Frank_ The Voice - James Kaplan [314]
Idolatry, too, was out. Idolatry was fine for the idolators, but, once again, I felt I owed my subject more: I owed him a biography he deserved. If he continued to hold my affection despite his considerable, even spectacular, flaws, that was all well and good. It would sustain me. It did sustain me.
But I had help, and I needed every bit of it.
There are four men whose loyalty and perspicacity lifted me from sloughs of despond and ignorance and gave Bernoulli-like loft to a much-heavier-than-air project. First I must single out Peter Bogdanovich, a man who, quite simply, I am lucky to know, and who, luckily for me, knew Frank Sinatra. As my earliest reader, and as a first-rate writer himself, Peter literally kept me going, chapter by chapter, with his heartfelt enthusiasm and incomparable cultural-historical perspective.
That Will Friedwald and Michael Kraus, who both know as much about Sinatra as anyone has a right to know, gave freely of their time and steadily approved of what I was doing still amazes me. I will always remember their generosity. I was wildly fortunate to have these two frighteningly learned, gimlet-eyed men parsing every sentence of the book.
To a great editor of another sort, my brother and friend, Peter W. Kaplan, I owe more than I can say.
As I do to my longtime literary agent, Joy Harris, my ally, advocate, and friend through thick and thin—and sometimes a lot of thin. From our first day working together, I have felt that Joy understood me completely and was able to wait almost indefinitely for me to do what we both felt I could do. She also has never put a foot wrong. A writer can ask for no more.
To Karen Cumbus, and to Aaron, Avery, and Jacob Kaplan, I owe the greatest debt of all: the blessing of having someone for whom to do my work and to whom to give my work; a safe harbor in a tempest-tossed world.
I would also like to extend deep gratitude to Damian Da Costa, Ted Panken, and Katherine Bang.
And to the following: Monty Alexander, Peggy Alexander, Bette Alexander, Iris Hiskey Arno, Ajay Arora, George Avakian, Brook Babcock, Jean Bach, Adam Begley, A. Scott Berg, Tony Bill, Bill Boggs, Ernest Borgnine, Shannon E. Bowen, Laurie Cahn, Mariah Carey, Jeanne Carmen, Christopher Cerf, Iris Chester, Jonathan Cohen, Jeffrey Collette, Frank Collura, Kenny Colman, Peggy Connelly, Stan Cornyn, Neil Daniels, Houstoun Demere, Angie Dickinson, Frank DiGiacomo, John Dominis, Renée Doruyter, Todd Doughty, Bob Eckel, Chris Erskine, Vincent Falcone, Michael Feinstein, John Fontana, Dan Frank, Gloria Delson Franks, Mitchell Freinberg, Bruce J. Friedman, Drew Friedman, Gary Giddins, Vince Giordano, Steve Glauber, Irwin Glusker, Starleigh Goltry, Bob Gottlieb, Chuck Granata, Mary Edna Grantham, Connie Haines, Betsy Duncan Hammes, Bruce Handy, Bill Harbach, Lee Herschberg, Suzanne Herz, Don Hewitt, Rebecca Holland, Anne Hollister, George Jacobs, Bruce Jenkins, John Jenkinson, Jack Jones, Mearene Jordan, Robert Kaplan, Kitty Kelley, Ed Kessler, Steve Khan, Andreas Kroniger, Suzy Kunhardt, Theodora Kuslan, Andrew Lack, Claudia Gridley Stabile Lano, Joe Lano, Peter Levinson, Jerry Lewis, Richard Lewis, Abbey Lincoln, George Lois, Mark Lopeman, Carmel Malin, Karyn Marcus, Gene McCarthy, Barbara McManus, Sonny Mehta, David Michaelis, Bill Miller, Mitch Miller, Jackeline Montalvo, Pat Mulcahy, Leonard Mustazza, Eunice Norton, Dan Okrent, Ed O’Brien, Tony Oppedisano, Neal Peters, Saint Clair Pugh, Mario Puzo, Alison Rich, Jenny Romero, Andrew Rosenblum, Frankie Randall, Adam Reed, Mickey Rooney, Andrew Rosenblum, Ric Ross, Steve Rubin, Mike Rubino, Jane Russell, George Schlatter, Gary Shapiro, Mike Shore, Liz Smith, Tyler Smith, Ted Sommer, Joe Spieler, William Stadiem, Jo Stafford, Nancy Steiner, Karen Svobodny, Laura Swanson, Gay Talese, Bill Thomas, Thomas Tucker, Sarah Twombly, Roberta Wennik-Kaplan, Tim Weston, Virginia Wicks, Bud Yorkin, and Sidney Zion.
And, it does not go without saying, effusive thanks to the great team at Doubleday, from copy editing