An American Icon Under Government Surveillance When Frank Sinatra died in 1998, he was one of the most chronicled celebrities ever, but the most unusual record of his life came to light only posthumously: a 1,275-page dossier recording decades of FBI surveillance stemming from J. Edgar Hoover's belief that Sinatra had mob or Communist ties. This shadow biography, with information never before presented in book form, details: Hoover's search through Sinatra's past to see if he got a bogus medical deferment from military service, ultimately yielding the simple fact that Sinatra really had suffered a perforated eardrum as a youthThe FBI's previously unreported cooperation with journalists looking for dirt on Sinatra, including one who had recently been punched out by the singerNumerous instances of the star's carousing and intemperate behavior -- including a detailed report alleging that he rampaged through a Las Vegas hotel after he and his wife Mia Farrow lost small fortunes gamblingThe mob's attempts to curry favor with John F. Kennedy through Sinatra -- and its anger when Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy turned up the heat. This fascinating record of governmental scrutiny will captivate every Sinatra fan, as well as anyone who wants to understand the second half of the American century -- the Cold War, popular culture, the cult of celebrity, Camelot, and the FBI's mania for investigating American citizens -- all personified by the most dominant entertainer of the era. Greenbaum inhabits a Brooklyn that is somehow both urban and earthy, a metropolis of car trouble, plumbers/ and broken typewriters. Yet in the midst of this Sisyphean world, she discovers the double life/ Within us, and everything. Sooty old Brooklyn yields up beauty in the form of rose/ and coffee shops and the grocer arranging/ his pyramid of grapefruits. The borough!s cherry trees are heavy with pink clusters dense as mattress stuffing. Even the wind is composed in green/ Van Gogh-like swirls. Again and again, Greenbaum makes poetry by engaging contraries, marrying/ acceptance and argument. She concludes this highly readable first book with five confessional poems about birth and miscarriage, path and obstacle, everything that makes this earth the right place to live, as long as we keep inventing it. Recommended for all larger poetry collections."Daniel L. Guillory, Millikin Univ., Decatur, IL Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. Like Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon^-FBI Files , this compilation is proffered by legitimate journalists (for the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal ). No mere tattle tome, it quotes Kitty Kelly but consists primarily of documents from the Chairman of the Board's FBI file. As in the Lennon book, the documents betray rampant paranoia and strange obsessions at the bureau and reveal the squalor of the lives of pop-culture royalty. Every celebrated Sinatra foible and peccadillo was investigated, and the Kuntzes comment on which legends are proven and which elude confirmation. Did a horse's head in a bed get Old Blue Eyes his career-saving part in From Here to Eternity ? No proof. Was a bandleader strong-armed to release Frankie from an odious contract? Myth, nothing more. All the gossip is aired, but the file excerpts drone on repetitively. Still, this is valuable minutiae on one of the biggest stars, the star-making machine, the mob, and some strange aspects of the American Camelot. Mike Tribby Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved An American Icon Under Government Surveillance When Frank Sinatra died in 1998, he was one of the most chronicled celebrities ever, but the most unusual record of his life came to light only posthumously: a 1,275-page dossier recording decades of FBI surveillance stemming from J. Edgar Hoover's belief that Sinatra had mob or Communist ties. This shadow biography, with information never before presented in book form, details: Hoover's search through Sinatra's past to see if he got a bogus medical deferment from military service, ultimately yielding the simple fact that Sinatra really had suffered a perforated eardrum as a youthThe FBI's previously unreported cooperation with journalists looking for dirt on Sinatra, including one who had recently been punched out by the singerNumerous instances of the star's carousing and intemperate behavior -- including a detailed report alleging that he rampaged through a Las Vegas hotel after he and his wife Mia Farrow lost small fortunes gamblingThe mob's attempts to curry favor with John F. Kennedy through Sinatra -- and its anger when Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy turned up the heat. This fascinating record of governmental scrutiny will captivate every Sinatra fan, as well as anyone who wants to understand the second half of the American century -- the Cold War, popular culture, the cult of celebrity, Camelot, and the FBI's mania for investigating American citizens -- all personified by t