Old Saybrook, CT - The legendary gossip columnist Walter Winchell once wrote: "The closest person to Frank Sinatra is Tony Consiglio." Tony's full account of his relationship with the iconic crooner has never been revealed -- until now.
Sinatra and Me: The Very Good Years (Tantor Media; trade paperback, ebook, audiobook) is based on dozens of hours of interviews over the span of eight years (concluding with Tony's death in 2008) with Pulitzer Prize-nominated author Franz Douskey.
Sinatra and Me, which features dozens of never-before-published photos and many bold-faced names -- including Marilyn Monroe, Joe DiMaggio, and Ava Gardner -- details a period of time that spans from the 1930's into the 1970's. It is an inside account of the prime years of one of America's greatest icons.
Consiglio was nicknamed "The Clam" by Sinatra because Consiglio never spoke to reporters about the famous singer. Consiglio was one of Sinatra's closest friends for decades. Consiglio knew Sinatra when Sinatra was a struggling singer in New Jersey in the 1930's, through his "Bobby-Soxer" mega-star days of the 1940's, during the lean years when "The Voice" was struggling with a crumbling singing and acting career in the early 1950's. Consiglio was there when Sinatra's star rose again, first winning an Academy Award for his role in From Here to Eternity in 1953 and recording several classic albums that returned Sinatra to the top of the charts in the late 1950's.
Consiglio was also there during the Kennedy years, when Sinatra was a close friend of JFK. Consiglio rubbed elbows with Washington and Hollywood elite at the Kennedy inauguration in 1961 and at the JFK funeral in November 1963. Through it all, he never spoke about what he saw and what he knew. Now, for the first time, an intimate look at Frank Sinatra, from a man who knew him better than anyone.
