Randy Taraborrelli. Sinatra: A Complete Life. Birch Lane Press, 1997. $27.50.

The older I get, the more I realize that human lives can not be captured in books. And yet well written biographies—whatever their limitations—are still among the best tools we have for gaining glimpses into human nature. Some lives, however, yield insights more stingily than others. Frank Sinatra's is a case in point. Not only is his life a mine field of contradictions, but he has been so thoroughly demonized by his enemies and whitewashed by his friends that the truth is well nigh impossible to unravel. Even so, both of these books, though quite different in focus, strive for objectivity, and that is to their credit. Because Mississippi Rag readers are primarily interested in music, I recommend Michael Freedland’s All the Way over Randy Taraborrelli’s Frank Sinatra: A Complete Life.

Taraborrelli’s book is a "show biz" biography. It focuses not on the "complete" life but on the personal. The book is well written, thoroughly researched and interesting (in a voyeuristic way), but it has little to do with Sinatra’s professional accomplishments and everything to do with his love affairs, political activities and alleged Mafia connections. The most original portion of the book is about the 1963 kidnapping of Frank Sinatra Jr. Taraborrelli managed an extended, exclusive interview with Andrew Keenan, Frank Jr.’s convicted, confessed kidnapper. I don’t know how reliable Keenan is, but his discussion of the bizarre motives behind this escapade is fascinating. Even so, this is not the kind of book I would ordinarily read because I simply don’t care whether or not Sinatra hired thugs to get him out of his contract with Tommy Dorsey, whether Ava Gardner had one abortion or two, whether Sinatra did or did not supply John F. Kennedy with women, or whether he illegally housed mob boss Sam Giancana. Some do find such matters intriguing, however, and for them, Taraborrelli’s book is thorough and informative.

I prefer Michael Freedland’s biography because it focuses more on Sinatra’s artistic accomplishments and collaborators. The most original passages are based on exclusive interviews with Juliet Prowse, conducted shortly before her death in 1996. Prowse lived with Sinatra off and on for a couple of years and proved to be dispassionate and insightful when discussing his talents and career decisions. In fact, throughout the book, Freedland is successful in relating the personal details of Sinatra’s life to his career, connecting at every juncture the personal experience with the professional consequences.

A few years ago in these pages, I reviewed Will Friedwald’s Sinatra: The Song is You (March 1996), which virtually ignored Sinatra’s life and discussed only his music. Friedwald’s book is excellent—a must read for Sinatra fans—but it can’t quite stand alone as the definitive work on Ol’ Blue Eyes. As time passes, younger generations will need an account of his life and its historical context to understand what made Frank Sinatra such a towering musical presence in the 20^th century. Perhaps better biographies will be written in the future, but for now, I’d spend my money on Michael Freedland’s All the Way.