His Way

New York: Bantam Books, Inc. BOOK: Front Free Endpaper Missing; Corners, Spine, Boards Bumped; Light Shelf Rub to Boards; Spine Slightly Cocked; Edges Lightly Soiled. DUST JACKET: Lightly Creased; Lightly Chipped; In Archival Quality Jacket Cover. Includes photographs and a complete listing of albums and movies. SUB-TITLE: The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra. BOOK DESIGN BY: Barbara N. Cohen. COVER PHOTO: Stanley Tretick. SYNOPSIS: This is the book that Frank Sinatra tried to stop with a two-million-dollar lawsuit: the unauthorized biography of one of the most controversial yet elusive public figures of our time--a fully documented, highly detailed, and penetrating portrait of the man behind the voice. Kitty Kelley, celebrated investigative journalist and author of Jackie Oh! and Elizabeth Taylor: The Last Star, spent three years researching her subject. She has had access to never-before-published government documents, including Mafia-related material obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, wiretaps and secret testimony before crime commissions. She has interviewed more than eight hundred people who have been important in Sinatra's life--family members, colleagues, law-enforcement officers, and people never interviewed before about him--men and women who have known Sinatra in and out of the spotlight. Frank Sinatra has dominated the entertainment industry for more than fifty years. The skinny kid crooner who caused the bobby sox craze in 1942 has thickened in the middle and lost his hair, but even now, at age seventy, he continues to excite interest in his music, his life, his women, his money, his politics, and--most of all--his Mafia connections. Now, Kitty Kelley draws an unforgettable, vivid portrait of Sinatra from his earliest years: the childhood in Hoboken, New Jersey, that was far different from the one he invented; the mother he adored but seemed deeply ashamed of; his beginnings as a singer; his relationships with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey; his climb to the top as a singer then movie star, and the violence of the moodswings that followed it, leaving a trail of broken friendships and broken marriages--to Nancy Sinatra, Ava Gardner, and Mia Farrow. From the beginning, marriage didn't stop his womanizing. The list and variety of women in his life are formidable. And though he himself was no athlete, he always admired fighters--force of any kind. Sometimes his bodyguards did his beatings for him; sometimes they just held his victims while Sinatra punched. There are many who have taken his insults, threats, and even physical abuse quietly, because they fear his power and wrath. And yet there are many who can testify to his wildly lavish generosity and charitable pursuits. A complex man who plays by his own rules, Frank Sinatra still draws huge audiences wherever he performs. His influence extends even into the White House--today more than ever before. Here, in a biography filled with anecdotes and revealing behind-the-scenes accounts, Kitty Kelley gives us a no-holds-barred inside look at the man, the legend, and the life of Frank Sinatra. Kitty Kelley left her job with the Washington Post in 1971 to pursue free-lance writing. She has written for The New York Times, Newsweek, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, as well as Ladies' Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, and other women's magazines. Her previous books, Jackie Oh! and Elizabeth Taylor: The Last Star, were both national bestsellers.. First Edition 7th Printing. Hard Cover. Fair/Good. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.