"My Way" is known as Sinatra's signature song, but it very nearly became his swan song on the night of March 6, 1994. According to Bill Zehme, the 78-year-old Sinatra sang the first two lines of the song on a Richmond, Va., stage, then blacked out and went down. He revived much later, but absolutely refused to stay at the hospital, electing instead to medicate himself with Camels and a bottle of Jack Daniel's.
This is just one of the collection of many anecdotes, quotes and thoughts about Sinatra in Zehme's biography, "The Way You Wear Your Hat."
The book evolved out of the material gathered for a profile of Sinatra in the March 1996 issue of Esquire, "And Then There was One." Zehme recollects, in the afterword: "I wanted to ask him essential questions... I wanted what might approximate Frank's Rules of Order... Arguably, no man ever lived life more broadly or confidently or stylishly than Frank Sinatra. So I sought his large legacy of life, plain and simple."
That quote, more than anything, captures the spirit of the book it is not so much a biography of Sinatra as it is of his style. If ever a book could justifiably be subtitled "My Way," it is this one. Instead, that subtitle is given to the last of the book's eight sections, not including the afterword, which presumably explores facets of Sinatra's life.
Also included, of course, are sections on "Booze and Smoke" and "Getting Spiffed" (Getting Style). At first glance I was slightly surprised that there was no section on music, but upon review, I realized there was no need for one because the music pervades all aspects of the book only less slightly than Sinatra himself.
The book is filled with trivial, but certainly interesting, bits of information which certify his off-kilter, tough-guy personality.
Did you know that Sinatra used to be a monstrous tipper, always trying to top a parking attendent's biggest tip?
Did you know he never wears anything brown after dark?
Perhaps the most interesting revelation is that for a tough guy, he likes his women classy. He cannot stand women swearing or revealing dresses on his "dames."
And it is interesting to see how strongly he loved his family and how much he depended on them in his younger days, even if he has had a few too many wives.
The book has an easy and accessible style of writing to it, with the important words and statements bolded as if it is a textbook on Sinatra's life.
The book is also peppered with Pack-speak, the shorthand code invented and made famous by the Rat Pack (which included Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr.) and of which one reporter once said, "they might as well have been talking Chinese."
Luckily, the book offers navigational tips pretty early in the narrative. Thirty-seven pages into the book, we find out that a gas is a good situation, like a party, at which most of these terms were employed anyway. Says Zehme, "If said party 'cooked,' which is to say, was 'mothery,' then all present would bear witness to a 'ring-a-ding-ding time,' after which couples might pair off to make a little 'hey-hey'..."
Suffice it to say that only a "clyde" would hate this book about one of America's greatest entertainers, but reading it might just give you enough material to be a "gasser."
