The Sinatra Files (4 page)

Sinatra received his public school education in Hoboken and left the Demarest High School in 1935 to work as a helper on a delivery truck for the
Jersey Observer
and contrary to publicity reports, did not serve as a sports writer for this paper. He is also reported to have taken some engineering courses at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken and in other reports is supposed to have attended the Drake Institute, dates of attendance not given.

Sinatra started his singing career in 1935 after winning an amateur contest. He subsequently won a prize on the Major Bowes Amateur Hour and toured with a unit of this company for three months. By 1939 he was singing on eighteen sustaining programs on the radio, reportedly without financial remuneration. In June, 1939, he gave up his job with a New Jersey roadhouse, The Rustic Cabin, to appear with Harry James’s Band. About December, 1939, he joined Tommy Dorsey’s Band and stayed with him until the summer of 1942, when
he returned to radio work and personal appearances. Sinatra was the singing star of the Lucky Strike Hit Parade radio program from February, 1943, to January, 1945. During this period he began his screen work and also appeared in the Wedgewood Room of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City.

In addition to his work as a singer Sinatra was reported in 1946 to have an interest in a race track near Atlantic City, a band, a music publishing company, and one-third interest in the Barton Music Corporation and was then considering an interest in a sports arena to be built in Hollywood, a hotel in Las Vegas, and an office building in Beverly Hills.

On February 4, 1939, he married Nancy Barbato at Jersey City, New Jersey, and they now have three children.

Sinatra registered with Local Draft Board Number 19, Jersey City, New Jersey, and received a 4-F classification on December 11, 1943.

Sinatra owned a home at 220 Lawrence Avenue, Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey, until the spring of 1944 when he moved to Hollywood and bought a home there. He spends considerable time in New York City, but has no fixed address there.

Sinatra’s Selective Service file describes him as being 5’7 ½,” 119 pounds, slight build, dark brown hair, and blue eyes.

The files of the Identification Division also reflect that Sinatra was fingerprinted on October 6, 1943, by the War Department as a member of the USO Camp Shows, Incorporated, and that on January 30, 1947, he was fingerprinted by the Sheriff’s Office, Los Angeles, California, in connection with an application for a gun permit.

“Bugle-deaf Frankie Boy”

During World War II, Frank Sinatra generated a lot of public resentment and complaints largely because his first peak of stardom—marked by tumultuous appearances at New York’s Paramount Theatre—had been made possible by his exemption from military service.

It turned out that the draft complaints weren’t so far-fetched: As FBI documents in this chapter indicate, the young star had twice told the army he had no physical or mental disabilities, then later changed his story. His revised answer to draft doctors: He had suffered a perforated eardrum at birth and was “neurotic”—afraid of crowds in particular.

The ear ailment was bona fide, and Sinatra throughout his career demonstrated emotional instability. But this idol of millions of swooning teenaged girls, afraid of crowds? Could Sinatra have been pulling out all the stops to ensure a 4-F classification?

The time was one of extreme patriotism and high paranoia, as demonstrated by the first complaint received by the FBI, the earliest document in the Sinatra files. The letter, received on August 13, 1943, was from a resident of San Jose, California, who had just heard a Sinatra radio broadcast. The FBI withheld the writer’s name
.

Dear Sir:

The other day I turned on a Frank Sinatra program and I noted the shrill whistling sound, created supposedly by a bunch of girls cheering. Last night as I heard Lucky Strike produce more of this same hysteria I thought: how easy it would be for certain-minded manufacturers to create another Hitler here in America through the influence of mass-hysteria! I believe that those who are using this shrill whistling sound are aware that it is similar to that which produced Hitler. That they intend to get a Hitler in by first planting in the minds of the people that men like Frank Sinatra are O.K. therefore this future Hitler will be O.K. As you are well aware the future of some of these manufacturers is rather shaky unless something is done like that.

Sincerely,

    
Hoover’s reply was perfunctory
.

September 2, 1943

Dear

This will acknowledge your recent communication.

I have carefully noted the content of your letter and wish to thank you for volunteering your comments and observations in this regard.

Should you obtain any information which you believe to be of interest to this Bureau, please feel free to communicate directly with
the Special Agent in charge of our San Francisco Field Division which is located at One Eleven Sutter Building, Room 1729, San Francisco, California.

