Kitty Kelley's work is of course
gospel. Har.
Click to Read Larger image.
|
HERE'S
THE INTERVIEW ITSELF. A GREAT
READ AS MR. SHORE WAS A DANDY
DANDY WRITER!
By the way, they say that the words "I’m
for anything that gets you through the night, be
it prayer, tranquilizers or a bottle
of Jack Daniel’s." is the inspiration for Kris
Kristopherson's "Help Me Make It Through The
Night."
----------------
Playboy: Frank, in the 20 years since
you left the Tommy Dorsey band to make your name as a
solo singer, you’ve deepened and diversified your
talents with a variety of concurrent careers in
related fields. But so far none of these aptitudes and
activities has succeeded in eclipsing your gifts as a
popular vocalist. So why don’t we begin by examining
Sinatra, the singer?
Sinatra: OK, deal.
Playboy: Many explanations have been offered for your
unique ability—apart from the subtleties of style and
vocal equipment—to communicate the mood of a song to
an audience. How would you define it?
Sinatra: I think it’s because I get an audience
involved, personally involved in a song—because I’m
involved myself. It’s not something I do deliberately:
I can’t help myself. If the song is a lament at the
loss of love, I get an ache in my gut. I feel the loss
myself and I cry out the loneliness, the hurt and the
pain that I feel.
Playboy: Doesn’t any good vocalist “feel” a song? Is
there such a difference.…
Sinatra: I don’t know what other singers feel when
they articulate lyrics, but 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. I know what the cat
who wrote the song is trying to say. I’ve been
there—and back. I guess the audience feels it along
with me. They can’t help it. Sentimentality, after
all, is an emotion common to all humanity.
Playboy: Of the thousands of words which have been
written about you on this subject, do you recall any
which have accurately described this ability?
Sinatra: Most of what has been written about me is one
big blur, but I do remember being described in one
simple word that I agree with. It was in a piece that
tore me apart for my personal behavior, but the writer
said that when the music began and I started to sing,
I was “honest.” That says it as I feel it.
er else has been said about me personally is
unimportant. When I sing, I believe. I’m honest. If
you want to get an audience with you, there’s only one
way. You have to reach out to them with total honesty
and humility. This isn’t a grandstand play on my part;
I’ve discovered—and you can see it in other
entertainers—when they don’t reach out to the
audience, nothing happens. You can be the most
artistically perfect performer in the world, but an
audience is like a broad—if you’re indifferent,
endsville. That goes for any kind of human contact: a
politician on television, an actor in the movies, or a
guy and a gal. That’s as true in life as it is in art.
Playboy: From what you’ve said, it seems that we’ll
have to learn something of what makes you tick as a
man in order to understand what motivates you as an
entertainer. Would it be all right with you if we
attempt to do just that—by exploring a few of the
fundamental beliefs which move and shape your life?
Sinatra: Look, pal, is this going to be an ocean
cruise or a quick sail around the harbor? Like you, I
think, I feel, I wonder. I know some things, I believe
in a thousand things, and I’m curious about a million
more. Be more specific.
Playboy: All right, let’s start with the most basic
question there is: Are you a religious man? Do you
believe in God?
Sinatra: Well, that’ll do for openers. I think I can
sum up my religious feelings in a couple of
paragraphs. First: I believe in you and me. I’m like
Albert Schweitzer and Bertrand Russell and Albert
Einstein in that I have a respect for life—in any
form. I believe in nature, in the birds, the sea, the
sky, in everything I can see or that there is real
evidence for. If these things are what you mean by
God, then I believe in God. But I don’t believe in a
personal God to whom I look for comfort or for a
natural on the next roll of the dice. I’m not
unmindful of man’s seeming need for faith; I’m for
anything that gets you through the night, be it
prayer, tranquilizers or a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.
