I don’t know anyone who hasn’t heard of Frank Sinatra. The man will forever be known as the god of romantic music. He has a large pool of songs that even most of mygeneration knows and loves--even if they won’t admit it. Sinatra was also a great man of power; both with his voice and with the money his voice brought him. He could essentially do as he liked, how he liked it, and also get others to do just about everything he wanted or needed. He was warm, and caring, but could also have an explosively hot temper. Today, there is a good chance he may have been considered to be bipolar. Sinatra was a legend when he was alive, and he is still a legend to this day; one that is likely to remain so for generations to come.
The way Gay Talese wrote his feature on Sinatra is quite unique ("Sinatra Has a Cold"). It reads like a story, not like a series of interviews about the man at hand. Talese does an exceptional job of using imagery and unique situations to show who Frank Sinatra is without ever even interviewing him. He uses situations that he himself witnessed, and conversations with people who knew him to fill in the blanks. It’s also very unique because even though this piece was written in the 60’s the writing seems timeless, and it keeps your attention. Talese paints Sinatra’s personality so well--like he’s developing the character of a classic novel. The situations he includes in this writing show all sides of Sinatra; his gloomy, brooding, seriousness, his kind heart, and his temper.
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He also shows how much power Sinatra truly has without directly saying it most of the time. Just a few paragraphs in, Talese writes about a time where Sinatra had made a simple remark about his Jeep needing a new coat of paint. Now, for any average person, you would say that but probably wouldn’t even be able to afford it. Talese, on the other hand, says that after Sinatra made the comment, everyone working under him immediately freaked out and raced to get the Jeep painted. Turned out that Sinatra could have cared less when it was painted. This is a perfect example of the kind of power Talese shows Sinatra to have over people. He didn’t have to tell people to do things necessarily, but if he made a comment about how he wished such and such, his people would just make it happen.
The imagery Talese uses gives the article an extra boost that the majority of articles are lacking. His descriptive word choice show who Sinatra is more subtly than just saying “he was handsome and powerful.” There are many places where you can see his descriptive language being used to set him apart from the people around him. About three-fourths of the way through the story Talese states, “Frank Sinatra, holding a shot glass of bourbon in his left hand, walked through the crowd. He, unlike some of his friends, was perfectly pressed, his tuxedo tie precisely pointed, his shoes unsmudged. He never seems to lose his dignity, never lets his guard completely down no matter how much he has drunk, nor how long he has been up.” It’s obvious through Talese’s language that Sinatra was classier, more dignified in appearance and action than any of the people he was with, and Talese makes this an ongoing trend of his story of Frank Sinatra.
The most remarkable thing about Gay Talese and “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold” is the popularity and impact of the story. This type of writing had never been used before in journalism, and this particular story is far from forgotten. Britannica details that New Journalism was a movement in journalistic writing that took hold in the 60’s and 70’s. Britannica states, “The genre combined journalistic research with the techniques of fiction writing in the reporting of stories about real-life events. The writers often credited with beginning the movement include Tom Wolfe, Truman Capote, and Gay Talese.
New Journalism was different because unlike the average feature stories of the time, the writers in New Journalism would spend copious amounts of time studying their subject--interviewing friends, family, simply observing the subject at hand, and making the end product something more like a novel, it was a true story rather than a report. The Britannica article states, “they constructed well-developed characters, sustained dialogue, vivid scenes, and strong plotlines marked with dramatic tension. They also wrote in voices that were distinctly their own.” New Journalism was a whole new category of writing with untapped potential.
So, New Journalism started a much more engaging style of journalism essentially. When I was researching this topic and reading “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” I asked a friend if she had any idea what “Queeg-thing” meant (it was a phrase used in the story) and all she could say was “you’re reading about Frank Sinatra, aren’t you?” She clearly wasn’t wrong, and it’s comments such as this that show how lasting this story’s effects are. This style of writing truly changed up the journalistic ball-game and brought something new and exciting to the field. Something so exciting, that approximately thirty years later, is still well known and remembered.
