12 December: Frank Sinatra

Singer and actor Frank Sinatra was born on this date in 1915. Here are some things you may not know about him.

1. His parents were Italians who'd emigrated to America. When Frank was born in their apartment in New Jersey, the doctor had to use forceps to get him out, and thought the baby was dead. Leaving the child on the kitchen table, he attended to the mother. It was grandma who saved baby Frank's life by putting him under the cold tap.
2. He might have been idolised by girls the world over, but Frank was self conscious about his looks. The forceps birth left him with a scar on the left side of his face and a cauliflower ear. Then he suffered from severe acne as a teen which left him with more scars. He disliked being photographed on his left side and would cover his scars with make-up. He was also self conscious about his height (5' 7”) and wore elevator Shoes so he'd appear taller.
3. His first performances were for his family after his uncle gave him a Ukulele when he was 15. At 19, he joined a local singing group which became known as the Hoboken Four. The same year, he made his acting debut in a porn film called The Masked Bandit. He wasn't proud of that, and it's said he took steps to make sure the film stayed hidden after he became famous.
4. He was one of the first teen idols. While his appeal to young girls couldn't be denied, his publicist George Evans did help things along. He auditioned screaming girls, hired the ones who could scream the loudest and placed them in strategic positions in the crowd. Sinatra was also one of the first performers to release a concept album and a box set. His first set of records were 78s, with a theme of lost love. The album was issued on vinyl later and became one of the first vinyl pop LPs.
5. He had a reputation as a bad boy, possibly beginning in school when he was expelled for “mischievous behaviour” and didn't graduate. The FBI had a huge file on him which was started by J. Edgar Hoover when a radio listener wrote in suggesting that someone might be turning Sinatra into a new Hitler through all the mass hysteria. He was later investigated when it was claimed he'd paid a doctor $40,000 to declare him medically unfit to serve in WWII, but concluded that he was actually unfit, due to a punctured ear drum. He was rumoured to be a communist sympathiser (which he denied) and a member of the Mafia as he used to sing at Mafia weddings and be photographed with Mafia bosses. Some said his fame was down to his connections with the mob. Add to that his fighting, drinking, and womanising, and the file on him was 2,403 pages long.
6. He married four times. His first wife was Nancy Barbato. That marriage ended because of his affair with Ava Gardner, who became his second wife. It's said Frank saw a picture of Ava in a magazine and vowed he'd marry her despite being married already. That relationship broke down over his jealousy of one of her former boyfriends, Peter Lawford. Sinatra once called Lawford in the middle of the night and said he’d send men round to break Lawford’s legs if he was ever seen with Gardner again. Gardner, on the other hand, blamed the divorce on Sinatra’s affairs. He was briefly married to Mia Farrow and famously served her with divorce papers in front of cast and crew of Rosemary's Baby. His final wife was Barbara Marx, to whom he remained married for the rest of his life.
7. Frank's mental health wasn't always good. He described himself as an "18-carat manic depressive" and made several suicide attempts. Some were down to depression because his relationship with Ava was going downhill, but at least one was down to his waning popularity on the pop music scene. After seeing the queues of girls waiting to get in to a concert by a younger performer, Eddie Fisher, Frank went home and put his head in the gas oven – but his manager found him in time.
8. He hated racial segregation and did his bit for civil rights by refusing to play at venues where African-Americans weren't allowed. On one occasion, he insisted that singer Nat King Cole join him in the dining room of a segregated hotel, saying he was willing to fight and remove his business if they tried to stop him. Sinatra was a big enough money maker that several of the venues reconsidered their policies.
9. Strangers in the Night was one of his biggest hits, but he hated the song, calling it "a piece of shit" and "the worst song I've ever heard." Nevertheless, a famous TV cartoon character was named after some of the lyrics. CBS executive Fred Silverman was listening to the song on an aeroplane and from the nonsense lyrics "dooby, dooby doo” coined the name Scooby Doo for the ghost busting dog. Sinatra hated rock music, too, saying the worst record he ever heard was Light My Fire by the Doors.
10. He was an actor as well as a singer and was critically acclaimed for his acting as well. He starred in 56 films and television specials from 1944 to 1984, including The Manchurian Candidate, From Here to Eternity, The Man with the Golden Arm and the TV series Our Town. Another film he made was called Suddenly, which Sinatra asked to be removed from circulation after he learned that Lee Harvey Oswald, John F Kennedy's assassin, had watched the film a few days before the assassination.

My Christmas Novella!

A Very Variant Christmas

Last year, Jade and Gloria were embroiled in a bitter conflict to win back their throne and their ancestral home. This year, Queen Jade and Princess Gloria want to host the biggest and best Christmas party ever in their palace. They invite all their friends to come and bring guests. Not even the birth of Jade's heir just before Christmas will stop them.

The guest list includes most of Britain's complement of super-powered crime-fighters, their families and friends. What could possibly go wrong?

Gatecrashers, unexpected arrivals, exploding Christmas crackers and a kidnapping, for starters.

Far away in space, the Constellations, a cosmic peacekeeping force, have suffered a tragic loss. They need to recruit a new member to replace their dead colleague. The two top candidates are both at Jade and Gloria's party. The arrival of the recruitment delegation on Christmas Eve is a surprise for everyone; but their visit means one guest now faces a life-changing decision.

Meanwhile, an alliance of the enemies of various guests at the party has infiltrated the palace; they hide in the dungeon, plotting how best to get rid of the crime-fighters and the royal family once and for all. Problem is, they all have their own agendas and differences of opinion on how to achieve their aims.

Not to mention that this year, the ghosts who walk the corridors of the palace on Christmas Eve will be as surprised by the living as the living are by them.

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