Frank Sinatra was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, to Italian immigrants Natalina Della (Garaventa), from Northern Italy, and Saverio Antonino Martino Sinatra, a Sicilian boxer, fireman, and bar owner. Growing up on the gritty streets of Hoboken made Sinatra determined to work hard to get ahead. Starting out as a saloon singer in musty little dives (he carried his own P.A. system), he eventually got work as a band singer, first with The Hoboken Four, then with Harry James and then Tommy Dorsey. With the help of George Evans (Sinatra's genius press agent), his image was shaped into that of a street thug and punk who was saved by his first wife, Nancy Barbato Sinatra. In 1942 he started his solo career, instantly finding fame as the king of the bobbysoxers--the young women and girls who were his fans--and becoming the most popular singer of the era among teenage music fans. About that time his film career was also starting in earnest, and after appearances in a few small films, he struck box-office gold with a lead role in Anchors Aweigh (1945) with Gene Kelly, a Best Picture nominee at the 1946 Academy Awards. Sinatra was awarded a special Oscar for his part in a short film that spoke out against intolerance, The House I Live In (1945). His career on a high, Sinatra went from strength to strength on record, stage and screen, peaking in 1949, once again with Gene Kelly, in the MGM musical On the Town (1949) and Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949). A controversial public affair with screen siren Ava Gardner broke up his marriage to Nancy Barbato Sinatra and did his career little good, and his record sales dwindled. He continued to act, although in lesser films such as Meet Danny Wilson (1952), and a vocal cord hemorrhage all but ended his career. He fought back, though, finally securing a role he desperately wanted--Maggio in From Here to Eternity (1953). He won an Oscar for best supporting actor and followed this with a scintillating performance as a cold-blooded assassin hired to kill the US President in Suddenly (1954). Arguably a career-best performance--garnering him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor--was his role as a pathetic heroin addict in the powerful drama The Man with the Golden Arm (1955).

Known as "One-Take Charlie" for his approach to acting that strove for spontaneity and energy, rather than perfection, Sinatra was an instinctive actor who was best at playing parts that mirrored his own personality. He continued to give strong and memorable performances in such films as Guys and Dolls (1955), The Joker Is Wild (1957) and Some Came Running (1958). In the late 1950s and 1960s Sinatra became somewhat prolific as a producer, turning out such films as A Hole in the Head (1959), Sergeants 3 (1962) and the very successful Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964). Lighter roles alongside "Rat Pack" buddies Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. were lucrative, especially the famed Ocean's 11 (1960). On the other hand, he alternated such projects with much more serious offerings, such as The Manchurian Candidate (1962), regarded by many critics as Sinatra's finest picture. He made his directorial debut with the World War II picture None But the Brave (1965), which was the first Japanese/American co-production. That same year Von Ryan's Express (1965) was a box office sensation. In 1967 Sinatra returned to familiar territory in Sidney J. Furie's The Naked Runner (1967), once again playing as assassin in his only film to be shot in the U.K. and Germany. That same year he starred as a private investigator in Tony Rome (1967), a role he reprised in the sequel, Lady in Cement (1968). He also starred with Lee Remick in The Detective (1968), a film daring for its time with its theme of murders involving rich and powerful homosexual men, and it was a major box-office success.

After appearing in the poorly received comic western Dirty Dingus Magee (1970), Sinatra didn't act again for seven years, returning with a made-for-TV cops-and-mob-guys thriller Contract on Cherry Street (1977), which he also produced. Based on the novel by William Rosenberg, this fable of fed-up cops turning vigilante against the mob boasted a stellar cast and was a ratings success. Sinatra returned to the big screen in The First Deadly Sin (1980), once again playing a New York detective, in a moving and understated performance that was a fitting coda to his career as a leading man. He made one more appearance on the big screen with a cameo in Cannonball Run II (1984) and a final acting performance in Magnum, P.I. (1980), in 1987, as a retired police detective seeking vengeance on the killers of his granddaughter, in an episode entitled Magnum, P.I.: Laura (1987).

Did anyone not love Joan Blondell? From her days as a wisecracking chorus cutie at Warner Bros. to her reign as one of Hollywood's most reliable and down-to-earth character actresses, TCM's Star of the Month for December was always a pleasure to watch and someone audiences felt they actually knew. Her movie career lasted nearly half a century, from 1930 to 1979 (with a final onscreen appearance in 1981).

