His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [53]
George Evans had convinced Stadium Concerts, Inc., the booking agency for most of the country’s symphony orchestras, that they needed the crowd-drawing talents of his client to plump up their sagging box offices and pay off their deficits. Desperate to make money, they agreed, and booked Frank with the Cleveland Orchestra, the National Symphony in Washington, D.C., and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra at Lewisohn Stadium. Now he was scheduled to appear with the Los Angeles Symphony, and Hollywood’s classical music lovers were outraged that a Tin Pan Alley crooner would be allowed in the Hollywood Bowl. They campaigned militantly against the Sinatra appearance.
“These classic longhairs really get me,” Frank said. “It’s no gag that I have a passion for classical music. I own albums and I attend concerts whenever I can. That’s why I am willing to help out when philharmonic societies approach me. It’s pretty disheartening and disappointing to me that people like those opposing my appearance at the Hollywood Bowl think in those channels. I’m only doing it to help finance a field of music that I really love.”
Years later, Frank Sinatra talked more of his love of classical music. He said that his own style, though originally in the Bing Crosby tradition, had developed into the belcanto Italian school of singing. And he said further that his first musical inspiration was from Jascha Heifetz’s violin concerts. He said he liked the “fantastic things Heifetz did with the notes—holding them, gently sliding them, sustaining them. It was a whole new concept of phrasing to me, and terribly exciting.”
More than eighteen thousand people turned out to sit under a harvest moon in the Hollywood Bowl, the largest crowd of the season. Most of them were under the age of sixteen, and could barely sit still as Vladimir Bakaleinikoff conducted the orchestra in a string of Russian classics. Finally, at ten P.M., Frank walked onstage with Morris Stoloff of RKO, who would conduct for him while Bakaleinikoff stepped aside. Aware of the ill feelings surrounding this part of the program, Stoloff turned to the orchestra and said, “You men know your kind of music and play it as though you loved it. Now, tonight I want you to play the kind of music Mr. Sinatra sings and loves with the same feeling.”
Frank stepped up to the microphone as the girls began howling and screaming ecstatically. He smiled at their welcome but refused to sing until they were quiet. He began with “Dancing in the Dark,” and several dozen photographers rushed the stage in a salvo of exploding flashbulbs. Next he sang “You’ll Never Know,” “Ol’ Man River,” and “The Song Is You.” By the time he introduced “Night and Day,” saying, “This is my favorite song of all time,” the audience was wailing and gasping. “Girls, girls, please,” he said, trying to quiet them. After nine sleepy ballads, he returned to the stage for encore after encore. Then he said to the audience, “I understand there has been a controversy out here over whether I should appear at the Bowl at all. Those few people who thought I shouldn’t lost out in a very big way.”
Rows and rows of girls screamed, “Oh, Frankie, we love you so,” while a disgruntled army sergeant muttered, “After this, I hope they won’t forget to flush the bowl.”
Days later, the sergeant’s comment appeared in Time magazine and roused George Evans to volunteer Frank for yet another war bond rally—to stave off the continued criticism about his draft-exempt status. With more than eleven million Americans in the service by this time,