But to me religion is a deeply personal thing in which
man and God go it alone together, without the witch
doctor in the middle. The witch doctor tries to
convince us that we have to ask God for help, to spell
out to him what we need, even to bribe him with prayer
or cash on the line. Well, I believe that God knows
what each of us wants and needs. It’s not necessary
for us to make it to church on Sunday to reach Him.
You can find Him anyplace. And if that sounds
heretical, my source is pretty good: Matthew, Five to
Seven, The Sermon on the Mount.
Playboy: You haven’t found any answers for yourself in
organized religion?
Sinatra: There are things about organized religion
which I resent. Christ is revered as the Prince of
Peace, but more blood has been shed in His name than
any other figure in history. You show me one step
forward in the name of religion and I’ll show you a
hundred retrogressions. Remember, they were men of God
who destroyed the educational treasures at Alexandria,
who perpetrated the Inquisition in Spain, who burned
the witches at Salem. Over 25,000 organized religions
flourish on this planet, but the followers of each
think all the others are miserably misguided and
probably evil as well. In India they worship white
cows, monkeys and a dip in the Ganges. The Moslems
accept slavery and prepare for Allah, who promises
wine and revirginated women. And witch doctors aren’t
just in Africa. If you look in the L.A. papers of a
Sunday morning, you’ll see the local variety
advertising their wares like suits with two pairs of
pants.
Playboy: Hasn’t religious faith just as often served
as a civilizing influence?
Sinatra: Remember that leering, cursing lynch mob in
Little Rock reviling a meek, innocent little
12-year-old Negro girl as she tried to enroll in
public school? Weren’t they—or most of them—devout
churchgoers? I detest the two-faced who pretend
liberality but are practiced bigots in their own mean
little spheres. I didn’t tell my daughter whom to
marry, but I’d have broken her back if she had had big
eyes for a bigot. As I see it, man is a product of his
conditioning, and the social forces which mold his
morality and conduct—including racial prejudice—are
influenced more by material things like food and
economic necessities than by the fear and awe and
bigotry generated by the high priests of
commercialized superstition. Now don’t get me wrong.
I’m for decency—period. I’m for anything and
everything that bodes love and consideration for my
fellow man. But when lip service to some mysterious
deity permits bestiality on Wednesday and absolution
on Sunday—cash me out.
Playboy: But aren’t such spiritual hypocrites in a
minority? Aren’t most Americans fairly consistent in
their conduct within the precepts of religious
doctrine?
Sinatra: I’ve got no quarrel with men of decency at
any level. But I can’t believe that decency stems only
from religion. And I can’t help wondering how many
public figures make avowals of religious faith to
maintain an aura of respectability. Our civilization,
such as it is, was shaped by religion, and the men who
aspire to public office anyplace in the free world
must make obeisance to God or risk immediate
opprobrium. Our press accurately reflects the
religious nature of our society, but you’ll notice
that it also carries the articles and advertisements
of astrology and hokey Elmer Gantry revivalists. We in
America pride ourselves on freedom of the press, but
every day I see, and so do you, this kind of
dishonesty and distortion not only in this area but in
reporting—about guys like me, for instance, which is
of minor importance except to me; but also in
reporting world news. How can a free people make
decisions without facts? If the press reports world
news as they report about me, we’re in trouble.
Playboy: Are you saying that…
Sinatra: No, wait, let me finish. Have you thought of
the chance I’m taking by speaking out this way? Can
you imagine the deluge of crank letters, curses,
threats and obscenities I’ll receive after these
remarks gain general circulation? Worse, the boycott
of my records, my films, maybe a picket line at my
opening at the Sands. Why? Because I’ve dared to say
that love and decency are not necessarily concomitants
of religious fervor.
Playboy: If you think you’re stepping over the line,
offending your public or perhaps risking economic
suicide, shall we cut this off now, erase the tape and
start over along more antiseptic lines?
Sinatra: No, let’s let it run. I’ve thought this way
for years, ached to say these things. Whom have I
harmed by what I’ve said? What moral defection have I
suggested? No, I don’t want to chicken out now. Come
on, pal, the clock’s running.
