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Frank Sinatra (1915-1998), ranks among the most famous singers in the history of popular music. Nickname "The Voice," he became well known for both his soulful ballad singing and his interpretations of rhythm songs. Since he made his motion-picture debut in 1941, he has appeared inmore than 50 films. He won the 1953 Academy Award as best male supporting actor for his work in From Here to Eternity.

Francis Albert Sinatra was born in Hobroken, N.J., the son of a fire fighter . He sang with local bands and won an amateur show prize in 1937 before joing trumpter Harry James' band in 1939. While touring with the band of trombonist Tommy Dorsey from 1940 to 1942, he gained great popularity with the teen-agers throughout the United States. Sinatra began his career as a solo singer in 1943, and later gained popularity with audiences of all ages. He was mobbed every where he went and was a huge success. Then in 1952 after his career took a nose dive and he almost committed suicide then, his vocal cords hemoriged, he fought back and won the coveted role of Maggio in "From Here to Eternity" (1953). He won an Oscar for the part and his career was assured from then on. He was to continue to give strong and memorable performances in such films as "The Man with the Golden Arm" (1955), "Suddenly" (1954) and, especially, "The Manchurian Candidate" (1962) probably his best film. For the rest of the 1960s, he concentrated on less-serious roles, playing hard-boiled private eyes and hamming it up with his Rat Pack buddies Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. Of his later films "The Detective" (1968) and "Ocean's Eleven" (1960) are the best. His last lead role was as the aging detective in "The First Deadly Sin" (1980). In it, he gave a moving performance that was a fitting finale to a long and rich career.

On May 14, 1998, Frank Sinatra died of a heart attack at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, CA. The outpouring of grief, love, and admiration was almost astounding. No one deserved it more. Frank was a truly larger-than-life figure, a legend of nearly all-surpassing greatness. The world will never know his kind again. As long as we have his music, though, Frank Sinatra will never really die. He will certainly never be forgotten.

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TONY BENNETT TRIBUTE Tony Bennett has been recording and performing music since 1952, a period of almost 50 years. Not only has his voice remained smooth, but his selections of songs has been consistent as well. Tony, unlike almost all other artists, has stuck to the best popular and jazz songs. Even though that style is not as appreciated as it used to be, he has stuck with it.

If you ask big names in the music industryu about Tony Bennett, you would hear good things. Bennett has demonstrated a high level of class and generousity throughout the years. Bing Crosby, when asked about Tony Bennett said, "The best singer I ever heard." Many great musicians have only praise for Tony Bennett, as he has the same for them.

The early 1950's were the most successful for Tony Bennett billboard wise. "Rags To Riches" sold over 2,000,000 copies, and occupied the top position on the billboard for 8 weeks. "Stranger In Paradise" recieved similiar success. Bennett's "signature"song, however, was without a doubt "I Left My Heart In San Francisco."

To analyze the style of Tony Bennett is much easier then with other artists of his era. Tony sang the best popular songs only, with a dash of jazz mixed in. Wether he is classified as "easy listening', "pop", or "jazz" is up to you, But I think we all can see he has had a great career. We can onlyt wish him the best. Because Tony deserves it

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DEAN MARTIN was less an entertainer than an icon, the eternal essence of cool. A member of the legendary Rat Pack, he lived and died the high life of booze, broads and bright lights, always projecting a sense of utter detachment and serenity; along with Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. and the other chosen few who breathed the same rarefied air, Martin -- highball and cigarette always firmly in hand -- embodied the glorious excess of a world long gone, a world without rules or consequences. Throughout it all, he remained just outside the radar of understanding, the most distant star in the firmament; as his biographer Nick Tosches once noted, Martin was what the Italians called a menefreghista -- "one who simply does not give a f."

Despite his good looks and easygoing charm, Martin's early years as an entertainer were largely unsuccessful. In 1946 -- the year he issued his first single, "Which Way Did My Heart Go?" -- he first met another struggling performer, a comic named Jerry Lewis; later that year, while Lewis was playing Atlantic City's 500 Club, another act abruptly quit the show, and the comedian suggested Martin to fill the void. Initially the two performed separately, but one night they threw out their routines and teamed onstage, a Mutt-and-Jeff combo whose wildly improvisational comedy quickly made them a star attraction along the Boardwalk. Within months, Martin and Lewis' salaries rocketed from 350 to 5000 a week, and by the end of the 1940s they were the most popular comedy duo in the nation. In 1949, they made their film debut in My Friend Irma, and their supporting work proved so popular with audiences that their roles were significantly expanded for the sequel, the following year's My Friend Irma Goes West.

Martin -- who continued to impress critics in films like the 1959 Howard Hawks classic Rio Bravo -- was Sinatra's right-hand man, the drunkest and most enigmatic member of the Rat Pack (so named in homage to the Holmby Hills Rat Pack, a bygone drinking circle that had once gathered around Humphrey Bogart); his allegiance to Sinatra was total, and Martin even left his longtime label Capitol to record for and financially back Sinatra's own Reprise imprint. In 1960, the Rat Pack starred in Ocean's Eleven, filming in Las Vegas during the day and then taking over the Sands each night; two years later, they reconvened for Sergeants 3. However, in late 1963 -- while filming the third Rat Pack opus, Robin and the Seven Hoods -- the news came that Kennedy had been assassinated; in effect, as America struggled to pick up the pieces, the Rat Pack's reign was over. With Vietnam and the civil rights movement looming on the horizon, there was no longer room for the boozy, happy-go-lucky lifestyle of before -- the fun was truly over.

Yet somehow Martin forged on; in 1964, at the peak of Beatlemania, he knocked the Fab Four out of the top spot on the charts with his single "Everybody Loves Somebody," and that same year starred in Billy Wilder's acrid Kiss Me, Stupid, a film which crystallized his persona as the lecherous but lovable lush. In 1965, after years of overtures from NBC, Martin finally agreed to host his own weekly variety series; The Dean Martin Show was an enormous hit, running for nine seasons before later spawning a number of hit Celebrity Roast specials during the 1970s. In films, he also remained successful, starring in a series of spy spoofs as secret agent Matt Helm. However, by the late 1970s, Martin's health began to fail, and his career was primarily confined to casino club stages; in 1987, his son Dean Paul died in an airplane crash, a blow from which he never recovered. After bailing out of a 1988 reunion tour with Sinatra and Davis, Martin spent his final years in solitude; he died on Christmas Day, 1995.

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