Mr. S: My Life with Frank Sinatra | 
 enlarge | Authors: George Jacobs, William Stadiem
Publisher: HarperEntertainment
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  41 reviews
Sales Rank: 479080
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.4 x 1
ISBN: 0060515163
Dewey Decimal Number: 782.42164092
EAN: 9780060515164
ASIN: 0060515163
Publication Date: June 1, 2003
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Condition: Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy!
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Product Description
An odyssey of celebrity, extravagance, and genius, Mr. S provides the deepest understanding yet of one of our greatest entertainers As the right hand of Frank Sinatra from 1953 to 1968, George Jacobs arguably had one of the coolest jobs in the world at the time when Sinatra was the undisputed master of the entertainment universe. Jacobs rose from his humble beginnings in New Orleans to join Sinatra in the mansions of Beverly Hills, the penthouses of Manhattan, the palaces of Europe, the pinnacles of world power. George Jacobs saw it all, did it all. Sinatra took Jacobs with him on the ride of the century, from blacklist Hollywood to gangland Chicago to an emerging Vegas to Camelot, not to mention dolce vita Rome and swinging London. As a member of Sinatra's inner circle, Jacobs drank with Ava Gardner, danced with Marilyn Monroe, massaged John F. Kennedy, golfed with Sam Giancana, and played jazz with the Prince of Monaco while his boss secretly pursued Princess Grace. He also partied with Mia Farrow, but that one cost him his job of a lifetime. Through the ring-a-ding-ding and the stars, royals, politicians, moguls, and mobsters emerged a warm and intimate relationship that reveals a complex Sinatra: vulnerable and arrogant, charismatic and violent, loving and disdainful, confident and painfully self-conscious. Jacobs is no sycophant, but rather a sharp-eyed observer of the highs and lows of his boss's turbulent life. And Mr. S is perhaps the most complete, honest, and intimate portrait of Sinatra ever written. It is an unforgettable trip, and George Jacobs provides a front-and-center seat at the life of an American icon.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 36 more reviews...
 A Very Good Book. March 30, 2007
I found this book a very good read. It was funny, sad, and just a tad bit dirty. Mr. Jacobs does a great job of painting the scene and life of the Ring-A-Ding-Ding era and the man who helped defined it all.
Nothing really groundbreaking about Mr.S, but it does give fun & interesting insight. This is a great read if you want something light and fun to read about the great Mr. S, then this is the book!
Mr. S: My Life with Frank Sinatra January 9, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
George Jacobs was "there" as Sinatra's Valet and tells the inside stories but with deep respect. This aint Kitty Kelly. He obviously loved the man even after he was fired from the gig. His kind of honesty is rare and his access to the very center of the Sinatra fears, vulnerabilities and victories is unparralleled.
I learned more Real Stuff about Frank in this quick reading book than in any of the other Great Volumes preceeding it.
Bittersweet and loving March 16, 2006
One of a handful of truly worthwhile books on Sinatra (joining a short list of Will Friedwald's "The Song is You" and Pete Hamill's "Why Sinatra Matters"...and that's it!). Although one suspects many of the quips and witticisms that abound in this book are probably from the brain of Jacob's co-writer, the feel and insight is purely inside stuff. While there is plenty of dirt, it is served up with affection and sympathy. The important thing is that "Mr S" is a very readable book. You will not be bored.
Come fly with him March 12, 2005
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
Reading George Jacobs' memoir of his years as Frank Sinatra's right-hand man, I am struck by the star's sense of failure, despite having almost everything. He never got over second wife Ava Gardner. He sought but failed to get a Best Acting Oscar. His career declined while third wife Mia Farrow, barely out of her teens, hit it big with "Rosemary's Baby." Sinatra was rejected by the Kennedys, as well as gangster Sam Giancana, whose loss in some ways he appears to have taken harder. And he severed various friends - including Jacobs - ultimately doing more damage to himself.
Sinatra did not age gracefully. Lucky enough to get a second youth after his 1953 comeback, he underwent a second midlife crisis in the mid-1960s. How hard must it must have been to enter one's fifties, while popular culture overnight became about teenagers - their rebellions, music, fashions, and most of all contempt for Frank Sinatra's generation.
As Jacobs leaves in 1968, fired for generating tabloid headlines one night when Farrow drags him onto a dance floor, Sinatra at 52 is getting lonelier and meaner, with hardly any boon companions from his heyday still in sight. Jacobs focuses on those earlier, happier, peak years, where Sinatra's star quirks were leavened by kindness and consideration, and tarnished with fewer tantrums and less vindictiveness; and he shows how the decline began.
The book exceeds my expectations, tribute to William Stadiem's great ghostwriting and Jacobs' three-dimensional Sinatra portrait. What seems remarkable is his determination not to trash a man who, at the end, treated him poorly. Neither does he take easy shots at the Rat Packers for the ubiquitous ethnic jokes and slurs; he sees it in the context of the time, as banter rather than hate. Sinatra named his own plane "El Dago."
