Frank Sinatra, an 18-karat manic-depressive superstar with self-help philosophy

Jimmy Van Heusen with Frank Sinatra

"Accordingly, while Frank Sinatra got dressed in the hospital room, shooting his cuffs to cover the bandages (the doctor had just walked out, shaking his head, after warning Sinatra that he was leaving against Medical Advice), Jimmy Van Heusen looked his friend in the eye and told him he had to have a word with him. The two men looked at each other in the mirror as Frank looped his tie. And Jimmy, his voice serious, told Frank that he had to see a headshrinker when he got back to Los Angeles". -"Frank: The Voice" by James Kaplan

''Being an 18-karat manic-depressive, and having lived a life of violent emotional contradictions, I have an overacute capacity for sadness as well as elation''. ''Whatever else has been said about me personally is unimportant. When I sing, I believe, I'm honest'' -Frank Sinatra.

Kim Novak and Frank Sinatra in "The man with the golden arm" directed by Otto Preminger in 1955.

"He’s a once in a lifetime star. That’s exactly what he is—a superstar. Brighter than anyone. Bigger than he thinks he is—and it scares him; Champagne explodes when you bottle it in beer bottles” -Frank Capra on Frank Sinatra

"The melancholy in Sinatra’s singing is not a sometime thing. I think it’s a constant in his art. It’s a lot of the reason why he’s so appreciated by black musicians and indeed a lot of black people in general. In a certain way, it’s an almost operatic version of the blues. He was a tortured man. He was an incredibly complicated man, impatient, obsessive compulsive, diagnostically, volcanic temper, like his mother. Even as so much seemed to come easy to him, nothing felt easy to him. I think you hear that in the music” -James Kaplan on Frank Sinatra

Hoboken, New Jersey, 1950s, photo by Robert Frank

"Frank Sinatra was born in Hoboken, a town that he rarely visited after achieving his success and which he regarded as having held him in insufficient esteem. In public declarations he offered the traditional gospel of self-help as his philosophy of making good. Sinatra believed in concepts of dignity and compassion, but he did so on his own terms. His moral code was paleolithic". -Chris Rojek in "Frank Sinatra" (2004)

The Barbara Sinatra Children's Center was founded in 1986 by Barbara and Frank Sinatra in Southern California's Coachella Valley to meet the community's need for a permanent facility that would help to children victims of sexual abuse.