Frank Sinatra: “Because he had been known to punch out a photographer or two, it’s assumed that he hated reporters and newsmen. Far from it.”

From a story in WSJ Magazine by Will Friedwald headlined “Inside Frank Sinatra’s Personal Address Book”:

Think of the most legendary, exclusive parties of the past century: Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball or Vanity Fair’s Oscar party. Imagine the guest list. Now think of the man comedian Alan King once described as an event unto himself. The only thing Frank Sinatra had to do to set a room buzzing was walk into it. What did his guest list look like? We no longer have to wonder. Photographer Henry Leutwyler has documented a personal phone book said to be Sinatra’s—every entry from his personal assistant to two U.S. presidents—in a collection of still-life images to be published as Hi There!, a monograph out in June from Steidl. . . .

The address book, which includes just over a hundred names, appears to date to the late 1970s or early ’80s, a period when Sinatra was performing again after an attempted retirement a few years earlier. . . .

Midway through, four incongruous names sum up the eclectic range of his social circle: Tony Mottola, Sinatra’s preferred guitarist for most of this period; Ed McMahon, Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show sidekick; Wayne Newton, a Vegas mainstay; and, notably, “Nixon, Pres.” Sinatra had been a liberal Democrat for most of his life; he was the first major entertainer to campaign for civil rights. During the Vietnam era, he’d been pulled increasingly to the right, not least by his friendship with Vice President Spiro Agnew, and then Nixon. . . .

The first thing one notices are the political heavyweights: in addition to Nixon and “Ted” Agnew, Henry Kissinger (one of the few individuals, along with Sinatra’s daughters, still alive), Gerald Ford, Senator Barry Goldwater and Prince Rainier III of Monaco (listed under his family name, Grimaldi). . . .

Sidney Zion—a lawyer and journalist, and the only “Z” in the book—is appropriately the final entry. Because Sinatra had been known to punch out a photographer or two in his day, it’s generally assumed that he hated reporters and newsmen. Far from it: He read multiple newspapers, prided himself on keeping up with current events and was close to several journalists, among them Pete Hamill, but none more so than Zion (who, in addition to being a political columnist, was an eloquent spokesperson for Sinatra’s music and the Great American Songbook). He was also a two-fisted imbiber who could keep up with the Chairman shot for shot.