakingly personal. Sinatra delivers the full life story of a complex, flawed genius.

Publishers Weekly

The second collaboration for the husband-and-wife team (after their Nixon bio, The Arrogance of Power) is hardly the first book about Frank Sinatra, and despite their claim to be the only objective biographers to address the crooner's final years, the book's later chapters feel rushed compared with the lengthy passages covering Sinatra's well-trod glory days. Furthermore, since Sinatra's musical genius and acting skills have been thoroughly analyzed by previous writers, Summers and Swan put in minimal effort there. Where their work does stand out is in firming up the evidence of organized crime's "continuing interest" in Sinatra, from affirming that the famous scene in The Godfather only slightly exaggerates how he got his breakthrough role in From Here to Eternity to exploring his possible role as a go-between for the mob and John F. Kennedy. The pair also break new ground in depicting what they describe as Sinatra's alcoholism, pointing out that he frequently drank all night long, and his abusive treatment of women, for which they cite cases. Yet even when the authors say Sinatra raped a woman or fathered another woman's child out of wedlock-and they make good cases for both-their delivery is a lot closer to objective biography than tabloid sensationalism. A&E's airing of a linked documentary, timed to coincide with the book's publication, as well as a first serial in Vanity Fair, will create significant interest in this latest Sinatra saga. 32 pages of photos. (May 17) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Anthony Summers, a former BBC journalist, is the author of six best-selling books, including The File on the Tsar, on the fate of the Romanovs; Conspiracy, on the assassination of President Kennedy; Official and Confidential, on J. Edgar Hoover; and The Arrogance of Power, on Richard Nixon. Robbyn Swan worked with Summers on the Hoover and Nixon biographies, and both authors have contributed to Vanity Fair and PBS s Frontline.

Robbyn Swan worked with Anthony Summers on the books Official and Confidential, on J. Edgar Hoover; and The Arrogance of Power, on Richard Nixon. She has contributed to Vanity Fair and PBS s Frontline.