No one else saw Sinatra close up with so many of the key people in his life. Jacobs babysat Ava Gardner at Sinatra's Palm Springs house. Jacobs found her mesmerizing for not only her beauty but her unaffected charm, and fully understands why Sinatra never got over her. Jacobs' own apartment was next to Marilyn Monroe's. Sinatra put him there to keep an eye on the troubled actress whom the singer feared was an overdose waiting to happen. Jacobs drove home the countless starlets, paid the countless hookers, bought the flowers and chocolates and gifts for the countless girlfriends. He tended bar at Sinatra's recording sessions with Nelson Riddle. He gave backrubs to JFK and had lengthy conversations with him, mostly about "pussy." (JFK was fascinated by shaved ones, which he called "naked lunch." Women deeply offended by all this should regard this book as "Sex and the City" for guys.) Jacobs' own friendship with Sinatra's mother Dolly survived his firing, showing what an insider he really was.
Your prurient interest will be fed on virtually every page. The kiss-and-tell rings true. Detractors may fault Jacobs for dishing on dead principals unable to defend themselves, but it may also be seen as a measure of his regard for their privacy, waiting for decades until they were gone before finally cashing in on his recollections. A taste:
--Marilyn Monroe often went naked at home, regardless of who was watching. She endlessly regarded herself in her wall-to-wall mirrors to see who was the fairest one of all - or if she was too fat. She pined for Sinatra, but her slovenly habits and lack of hygiene were inimical to a man fastidious nearly to the point of obsessive-compulsiveness. Monroe's ex Joe DiMaggio, like Sinatra, swung, shall we say, a pretty big bat.
--Jacobs walked in on JFK snorting coke with Peter Lawford, on the sly from Sinatra who hated narcotics. Jacobs describes his shock at seeing the presidential candidate with a coke straw up his nose. Kennedy eased the tension with a quip: " `For my back, George,' Kennedy said to me, with his bad-boy wink."
--Jacobs loved Jack but loathed his father as a racist and gangster. Sinatra lusted for Kennedy's sister and Lawford's wife Pat. Jacobs believes Joe Kennedy used Pat as sexual bait to put Lawford in Sinatra's circle, and the Sinatra circle thus in the Kennedys', in the 1950s.
--Major stars like Monroe and Judy Garland constantly demanded sex from Frank to shore up their own egos on tearful nights, which he usually delivered out of mercy. His own nightly search for amour he called "Dialing For Pussy."
--Jacobs watched, fascinated, from a window, as Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo frolicked naked in Sinatra's pool at Palm Springs. And he kept Prince Rainier occupied, delivering fancy gifts and listening to jazz albums, while Frank dallied secretly with Princess Grace.
There's plenty that's less trashy, of course, like Jacobs' recollection of Humphrey Bogart, whom Sinatra idolized and aped. (Sinatra's mesalliance with Farrow seems an unsuccessful imitation of Bogart's marriage across the decades to Lauren Bacall.) Of more substance are the complex business and personal relationships between the Chairman, the Mob and the Kennedys. Jacobs shrewdly sees the money and power interests beneath the camaraderie, the spats, the feuds and the girl-chasing. The Rat Pack? A three-year commercial for liquor, in Jacobs' opinion, benefitting mob liquor and nightclub interests. "Ocean's 11"? Free advertising for the JFK campaign: Nixon was a square but Kennedy hung in Vegas with these cool guys. Mob influence in Hollywood? The Mob had the capital, the labor and the daring to invest in entertainment when Wall Street thought it too risky and too Jewish. Sinatra regarded Giancana, more than anything else, as a business genius.
This book is interesting on almost every page. Standard bios of Sinatra may serve better for putting his whole life in perspective. For your best second read, though, come fly with Jacobs.
 My Life with an Obsessed Man March 3, 2005
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Yeah, on the one hand, it's sleazy. On the other, it's nevertheless interesting to look into the shiny life of Frank and the decadent world of entertainment.
George Jacobs was Sinatra's personal valet during Frank's most popular phase until he was fired for dancing with his wife one night (Mia Farrow, who the author had to babysit while Frank got up to more of his antics).
No doubt there's a little bitterness, but the tone of the book is not negative. Jacobs deserved better than to be written off with a lawyer's note, as was Frank's habit with getting rid of 'friends', but we can still get a dirty look inside the Chairman of the Board's lifestyle.
The focus is Frank, so we have to forgive George as he glosses over his marriages, his various kids here and there, and his supposed restraint in the face of temptation when he hung with Frank and his crew.
Sinatra comes off as an obsessed man, and while there is probably not much in the way of surprises here, we get some dirty details and some insight into Frank's 'way'. While Sinatra could be a great guy, he was also an obsessed man, a guy who just couldn't be alone, and a man who never got over Ava Gardner. Read with gusto about Frank's 'detailed' files on all the new starlets in Tinseltown, about Frank's anatomical gifts, about his appetite for Jack Daniel's and cigarettes, his gangster pals, and his raging temper. 'One-take Frank' was also an accomplished actor who refused to do more than one take, making one wonder what a Sinatra/Kubrick film would look like.
Jacobs seems to love Frank, but he has a lot to tell, and I guess that means exposing some ugliness about his former boss. Of course, since Frank is dead, he can't sue, making the appearance of this book quite convenient. Still, it's an inside, if sleazy angle. And it serves as another reminder that Hollywood is a sleazy and amoral place where some of the lowest forms of life creep.
Everything from the childlike glee that Frank got from setting off cherry bombs in his friends' shoes (this is a 50 year old man, mind you) to his use of his personal valet as a babysitter for wives and girlfriends while Frank got up to, er, other assignments, is all here.
Jacobs should either be condemend or applauded or both. Either way, we get to pick through the sleaze of the great American vocalist in all his pinky ring glory.
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