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Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, on December 12, 1915. He grew up in a tenement with his parents, who had emigrated from Italy. ==Family background and early years== Francis Albert Sinatra was born on December 12, 1915, in an upstairs tenement at 415 Monroe Street in Hoboken, New Jersey, the only child of Italian immigrants Natalina "Dolly" Garaventa and Antonino Martino "Marty" Sinatra. The couple had eloped on Valentine's Day, 1913, and were married at the city hall in Jersey City, New Jersey; they later got remarried in a church. Sinatra weighed at birth and had to be delivered with the aid of forceps, which caused severe scarring to his left cheek, neck, and ear, and perforated his ear drum, damage that remained for life. Due to his injuries at birth, his baptism was delayed for several months. A childhood operation on his mastoid bone left major scarring on his neck, and during adolescence he suffered from cystic acne that scarred his face and neck. Some children called him "Scarface" when he was eleven; this made him so angry he wanted to physically assault the doctor who had delivered him. Sinatra was raised Roman Catholic, When Sinatra's mother, Natalina, was a child, her pretty face earned her the nickname "Dolly". As an adult, she stood less than five feet tall and weighed approximately 90 pounds. Sinatra biographer James Kaplan describes her as having a "politician's temperament—restless, energetic, unreflective". She was the daughter of a lithographer. Born in Genoa in northern Italy, she was brought to the United States when she was two months old. Dolly was influential in Hoboken and in local Democratic Party circles. She used her knowledge of Italian dialects and fluent English to translate for immigrants during court proceedings, particularly those pertaining to requests for citizenship. This earned her the respect of local politicians, who made her a Democratic ward leader. She was the first immigrant woman to hold that position in her local third ward, and reliably delivered as many as six hundred votes for Democratic candidates. In 1919, she chained herself to city hall in support of the Women's suffrage movement. She also worked as a midwife, earning $50 for each delivery, a fair amount of money at the time. These activities kept Dolly away from home during much of her son's childhood. Sinatra biographer Kitty Kelley claims that Dolly also ran an illegal abortion service that catered to Italian Catholic girls, and was so well known for this doctors referred their patients to her, for whom she would travel as far afield as Jersey City and Union City. Sinatra's father, Antonino – a small, blue-eyed, ruddy-complexioned man – was from Lercara Friddi, near Palermo, Sicily. His parents had originally been vineyard cultivators. He arrived at Ellis Island with his mother and sisters in 1903, when they joined his father, Francesco Sinatra, who had immigrated to the US in 1900. Francesco worked for 17 years at the American Pencil company, which "wrecked his lungs" according to granddaughter Nancy. Antonino was a bantamweight boxer who fought under the name Marty O'Brien. Though a boxer, who would talk "loud and rough", he had a gentle, reserved demeanor. He retired from boxing in 1926, after having broken both wrists, and later found work on the docks as a boilermaker, but was soon laid off due to problems with asthma. He served with the Hoboken Fire Department for 24 years, working his way up to Captain. Kaplan claims that Marty never learned to read. In 1920, Prohibition of alcohol became law in the US. Dolly and Marty ran a tavern during those years, allowed to operate openly by local officials who refused to enforce the law. Kaplan notes the possibility that the Sinatras procured their liquor from members of the American Mafia. They purchased the bar, which they named Marty O'Brien's, with money they borrowed from Dolly's parents. When they were busy with the tavern, Sinatra was watched by relatives and sometimes a Jewish neighbor named Mrs. Goldberg, who taught him Yiddish. When Sinatra was six, his uncle Babe, Dolly's brother, was arrested for driving a getaway car after a Railway Express truck driver was murdered. Though Dolly attended his trial daily and attempted to evoke sympathy, her brother was convicted and sentenced to prison for 15 years. Other family members had minor clashes with the law; Sinatra's father and uncles had been arrested for assorted minor offenses. Sinatra later recalled spending time at the bar, working on his homework and occasionally singing a song on top of the player piano for spare change. During the Great Depression, Dolly provided money to her son for outings with friends, and for him to buy expensive clothes. He also earned pocket money by singing on street corners. Neighbors described him as the "best-dressed kid in the neighborhood" and the "richest kid on the block", aided by the fact that he was an only child, and had his own bedroom. According to Kaplan, Dolly doted on her son, but she also abused him when he angered her, hitting him with small bat she kept at Marty O'Brien's. Excessively thin and small as a child and young man, Sinatra's skinny frame later became a staple of his own jokes and those of the Rat Pack members during stage shows, one self-effacing joke being: "A little kid, skinny. So skinny my eyes were single file. Between those two and my belly button my old man thought I was a clarinet".〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Early life of Frank Sinatra」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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