Frank Sinatra: A legend that will never be forgotten

I wonder how many readers can remember what they were doing on November 27, 1975. It’s a date that is unforgettable for me because that’s when I saw my idol performing in person for the first time, after decades of worshiping him from afar.

It’s the night Frank Sinatra came to Israel and performed at Binyenei Ha’uma (The Jerusalem Convention Center).

From the time I was a teenager, his voice and songs had thrilled me. And then, at age 44, the thrill hadn’t lessened. I was probably the oldest bobby-soxer (as his fans were called) in the audience.

Many, many vocalists have been popular over the years, and then faded into obscurity. ]

Not Sinatra – he’s a legend that will never be forgotten. Not so much for his films but for the songs that we danced to, and the lyrics that have been forever etched on our hearts:

Frank Sinatra (left) and Gregory Peck talk to an IDF officer in Jerusalem in 1978, when he opened the Frank Sinatra Center at the Hebrew University’s Mount Scopus campus (credit: MOSHE MILNER / GPO)

Strangers in the night

Exchanging glances

Wondering in the night

What were the chances

We’d be sharing love

Before the night was through….

The best description of Sinatra is “charismatic”

Sinatra wasn’t amazingly handsome, just nice-looking, but he had an indefinable charm that inspired you to reminisce, along with the lyrics, about every romance, every heartbreak, you had ever known. When he sang “They Can’t Take That Away from Me,” I sat there in the balcony, tears rolling down my cheeks:

The way you wear your hat,

The way you sip your tea;

The way you changed my life –

Oh no, they can’t take that away from me!

Although the only time I was in Chicago was for one day (when I was on a book tour with my novel Esther), I found myself singing along with him:

My kind of town, Chicago is

Calling me home, Chicago is

One town that won’t let you down …

It’s my kind of town.

Half the audience sang along and tapped their feet when he belted out:

She don’t like crap games

With barons and earls,

Won’t go to Harlem

In ermine and pearls –

Won’t dish the dirt

With the rest of the girls….

That’s why the lady is a tramp.

And I doubt that there was a dry eye in the house when he sang his final song, “My Way,” written by Paul Anka, which became his all-time classic.

And now the end is near

And I must face the final curtain

My friend, I’ll say it clear

I’ll state my case, of which I’m certain

I’ve lived a life that’s full

I traveled each and every highway

And more, much more than this

I did it my way.

Frank Sinatra began his career in 1939 in a musical group headed by trumpet player Harry James. Then he moved to Tommy Dorsey’s orchestra. One drawback was that Dorsey’s music was aimed at dancers. There was little opportunity to really explore songs beneath the surface. Still, Sinatra’s recordings with Dorsey proved to be chart-busters from the outset.

His first massive hit in the 1940s was “I’ll Never Smile Again”:

I’ll never smile againUntil I smile at you.I’ll never laugh again –What good would it do?

Sinatra had nearly 90 major hits over the next 10 years. That night at Sinatra’s Israeli concert, I went through a whole range of emotions…. Smiling, reminiscing, weeping – for no other singer had ever touched my heart so much. For one evening, I was transported back to my romantic youth; and for me, it really was “One Enchanted Evening.”■

The writer is the author of 14 books. She can be contacted at dwaysman@gmail.com