Trivia / Frank Sinatra

• Acclaimed Flop: She Shot Me Down is widely considered one of the best albums from Sinatra's latter-day period, but significantly undersold compared to the commercial success of Trilogy: Past Present Future. The album's failure would serve as the final nail in the coffin for the first incarnation of Reprise Records (the label was already shut down in 1976 due to its declining commercial fortunes, but Sinatra, who founded the company, kept releasing his own material under its name for five years).
• Breakup Breakout: He first gained noticed in the vocal quartet The Hoboken Four, then as a featured vocalist for bandleaders Harry James and Tommy Dorsey before going solo in 1942 and becoming a huge star.
• Channel Hop: Being an immensely prolific artist who constantly fought for artistic freedom, Sinatra inevitably spread himself out across a number of labels. Initially signed to Columbia Records, he moved over to Capitol Records in 1954 before moving to his newly opened vanity label, Reprise Records, in 1961. The Reprise deal would last even after its buyout by Warner (Bros.) Records in 1963 and shuttering in 1976, with Sinatra keeping it alive for his own releases until the commercial failure of She Shot Me Down in 1981. In 1984, Sinatra would sign with Quincy Jones' own Warner-backed vanity imprint, Qwest Records, only to leave that label after the failure of L.A. Is My Lady and the scrapping of its planned follow-up in 1988. Sinatra ultimately returned to Capitol in time for the Duets duology in the early '90s.
• Creator Backlash: He was not terribly keen on his Signature Song "My Way" and showed contempt at having to always sing it. He had reservations about "New York, New York", although that was less dislike than fear of overkill. But most of all, he utterly despised "Strangers in the Night", which he called "a piece of shit" and "the worst fucking song" he ever heard. Nonetheless, he kept those songs on his set lists.
• He Also Did: Sinatra was hired by Life to photograph the March 8th, 1971 boxing match between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, the so-called "Fight of the Century"; one of his photos graced the cover of Life's March 19th edition. It's sometimes claimed that Sinatra was hired because he couldn't otherwise get a ringside ticket to the event, but in fact, Sinatra had a lifelong interest in photography and jumped at the opportunity to do it professionally. (That said, a lot of professional sports photographers were less-than-impressed with his work.)
• Multi-Disc Work: Trilogy: Past, Present & Future was originally released across three LPs and three cassettes. CD reissues, meanwhile, squeeze the album onto just two discs, with disc one containing both The Past and The Present and disc two containing The Future.
• Sequel Gap: Duets came out nine years after L.A. is My Lady, owed to Sinatra's planned follow-up to the latter failing to materialize.
• What Could Have Been:
  • He was asked if he could perform the main theme for the James Bond film You Only Live Twice and declined. His daughter Nancy ended up with the gig.
  • Sinatra intended to record a follow-up to L.A. Is My Lady in 1988, but this fell through for unknown reasons. Sinatra wouldn't record a true solo album again, with his next (and last) releases being the Duets duology in 1993 and 1994.
  • When an adaptation of Nothing Lasts Forever was being made, he had a clause in his contract that he had the right to be offered to reprise the role of Joe Leland before they could offer it to someone else. He was 73 at the time, but the novel already had Joe being old and retired; it's likely it was written with the intent for him to be able to reprise the role without trouble. However, he turned it down, and eventually, the film became Die Hard, the character was made younger, renamed John McClane, and played by Bruce Willis.

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