Sinatra
She blushed. Looked down. Smiled shyly. In an instant, decades vanished. It was 1944. As she told and retold the story, a mature woman was suddenly a giddy, giggly girl. She lived inside the memory, happily and often. And my memory of her memory warms me to this day: My mom, the bobbysoxer. And Frank Sinatra.
Only seven years after the man dubbed The Voice turned my mom-to-be swoony and woozy at New York’s Paramount Theater—the day immortalized by New York media as “The Columbus Day Riot”—he pivoted westward to debut at the Desert Inn in 1951. Two years later, he’d make the Sands his headquarters and Las Vegas his sandbox—and through his swingin’ endorsement, the world’s playground.
Merely two—but my favorite two—of the reasons to be grateful for the legend later crowned Chairman of the Board and Ol’ Blue Eyes, who would’ve turned 100 on Dec. 12 and is the de facto Godfather of Vegas Entertainment. Compelling cases can be made that Elvis Presley and Liberace should share that honor. In fact, Liberace arrived here in 1944 and made the city his home. Presley showed up in 1956 and has long been our most caricatured icon.
Yet Sinatra is this town’s ultimate historical ambassador because he embodied what the city is to virtually everyone—a pipeline to the pleasure center of the brain. The id unleashed.
Sinatra didn’t just perform in Vegas. He inhaled it. With fellow Rat Packers Dino, Sammy, Joey and Peter, he smashed the formalities of entertainment here. Within a loose structure, they largely made it up as they went along onstage before an audience that included a dashing president-to-be. Then, rather than disappear behind the curtain, they invaded the casinos, tossing dice, dealing cards, schmoozing crowds, guzzling booze, keeping the town awake 24/7—most famously during production of 1960’s Ocean’s 11, filming all day and prowling all night. All with Sinatra as the hepcat and top dog.
Other stars were Vegas performers. Some were also Vegas partiers. Sinatra was a Vegas bacchanal. He made this city—especially for those of us obsessed with the entertainment industry—a must-visit destination. Or, in my case, a must-live imperative, still a live-wire thrill for me nearly 20 years after my U-Haul van pulled up.
I thank Frank for that big-picture gift. So should everyone who happily and hungrily indulges their appetites here. But I thank him even more for the small gift of allowing me to watch my mother grow younger before my eyes.
Traveling back through time to that theater on Broadway when the Sinatra swell of popularity engorged into a tidal wave, my mom would become a girl of 21 again, flush with euphoria. Describing being one little ripple in the sea of bobbysoxers, nearly fainting as the singer crooned “I’ll Never Smile Again”—his skinny frame seemingly invisible behind the microphone stand—sent new goose bumps down her arm with each retelling.
Sinatra gave me what no yellowing old photo ever could: the dewy, vibrant woman she was long before I came along. Whenever that memory possessed her anew, she glowed, as if inside a tingling force field of golden yesterdays. For that—and for giving this city its beating heart—thanks, Mr. S. In Frank-speak, have a swingin’, cuckoo birthday, baby.
