Sinatra, surrounded by his family, succumbed to a heart attack late Thursday night at Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
He had been transported to the hospital, via ambulance, earlier in the evening, Associated Press reports. He was pronounced dead at 10:50 p.m. in the emergency room, his publicist Susan Reynolds said.
A private funeral is planned.
"Frank Sinatra was a true original," his contemporary Mel Tormé said today. "He held the patent, the original blueprint on singing the popular song..."
Death brings to close a career that mere mortals, decades or sea changes in popular culture couldn't. Sinatra's celebrity burned bright through the 1930s big-band era to the 1990s grunge-band era.
His was time well-spent. He leaves epic-length credits, epic-sized achievements. A sampling: Timeless recordings, including the signature songs "Come Fly with Me," "New York, New York" and "One for My Baby." (Fans could list two dozen other "signature songs"--and still not exhaust their choices.); Classic movies, from giddy Technicolor musicals, On the Town and Guys and Dolls, to dead-eye serious dramas, The Manchurian Candidate and Some Came Running; A record label, Reprise. (Now part of the Warner Records fold, Sinatra founded the company in 1961); A wealth of awards-show hardware, including one acting Oscar (for From Here to Eternity), one honorary Oscar (for the 1945 short film on tolerance, The House I Live In), one Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award (presented by the motion picture academy), and nine Grammies. And don't forget the Presidential Medal of Freedom--the highest civilian honor in the United States--presented by old Hollywood neighbor President Reagan in 1985. Beyond all this, there are perhaps the two clearest examples of how big an imprint Sinatra left on this joint: The man had three nicknames (The Voice, The Chairman of the Board, Ol' Blue Eyes); They started giving him lifetime achievement awards in 1970 (including the Golden Globes' esteemed Cecil B. DeMille)--25 years before he was done achieving. How to sum up Sinatra? Jim Morrison (yes, that Jim Morrison) put it best: "No one can touch him."
President Clinton today paid similar tribute to the man.
"I think every American would have to smile and say he really did do it his way," Clinton said.
He was born Francis Albert Sinatra on December 12, 1915, in Hoboken, New Jersey. As a member of the local-boys-make-good Hoboken Four, he made his coast-to-coast singing debut in 1935 on the Major Bowes' Original Amateur Hour radio show.
The First Hit was "All or Nothing at All," recorded in 1939 while toiling as the skinny-guy singer for the Harry James Orchestra and released in 1943 after becoming a bobby-soxer idol with Tommy Dorsey's bigger big band.
The Major Film Debut was 1943's Higher and Higher--an apt description of Sinatra's career during the war years.
The Big Test came circa the early 1950s. The records stopped selling; the movies stopped clicking; his sweetheart marriage (to Nancy Barbato) stopped working. Then, in an infamous nightclub performance at New York's Copacabana in 1950, the Voice started croaking. Hemorrhaged vocal chords. To go with a hemorrhaged Hollywood marriage to wife No. 2 Ava Gardner--the epic romance of his life.
The Comeback was 1953's From Here to Eternity. Sinatra begged the producers for a shot at the role of Maggio. In the end, he had the movie, the Academy Award and the career--bigger than ever.
The Golden Time was the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s. Sinatra recorded a classic catalog of albums for Capitol, established Reprise, produced films (Robin & the 7 Hoods), married a kid more than half his age (Mia Farrow, in a brief stint as wife No. 3); helped elect presidents (John F. Kennedy) and played in the fields of the lords, Las Vegas wing. With Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin, he forged a Rat Pack brotherhood that came to symbolize a swingin' manhood ideal.
The Retirement came in 1971. A glitzy TV special. A pledge to hit the links. Lasted all of two years.
A battler to the end, Sinatra wasn't wont to give up his chips easy. Last seen in public in January 1997, the entertainer often confounded rumors of his demise, celebrating his final birthday last December weeks after TV helicopters circled his Beverly Hills home in a ghoulish death watch.
But Sinatra's fading health was not myth. There was the heart attack. The increasingly frequent hospitalizations--the most recent just last month. The rumors said bladder cancer. The family, as fiercely suspicious of the press as their patriarch, said he was well, and little more.
Survivors include wife No. 4 Barbara, daughters Nancy and Tina, and son Frank Jr.
For more coverage, check out our special Sinatra section.
(UPDATED at 11:20 a.m. on 5/15/98)