Staring at Those Blue Eyes
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

One of the greatest joys involved in the music of Frank Sinatra is, perversely, not listening to it. If, for some reason, you deny yourself the pleasure of listening to Sinatra for say, a month or two, it has the same effect as going without sex for the same period: When you experience it again, it’s even better than you remembered. Sinatra’s combination of supremely musical and dramatic abilities was matched by no one — the beauty of his voice (particularly in the earlier work), the power of his interpretive skills (particularly in the later work), his articulation and intonation, his use of space and time, his talent for making a lyric come to life and making the melody swing at the same time, were all unparalleled.
If one accepts that the body of work that we sometimes collectively refer as “the Great American Songbook” is a legitimate body of art, much the same way the symphonies, operas, and chamber works of 19th-century Europe are, then there’s no way around it: Sinatra is simply and inarguably the greatest exponent of the American popular song. There may be people, experts even, who feel otherwise, but I don’t have to associate with them.
Pondering any aspect of Sinatra other than his music is a slippery slope: If you want to talk about his few really good movies (particularly the musicals), then you also have to discuss his many crumby ones. At the same time, if you feel, as so many people apparently do, like bringing up his tendency to seek out the company of mobsters, you should also mention how politicians, presidents, and captains of industry lined up to have their picture taken with him. If you want to mention how he liked to punch the occasional reporter (“Frank Sinatra’s Greatest Hits!”), it’s only fair to bring up that he set new standards in philanthropy and wound up giving away most of the millions he made.
Above all, there is the unstoppable force of his charisma and the lure of a personality that still looms larger than life even though the man himself took a cab, as he might have put it, almost 10 years ago. The photographer Terry O’Neill has designed a way of looking Sinatra that’s at once personal and professional, as reflected in a new exhibition opening Wednesday at the Time-Warner Center. These images are also published in a new book, “Sinatra: Frank and Friendly,” which joins previously published collections by Bob Willoughby and John Dominis.
Mr. O’Neill was the rare paparazzo whom Sinatra allowed into his inner sanctum (more than a few who tried it wound up with a broken shutter finger). It should be noted that he never sought to snap Sinatra’s picture in a completely private setting, in his home with his family, or in a bar with friends. Mr. O’Neill captured the singer on movie sets, backstage before and during concerts, at rehearsals, and in all manner of occasions when he’s not quite being seen by the public but not secluded in his compound either.
“Sinatra Frank and Friendly” begins in Miami in 1968, with an extensive series of shots of Sinatra working on the movie “Lady in Cement.” Some of the images are Sinatra preparing behind the scenes, others are of him working before the movie cameras — including some admittedly surreal images of Sinatra with cross-dressers (in the story, the detective character played by Sinatra follows a trail through a gay bar, where he encounters drag queens and lesbians) and equally outrageous shots of Sinatra with a young Raquel Welch flaunting her enormous … hair. There’s a sequence of photos, from both onstage and in rehearsal, for an epic concert in London in 1975, in which Sinatra shared the stage with Count Basie’s Orchestra and Sarah Vaughan. The most personal section in the book has Mr. O’Neill following Sinatra around the golf course; on the evidence here, he was a more avid golfer than I realized.
“Sinatra Frank and Friendly” is a beautifully printed book that does full justice to the depth and richness of Mr. O’Neill’s images. The one thing it lacks is sufficient contextual background. There is some minimal text credited to the British journalist Robin Morgan (as well as quote in praise of Mr. O’Neill from Jerry Springer, of all people). But we are never given the whole story of why Mr. O’Neill was called upon to shoot candids of Sinatra on the movie set in 1968 and why Sinatra apparently requested his photographic services on many more occasions over the next 20 years. In some cases, Mr. O’Neill is apparently trying to protect his own privacy; we are given a contact sheet of several dozen images of portraits of Sinatra with Faye Dunaway taken for their one film together, “The First Deadly Sin.” But it wasn’t until I read an Internet entry on Mr. O’Neill that I realized the photographer was romantically involved with the actress at the time, and that they would marry a few years later.
There’s a beguiling set of shots of Sinatra in his dressing room, adjusting a shirt that looks like a Nehru tuxedo blouse and a German Iron Cross for a tie — it must be the late 1960s, but no one ever tells us when or where. Then the book climaxes, in an almost musical way, with a marvelous series of images of the Chairman in concert, mostly from the early ’80s. This was an artistically rich period for Sinatra, and here you can practically hear his voice through the resonance of the visuals, or even guess where he is in a song by how he’s holding his hands, extending his arms, or snapping his fingers.
There are what could be called candid and casual shots: Sinatra resting on the set between takes, Sinatra coming offstage from a performance with a towel on his face, Sinatra horsing around with friends (most humorously the enormous Dan Blocker of “Bonanza” fame). Oddly enough, the most revealing images of Sinatra are not when he’s by himself, but when he’s standing in front of several thousand people as they listen to him expose the most intimate emotions known to man.