Playboy: All right, then, let’s move on to another
delicate subject: disarmament. How do you feel about
the necessity and possibility of achieving it?
Sinatra: Well, that’s like apple pie and mother—how
can you be against it? After all, despite the
universal and unanimous assumption that both
powers—Russia and the United States—already have
stockpiled more nuclear weaponry than is necessary to
vaporize the entire planet, each power continues to
build, improve and enlarge its terrifying arsenal. For
the first time in history, man has developed the means
with which to expunge all life in one shuddering
instant. And, brother, no one gets a pass, no one
hides from this one. But the question is not so much
whether disarmament is desirable or even whether it
can be achieved, but whether—if we were able to
achieve it—we would be better off, or perhaps
infinitely worse off.
Playboy: Are you suggesting that disarmament might be
detrimental to peace?
Sinatra: Yes, in a certain very delicate sense. Look,
I’m a realist, or at least I fancy myself one. Just as
I believe that religion doesn’t always work, so do I
feel that disarmament may be completely beyond man’s
capacity to live with. Let’s forget for a moment the
complex problems we might face in converting from a
cold war to a peace economy. Let’s examine disarmament
in terms of man’s political, social and philosophical
conditioning. Let’s say that somehow the UN is able to
achieve a disarmament program acceptable to all
nations. Let’s imagine, a few years from now, total
global disarmament. But imagine as well the gnawing
doubts, suspicions and nerve-wracking tensions which
must, inevitably, begin to fill the void: the fear
that the other side—or perhaps some third power—is
secretly arming or still holding a few bombs with
which to surprise and overcome the other. But I firmly
believe that nuclear war is absolutely impossible. I
don’t think anyone in the world wants a nuclear
war—not even the Russians. They and we and the nth
countries—as nuclear strategists refer to future
nuclear powers—face the incontrovertible certainty of
lethal retaliation for any nuclear strike. I can’t
believe for a moment that the idiot exists in any
nation that will push the first button—not even
accidentally.
Playboy: You foresee no possibility of world war or of
effective disarmament?
Sinatra: I’m not an industrialist or an economist: I
know I’m way out of my depth when I attempt even to
comprehend the complexity of shifting the production
of a country from war to peace. But if somehow all
those involved in production of implements of
destruction were willing to accept reason as well as
reasonable profit, I think that a shift in psychology
might be possible. And if this were to happen, I
believe that the deep-seated terror in the hearts of
most people due to the constant threat of total
destruction would disappear. The result would be a
more positive, less greedy, less selfish and more
loving approach to survival. I can tell you this much
from personal experience and observation: Hate solves
no problems. It only creates them. But listen, you’ve
been asking me a lot of questions, so let me ask you a
question I posed to Mike Romanoff the other night. You
know, Mike is quite a serious thinker; when we spend
an evening together, we play an intellectual chess
game touching on all topics, including those we are
discussing here. Anyway, I asked Mike what would
happen if a summit meeting of all the leaders in every
country in the world was called, including Red China,
at the UN. Further suppose that each leader brings
with him his top aides: Kennedy brings Rusk,
Khrushchev brings Gromyko, Mao brings Chou. All these
cats are together in one room, then—boom! Somebody
blows up the mother building. No more leaders. No more
deputies. The question I asked Mike, and the one I ask
you, is: What would happen to the world?
Playboy: You tell us.
Sinatra: I told Mike I thought it might be the only
chance the world has for survival. But Mike just shook
his head and said, “Frank, you’re very sick.” Maybe
so. Until someone lights the fuse, however, I think
that continuation of cold war preparedness might be
more effective to maintain the peace than the
dewy-eyed notion of total disarmament. I also wonder
if “total” disarmament includes chemical and
bacteriological weapons—which, as you know, can be
just as lethal as nuclear weapons. Card players have a
saying: “It’s all right to play if you keep your eyes
on the deck”—which is another way of saving, “Eternal
vigilance is the price of liberty.”
