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His Way: An Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra |  | Author: Kitty Kelley
Publisher: Bantam
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
Buy New: $10.88
You Save: $5.12 (32%)
Rating:  28 reviews
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 672
ISBN: 0553386182
Dewey Decimal Number: 790
EAN: 9780553386189
ASIN: 0553386182
Publication Date: May 19, 2009 (In 179 Days)
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Product Description
This is the book Frank Sinatra failed to stop,the unauthorized biography of one of the mostelusive public figures of our time. Celebratedjournalist Kitty Kelley spent three years researchinggovernment documents (Mafia-related material, wiretapsand secret testimony) and interviewing more than800 people in Sinatra's life (family, colleagues,law-enforcement officers, personal friends). Fullydocumented, highly detailed and filled withrevealing anecdotes, here is the penetrating story ofthe explosively controversial and undeniablymulti-talented legend who ruled the entertainmentindustry for more than fiftyyears.
From the Paperback edition.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 23 more reviews...
 Garbage November 11, 2008
Any TRUE Sinatra fan would never read a word of this garabage from this despicable author.
LOLOL HILARIOUS AND MOSTLY UNTRUE October 15, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Kitty Kelly is KNOWN for her profiting from the pain of others. Here again, just like her other hilarious books, she writes nothing more than a long version of a gossip article you might find in the National Inquirer or Star magazine. Facts are all wrong, even the bad things about Sinatra. She fabricates over and over, almost all of the "facts" are either fabricated or embellished. She's a wacko. She profits from fiction and in a very mean way. There are plenty of good books about Sinatra that are fairly accurate. This is the worst one ever written.
Way Too Many Negative Details for a Good Story June 7, 2008
Admittedly Frank Sinatra had an extraordinarily rich and interesting life, but one much too full of details for a single book. So in this rendition of his life, the reader is left to ask the question: how many, hook-ups, breakup, screw-ups, jam-ups, and mob-ups can a story have before it goes well past being well-told, into a whole other zone of being just plain incoherent gossip?
One would think that of all people who should know where this mark in the sand lies, it would be Kitty Kelly? Yet, in this biography, Kelly, who is normally so good at culling the low hanging fruit from the rumor mill and gossip trees and turning them into a tasty and sometimes even a succulent wine, this time, gets it so wrong. She seems to have fouled up the fermentation process altogether and gone well past coherence into a whole new zone of vinegar, all the way past Go into complete incoherence.
There are just way too many repetitious unnecessary details, vignettes, spats, breakup and irrelevances to make this a well-rounded, coherent and interesting story. Some of the details, which after a while just start falling all over each other, simply should have been relegated to footnotes, mentioned in passing, or left out altogether. In the interest of "tightness" and coherence, Kelly, more than anyone, should know that more is not always better. Sometimes unorganized details in a manuscript can overpower the story. As is the case here, they cannot even be tamed by forcing them into a "Procrustean Bed" of the author's own making. Kelly knows, all to well that details must be sorted, selected and ever so carefully placed so that through organization alone, they are allowed to tell their own story. Here, it seemed that Kelly, just as she accuses her subject of doing in the manuscript, allowed her own enthusiasm to get well ahead of her keen sense of organization and storytelling. What a pity: so much material, so little time.
Despite this, one can reassemble this jigsaw puzzle of "way too many pieces" into a mosaic beneath the clutter to get at a reasonable psychological portrait of Frank Sinatra, and still be able to see that he was pretty much handicapped at birth: Accidentally misnamed; an only child; collar-flowered ears, a busted eardrum, skinny and slight of stature. Add to this that he had only a smattering of talent, in a heavily male dominated culture and you get at an early age, a personality blanketed with deeply rooted insecurities.
But these were nothing compared to the "trip his mother put on him" to heighten these congenital insecurities. She was overbearing and over-protective, dressed him like a girl and spoiled him. And then, as this his most powerful role model and ally through life, provided him a very poor example of adult humanity. Dolly Sinatra was the dynamo of the family: the matron and breadwinner, who cursed in technicolor, always dabbled over the edge of legalities, including being jailed multiple times for running an illegal abortion clinic, and for her prohibition era Speakeasy activities. The fact that Frank's father was present, but missing in action: a virtual "nobody" who deferred to his mother, pretty much sealed his psychological fate: Little Frankie had no chance of evolving into a normal well-balanced adult.
What Frank Sinatra had going for him was a very contradictory self-destructive kind of self-confidence spawn mostly out of fantasy and denial. It was one that bordered on unwarranted arrogance, fits of uncontrolled anger, depressive spins, hovering on the rim of immorality and illegality, and leaving him with an empty emotional reservoir. Throughout his life he was little more than an insecure bully with an average voice. Yet he used bullying to his advantage, and as a weapon to "club his way" through life.
And as life would have it, after many inevitable "ups-and-downs," failures and come backs, shattered and scattered love affairs--especially with Ava Gardner -- he became a raving financial and professional success, but an utter moral, personal and human failure. End of story.
Five stars for the research, two for the organization; three for the book.
So biased its comical March 21, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I'm only writing this review because there are those who think this book contains the "truth" about Sinatra. Think about this, someone who doesn't like you much decides to write a book about you, they find all the people throughout your life that hate you, you have had fights with, don't speak to anymore, or you just don't really like. They ignore anyone who has good things to say or your long time friends and family. They interview them and write the book containing all their quotes, stating its factual, after all people did say these things - right!! Now think about how that would make you look, would it represent the truth about you- i don't think so. This is pure unadulterated garbage, from a twisted viewpoint and not worth the paper its printed on. Did Sinatra have some dark moments, i guess so - but this is not the place to find out about them.
 A walk on the sinister side... May 1, 2007
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
This is a lengthy look at the shadows in Sinatra's personality, and is not the one to read if you are interested in how he developed his approach to singing so well. Frank appears to have been a victim of what we now call bipolar disorder, back in the days when no effective medications existed for it except alcohol and nicotine. He sank into scary depressions, and soared into wild bouts of manic activity, exhibited both grandiosity and generosity in excess, supported violence against his enemies and often uncritical acceptance of his friends. He grew up with a passive dad and a forceful but not likable mom, was a spoiled child who sometimes was a victim of discrimination due to his Italian heritage, and developed such an intense drive to be successful that he frequently drove away the people who might have been best for him. Upon finishing this gossipy yet apparently truthful biography, I didn't want Frank as a friend, but I didn't give away any of my dozen CD's, either. Sometimes one has to divorce the artist from the person in order to remain a fan.
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