Frank SinatraISBN: 978-0-7456-3091-5
Paperback
200 pages
October 2004, Polity
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Frank Sinatra was only one of a handful of popular entertainers who
dominated Western popular culture for six decades. From his early
fame as 'the Voice' in the early 1940s, through to the high
rolling, fast living 'Rat Pack' era, to the protracted Lear-like
farewell tours of his twilight years, Sinatra was the epitome of
cool. This compelling, consistently insightful book portrays
Sinatra in his many contradictory hues of ambition, generosity,
menace and vituperation. The book asks why Sinatra's public
character which mixed insufferable hauteur with soapy populism and
nobility with the lowest kind of vindictive violence proved so
enduring with the Western public? What model of masculinity was
Sinatra projecting? Why did his recordings, concert performances
and film work persuade audiences that he was really talking to them
alone? What does his career tell us about the relationship between
celebrity and popular culture?
Sinatra may not have found his Boswell with this study, but our understanding of him will never be the same again. Rojek's is the first book to take Sinatra's cultural significance seriously. It is a landmark work in our understanding of celebrity and popular culture. The book will be of interest to students of Cultural, Media and Communication Studies, Sociology and, most of all, anyone who has bought a Sinatra recording or seen a Sinatra film.