Frank Sinatra: My Father

Rating:
Summary: Some good stories and then there's Nancy's babbling...
Review: I liked the stories about Frank Sinatra told in this book. Any story or interview about him fascinates me, so that's an easy accomplishment. It was nice to hear stories about him from his daughter's POV. But please, spare me the talk of your own career. Write your own biography if you want to talk about that. Also, you can just so tell LOVES the fact that she is Frank Sinatra's daughter. Innumerable references to him as "Daddy" well into adulthood - who calls their Dad "Daddy" after the age of 10? Even in her speeches of today, she calls him that. OK. We get it. You're his daughter. Whoop dee doo. Get over yourself. Otherwise, this book is an interesting read and you learn a little more about the greatest singer that has ever graced the globe.

Rating:
Summary: Too Sweet to be wholesome.
Review: The photographs are fab,then you start to read ,and a little voice says wait a minute,espically as ive just finised his way by kitty kelley,i know he is dad ,and she's his little chicken,but how anyone in there right mind would fill a book cover to cover with such sugar sweet garbage,as this is beyond me,unless of course your ego and arrogance is higher than everest,now where would she have got that from,her explaining away the acts of voilence and cruelty,of one of the most feard performers to ever tread the boards,are airily brushed away with "hell get mad,and youll get mad",but if you face him them all will be well, ah shucks ,that is if your head is still on your shoulders,here and there,the veneer seems to slip,such as when descriping Richard Burtons,tribute to sinatra,at a luncheon in sinatras honour.She commends burtons tribute,then icily adds his words were by someone else, burtons diaries (Rich a life)leave no illusions of he really thought of sinatra,somehow i get the feeling this didnt escape her,its these little cracks in the facade, that show the true nancy, like father like daughter,sorry honey you dont fool me for one minute, little chicken,little vulture,more like it.

Rating:
Summary: Some good stories and then there's Nancy's babbling...
Review: This is Nancy Sinatra's biography on her father, the legendary Frank. There have been many stories about him over the years; his drinking, his suspected alliance to the mafia, his womanizing... In Nancy's world none of this existed. No, Frank was a saint according to her, with no faults whatsoever. The greatest man that ever lived! I am not interested in some kind of tabloid-style, gossip-based diving into the rumours about him, but it would have been interesting to read a more nuanced view of who Frank really was. Nancy ignores all of that, and her perpetual praise of him, page after page, is very tiresome. Also, she takes the opportunity to use the book as a sort of biography on her own career (almost a third of the book is about herself -that's OK but then the title is misleading, I think). The only credit I can give the book is that there is interesting detailed information on Frank's career and I learned a lot about the music industry in the 40's and 50's. But I would like to read an outsider's story about Frank, a more objective one.

Rating:
Summary: Glossy, but some interesting details
Review: Unlike the recent book by Tina Sinatra (which I give five-stars) this book softsells any of FAS's well known liabilities. Nonetheless, it does contain some interesting details about his life. My one complaint is that Nancy Sinatra's other book "Frank Sinatra, American Legend" seems to be indistiguishable from this one, and indeed contains 80% of the same material yet was not published as a revision. This, earlier version is better in my mind because of her notes about each of his movies and albums at the end of the book. That material is missing in the American Legend version. Given her softsell, I do have to wonder what Nancy has to say about her sisters more forthright approach to their father's story.