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.
