SINATRA: An Unauthorized Biography

Earl Wilson, the old night owl of saloon society, writes the book he was born to write. Francis Albert Sinatra is without doubt the blue-eyed peak of saloon success, worth over $50 million, seducer of women without number, intimate of presidents and Mafia dons, Oscar-winner, president of the Holmby Hills Rat Pack (Judy, Bogie, Bacall) and The Clan (Davis, Dino, Lawford), top draw at Las Vegas, New York, or you name it, in brief The Greatest Fingersnapping Swinger on Earth—and singer. Just a crooner, who fashioned his early singing style after Tommy Dorsey's long, mellow trombone phrases. And who has one crushing flaw: EGOTISM. A few drinks at the wrong moment and he becomes the terrible-tempered destroyer of men, women, and hotel rooms, Mr. Hyde of the media, and Bad-Taste Champion of America. (He recently told an audience which had come to hear him in concert with Count Basle and Ella Fitzgerald, "The Polacks are deboning the colored people and using them for wetsuits.") Bigger, much bigger than life is Frank, and this biting but balanced bio should hit the top of the charts. Did all this happen to a mere human being? It's like eating a whole pizza-with-everything by yourself.