Playboy: Do you feel, then, that nuclear testing
should be continued?
Sinatra: Absolutely not. I think it’s got to stop, and
I think it will stop—because it has to stop. The
name-calling in the UN and the finger-pointing at
peace conferences is just a lot of diplomatic bull.
Both sides have to live on this planet, and leaders in
all countries know that their children and
grandchildren have to live here, too. I suspect that
when the limits of strontium 90 in the atmosphere get
really dangerous, scientists in both camps will
persuade the politicians to call a final halt to
testing—probably at precisely the same time, with no
urging from the other side.
Playboy: You spoke a moment ago of the fear and
suspicion that might nullify any plan for lasting and
effective disarmament. Isn’t continuing nuclear
preparedness—with or without further testing—likely to
engender these emotions on an even more dangerous
scale?
Sinatra: Fear is the enemy of logic. There is no more
debilitating, crushing, self-defeating, sickening
thing in the world—to an individual or to a nation. If
we continue to fear the Russians, and if they continue
to fear us, then we’re both in big trouble. Neither
side will be able to make logical, reasoned decisions.
I think, however, that their fear and concern over the
ideological balance of power in some areas is far from
irrational. Our concern over a Sovietized Cuba 90
miles from Key West, for instance, must be equated
with Russian concern over our missile bases
surrounding them. It is proper that we should be
deeply concerned, but we must be able to see their
side of the coin—and not let this concern turn into
fear on either side.
Playboy: On a practical level, how would you combat
Communist expansion into areas such as Cuba, Laos and
the emerging African nations?
Sinatra: It strikes me as being so ridiculously
simple: Stop worrying about communism; just get rid of
the conditions that nurture it. Sidestepping Marxian
philosophy and dialectical vagaries, I think that
communism can fester only wherever and whenever it is
encouraged to breed—not just by the Communists
themselves, but by depressed social and economic
conditions: and we can always count on the Communists
to exploit those conditions. Poverty is probably the
greatest asset the Communists have. Wherever it
exists, anyplace in the world, you have a potential
Communist breeding ground. It figures that if a man is
frustrated in a material sense, his family hungry, he
suffers, he broods and he becomes susceptible to the
blandishments of any ideology that promises to take
him off the hook.
Playboy: Do you share with the American Right Wing an
equal concern about the susceptibility of our own
country to Communist designs?
Sinatra: Well, if you’re talking about that poor,
beaten, dehumanized, discriminated-against guy in some
blighted Tobacco Road down in the South, he’s
certainly in the market for offers of
self-improvement. But you can’t make me believe that a
machinist in Detroit, ending a 40-hour week, climbing
into his ’63 Chevy, driving to a steak barbecue behind
his $25,000 home in a tree-lined subdivision, about to
begin a weekend with his well-fed, well-clothed
family, is going to trade what he’s got for a Party
card. In America—except for tiny pockets of privation
which still persist—Khrushchev has as much chance of
succeeding as he has of making 100 straight passes at
the crap table.
Playboy: In combating Communist expansion into
underdeveloped areas here and abroad, what can we do
except to offer massive material aid and guidance of
the kind we’ve been providing since the end of World
War II?
Sinatra: I don’t know. I’m no economist. I don’t
pretend to have much background in political science.
But this much I know: Attending rallies sponsored by
110-percent anti-Communist cultists or donning white
sheets and riding with the Klan—the one that’s spelled
with a “K”—isn’t the answer. All I know is that a
nation with our standard of living, with our Social
Security system, TVA, farm parity, health plans and
unemployment insurance can afford to address itself to
the cancers of starvation, substandard housing,
educational voids and second-class citizenship that
still exist in many backsliding areas of our own
country. When we’ve cleaned up these blemishes, then
we can go out with a clean conscience to see where
else in the world we can help. Hunger is inexcusable
in a world where grain rots in silos and butter turns
rancid while being held for favorable commodity
indices.
