Frank Sinatra didn’t have the same relationship with Hawaii that Elvis did, but the islands have been the scene of some important events in his career. The entertainer — who would have turned 100 on Saturday — gave what daughter Nancy Sinatra later described as his “comeback” concert performing for a crowd of several hundred people in a leaky tent at the Kauai Country Fair in April 1952. Many years later — July 26, 1986, to be exact — Sinatra performed for more than 25,000 people at Aloha Stadium, and in 1989 he played two sold-out shows in Blaisdell Arena with Sammy Davis Jr. and Liza Minnelli.
Hawaii is also where Columbia Pictures shot “From Here to Eternity” in 1953, the film that won Sinatra an Academy Award for supporting actor and resurrected his career as an A-list actor and recording artist. Then there was the time in 1964 when he almost drowned while filming and directing another film, “None but the Brave,” on Kauai.
Television producer and former newscaster Emme Tomimbang interviewed Sinatra in 1989. Almost all she remembers of the encounter is that he was “a very gracious man.”
“I was shaking, very nervous,” Tomimbang said . “All I said was, ‘Frank, welcome to Hawaii,’ and he said, ‘Thank you,’ and that this was one of the few places he’s been to where he felt so relaxed. That’s all I remember. I don’t even remember the questions I had.”
For a celebrity of his magnitude, Sinatra could be surprisingly low-key. Singer Jimmy Borges said he’ll never forget the time Sinatra came to see him perform at Keone’s, a Waikiki hot spot in the early 1970s, and was turned away.
“We were always jammed after midnight, usually standing room only. Mr. Sinatra was dining late at Canlis and decided to come over to see me,” Borges said. “His limo pulled up and his buddy, Jilly Rizzo, got out to get a table for their party. After a couple of minutes, Jilly emerged and told Mr. Sinatra, ‘It’s too crowded, Frank. We gotta go.’ Hell, if I knew that he was outside, I would have personally thrown some people out just so he could get in.”
Island broadcaster Harry B. Soria Jr., also has an “almost met” Sinatra story. Soria was living with his parents in Aina Haina when one of the neighborhood kids told everyone that Sinatra, the King Sisters and steel guitarist Alvino Rey were coming to his house for dinner.
“He said if we brought our autograph books — we all had autograph books back then — Frank Sinatra would oblige us by signing them for us and then they would be returned to us while we waited outside.”
Everyone who waited got an autograph. “I still have that autograph book,” Soria said.
Sinatra’s Hawaii connections extended to his recordings. In 1941 he recorded a hapa haole song, “Neiani,” written by a mainland songwriting duo, Axel Stordahl and Sy Oliver. The arrangement is beautiful but Hawaiian-language specialist Puakea Nogelmeier cautions that the word “neiani” “makes no real sense. If one were to work out a translation, it’d probably be ‘beckoning rumble,’ sort of like an alluring earthquake.”
In 1958, Sinatra and arranger/conductor Billy May did “Blue Hawaii” on his chart-topping album, “Come Fly with Me.”
Favorite Sinatra songs
Frank Sinatra was, in the words of Hawaii Pops Artistic Director Matt Catingub, “the finest interpreter of the Great American Songbook.” With that as a start, we asked several entertainment and performing arts figures to name their favorite Sinatra song:
>> Shari Lynn, singer: “Two of my 20 favorite Sinatra songs are ‘Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out to Dry’ and ‘Night and Day.’”
>> Larry Paxton, chairman, University of Hawaii at Manoa music department: “I have two: ‘My Way,’ because it was done starting near the end of his career. It’s silly when that song is sung by somebody younger but he put the spin on it that everybody will always be entranced by. The other one is ‘Lady is a Tramp,’ ’cause he’s the only one who can be politically incorrect and call a lady a ‘tramp’ and it’s a compliment.”
>> Billy Sage, radio personality: “‘Something Stupid.’ I like the way the father and daughter get their pipes together. You can hear the affection. It just sounded beautiful to me.”
>> Carole Kai, entertainer: “‘My Kind of Town, Chicago Is!’ I love that happy song!”
>> Philip McNamee, vice president, Ballet Hawaii: “‘My Way’ and ‘New York New York’ and ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin.’ I lived in New York for a while, I’ve experienced people getting under my skin and I’ve felt sometimes that I like to do things my way.”
>> Cathy Foy, actress, singer: “‘Lady is a Tramp’ and ‘Luck Be a Lady’ and, of course, ‘My Way,’ which is the perennial signature song for Frank Sinatra. They don’t write songs like that any more!”
>> Carlos Barbosa, The Aliis: “‘New York New York.’ When I first started with the Aliis we were in the Hilton Hawaiian Village Dome at the Hilton Hawaiian Village and I sang that song. It’s a great song.”