Sincerely yours,

John Edgar Hoover

Director

    
Complaints about Sinatra’s draft exemption soon attracted the FBI’s attention. One tip was passed on by a man who couldn’t be ignored: the
New York Mirror
columnist Walter Winchell, perhaps the most influential journalist of his day, and a very close friend of Hoover. An anonymous, typed letter to Winchell prompted top FBI officials to order an investigation into Sinatra’s draft record in early 1944. The letter was dated just three weeks after Sinatra was classified as 4-F (unacceptable for medical reasons) and only days after top draft officials questioned subordinates about the singer’s case
.

December 30, 1943

Mr. Walter Winchell
New York Mirror
235 East 45th Street
New York, N.Y.

Dear Mr. Winchell:

    I don’t dare give you my name because of my job but here is a bit of news you can check which I think is Front Page:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is said to be investigating a report that Frank Sinatra paid $40,000.00 to the doctors who examined him in Newark recently and presented him with a 4-F classification. The money is supposed to have been paid by Sinatra’s Business Manager. One of the recipients is said to have talked too
loud about the gift in a beer joint recently and a report was sent to the F.B.I.

A former School mate of Sinatra’s from Highland, N.J., said recently that Sinatra has no more ear drum trouble than Gen. MacArthur.

If there is any truth to these reports I think that it should be made known. Mothers around this section who have sons in the service are planning a petition to Pres. Roosevelt asking for a re-examination of the singer by a neutral board of examiners. You’ll probably read about this in the papers within a few days unless you break the story first.

I wish I could give you my name but I would lose my job within 24 hours if I did. You’d probably recognize it immediately if I did because I have sent you numerous items in the past which appeared in your column.

    
In fact, the FBI had not been investigating Sinatra’s draft record. But the letter became a self-fulfilling prophecy. The resulting investigation prompted this memo several weeks later to Assistant Director D. M. “Mickey” Ladd, head of the FBI’s Domestic Intelligence Division. The initial inquiry into Sinatra’s draft status was undertaken by the special agent in charge (SAC) for Newark, Sam K. McKee, who is reputed to have been one of the agents who gunned down Pretty Boy Floyd ten years earlier
.

February 8, 1944
Call 3:10 PM.
Transcribed— 3:25 PM.
MEMORANDUM FOR MR. LADD
RE: FRANK SINATRA
   SELECTIVE SERVICE

    When SAC, S. K. McKee of Newark called me at the above time and date I asked him whether or not he had heard any rumors to the effect that Frank Sinatra had paid $40,000 to obtain a 4-F
classification. Mr. McKee stated that he had heard nothing to this effect.

I asked SAC McKee to ascertain definitely whether Sinatra’s classification was 4-F and if so, to determine why he received this classification. However, I told him that it would not be necessary at this time to make a full scale investigation or to look into the charges of $40,000 being paid the examining doctors at Newark. McKee stated that he would do this immediately and advise the Bureau of the results.

Respectfully,

G. C. Callan

    
McKee informed headquarters of the results of his investigation several days later, first in a telephone call with one of Ladd’s underlings, Christopher Callan. McKee’s report was the first hint that Sinatra had given draft officials inconsistent statements about his medical condition. And the report was spiced up with a little sex
.

February 10, 1944
MEMORANDUM FOR MR. LADD
Re: FRANK SINATRA
   Selective Service

    SAC McKee of the Newark Office advised that Sinatra’s classification appeared to be regular and that he was disqualified because of a perforated ear drum and chronic mastoiditis and that his mental condition was one of emotional instability. McKee stated that in a prior physical examination in the fall of 1943 none of these defects were noted and that in a questionnaire dated December 17, 1940, in answer to a question as to his physical condition, Sinatra
noted there were none to the best of his knowledge. He is classified 4-F as of December 11, 1943.

McKee also said it had come to the attention of one of the Resident Agents at Hackensack, New Jersey, that Sinatra has an arrest record and that
Hackensack County Jail, who furnished this information, gave the Agent a photograph of Sinatra, arrest #42799. McKee advised that Sinatra was arrested in 1938 on a charge of seduction which was dismissed and he was later arrested on a charge of adultery.