Playboy: Is American support of the UN one of the ways
in which we can uplift global economic conditions?
Sinatra: It seems to me that a lot of us consider the
UN a private club—ours, of course—with gentlemen’s
agreements just like any other exclusive club. Only
instead of excluding a person, a race or a religion,
the members of the UN have the power to exclude entire
nations. I don’t happen to think you can kick
800,000,000 Chinese under the rug and simply pretend
that they don’t exist. Because they do. If the UN is
to be truly representative, then it must accept all
the nations of the world. If it doesn’t represent the
united nations of the world, then what the hell have
you got? Not democracy—and certainly not world
government. Everybody seems to have forgotten that
President Kennedy, before he became President, in his
book, Strategy of Peace, plainly advocated recognition
of Red China. So I’m not too far out on the limb, am
I?
Playboy: With or without mainland China in the UN,
what do you feel are the prospects for an eventual
American rapprochement with Russia?
Sinatra: I’m a singer, not a prophet or a diplomat.
Ask the experts or read the Rockefeller brothers’
reports. But speaking just as a layman, an ordinary
guy who thinks and worries, I think that if we can
stay out of war for the next 10 years, we’ll never
have another war. From all I’ve read and seen
recently, I’m betting that within the next decade the
Russians will be on the credit-card kick just as we
are. They’re going to want color TV, their wives are
going to want electrified kitchens, their kids are
going to want hot rods. Even Russian girls are getting
hip; I’ve seen photos of them at Russian beach
resorts, and it looks just like the Riviera. They’re
thinning down, and I see they’re going the bikini
route. When GUM department store in Moscow starts
selling bikinis, we’ve got a fighting chance, because
that means the girls are interested in being girls and
the boys are going to stop thinking about communes and
begin thinking connubially. I’ve always had a theory
that whenever guys and gals start swinging, they begin
to lose interest in conquering the world. They just
want a comfortable pad and stereo and wheels, and
their thoughts turn to the good things of life—not to
war. They loosen up, they live and they’re more apt to
let live. Dig?
Playboy: We dig.
Sinatra: You know, I’d love to visit Russia, and
sometime later, China, too. I figure the more I know
about them and the more they know about me, the better
chance we have of living in the same world in peace. I
don’t intend to go there with a mission, to sell the
American way of life; I’m not equipped to get into
that kind of discussion about government. But I’d love
to go and show them American music. I’d take Count
Basie and Ella Fitzgerald with me and we’d do what we
do best. We’d wail up a storm with real American jazz
so that their kids could see what kind of music our
kids go for, because I’m sure that kids are the same
all over the world. I’m betting that they’d dig us.
And that’s got to create some kind of good will, and
man, a little good will is something we could use
right now. All it takes is good will and a smile to
breach that language barrier. When the Moiseyev
Dancers were in Los Angeles, Eddie and Liz Fisher gave
a party for them, and although I couldn’t speak a word
of Russian, I got along fine. I just said, “Hello,
baby” to the dancers and they shouted, “Allo, babee”
back at me. We had a ball.
Playboy: Frank, you’ve expressed some negative views
on human nature in the course of this conversation.
Yet one gets the impression that—despite the bigotry,
hypocrisy, stupidity, cruelty and fear you’ve talked
about—you feel there are still some grounds for hope
about the destiny of Homo sapiens. Is that right?
Sinatra: Absolutely, I’m never cynical, never without
optimism about the future. The history of mankind
proves that at some point the people have their
innings, and I think we’re about to come up to bat
now. I think we can make it if we live and let live.
And love one another—I mean really love. If you don’t
know the guy on the other side of the world, love him
anyway because he’s just like you. He has the same
dreams, the same hope’s and fears. It’s one world,
pal. We’re all neighbors. But didn’t somebody once go
up onto a mountain long ago and say the same thing to
the world? |