Rose Joan Blondell (1906-1979) was born in Manhattan to a vaudeville family who called their troupe "The Bouncing Blondells." The story goes that she made her stage debut at four months old when her father, Ed Blondell, carried her on in a cradle. After competing in beauty contests as a teen, she began acting onstage in stock companies and by 1930 was starring on Broadway opposite James Cagney in Penny Arcade.

Warner Bros. brought both young stars to Hollywood, where they would perform together in six movies. The first, Blondell's film debut, was Sinners' Holiday (1930), the screen version of Penny Arcade. In those snappy pre-Code days, the uninhibited Blondell quickly became one of the studio's busiest young performers. She went on to start playing second leads, supporting Helen Twelvetrees in Millie (1931) and Cagney in his breakthrough film The Public Enemy (1931). Blondell's first lead role came opposite Cagney in Blonde Crazy (1931).

By 1932 (a year in which she appeared in a total of nine movies), Blondell had progressed to leads in such films as The Crowd Roars with Cagney; The Famous Ferguson Case with Leslie Fenton; Miss Pinkerton with George Brent; and, at Paramount, the well-titled Make Me a Star with Stuart Erwin.

In the mid-1930s, due in part to her constant activity, Blondell became one of the highest-paid performers in Hollywood. She gradually worked her way to stardom and was billed above Bette Davis and Ann Dvorak, the other two leading ladies in the crime drama Three on a Match (1932).

Blondell's 1933 films included Lawyer Man, with William Powell; Blondie Johnson, filmed for Fox, which cast her as a gun moll; Gold Diggers of 1933, a hit Busby Berkeley musical also starring Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler and Ginger Rogers; Footlight Parade, another big musical, this time with Cagney, Powell and Keeler; andHavana Widows, the first of several popular films teaming Blondell with Glenda Farrell as gold-digging partners.

In 1934, Blondell's films included Kansas City Princess with Farrell, the film that made Warner Bros. promote her to official stardom; Smarty, with Warren William; I've Got Your Number, with Farrell and Pat O'Brien; and He Was Her Man, with Cagney. By mid-1934, the Hays Production Code was being enforced and films in general became more subdued, although Blondell continued to be a lively presence.

We're in the Money (1935) is another Blondell/Farrell romp, and Bullets or Ballots (1936) is a hard-hitting crime film starring Edward G. Robinson and Blondell, with Humphrey Bogart and Louise Beavers in support. Three Men on a Horse (1936) is the very funny film version of the hit Broadway farce teaming Blondell with Sam Levene.

But as the 1930s came to a close, Blondell began to feel that Warner Bros. wasn't making full use of her talents. After Off the Record (1939), a newspaper drama with frequent costar Pat O'Brien, she decided to leave the studio in hopes of finding more rewarding material.

She later said of her years at Warner Bros., "I just sailed through things, took the scripts I was given, did what I was told. I couldn't afford to go on suspension." It was a survivalist attitude with which Depression-era moviegoers could identify.

Blondell went to MGM to team with Lana Turner for the musical Two Girls on Broadway (1940), then played a sexy ghost in United Artists' Topper Returns (1941). Her film activity slowed during World War II, when she devoted much time to entertaining the troops; but she did give a splendid performance alongside Ann Sothern and Margaret Sullavan in the wartime drama Cry 'Havoc' (1943).

Blondell entered character actress territory in such films as A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945) and The Blue Veil (1951), winning an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress for the latter film. Just as audiences had learned to love that down-to-earth gal with the big heart and saucer eyes, they now embraced a more cynical and weathered version of the same personality.

In MGM's The Opposite Sex (1956), a remake of 1939's The Women, she is the friend who is always pregnant (although she was around 50 at the time!). She plays a stage mother in This Could Be the Night (1957), starring Jean Simmons; and the supportive friend of a young evangelist (Salome Jens) in Allied Artists' Angel Baby (1961). Again at MGM, Blondell appeared in the Glenn Ford vehicle Advance to the Rear (1964), a Civil War comedy in which she plays a traveling madam called "Easy Jenny."

She earned some of the best notices of her later film career for The Cincinnati Kid (1965), a Depression-era drama set in New Orleans in which she is a poker champion turned dealer. Starring Steve McQueen and Ann-Margret, The Cincinnati Kid brought Blondell a National Board of Review award as Best Supporting Actress, as well as a Golden Globe nomination in that category. Howard Thompson wrote in The New York Times that she breezes into the film's climax "like a blowsy, good-natured gale."

Blondell's final feature film was The Woman Inside (1981), released two years after her death. In addition to appearing in close to 100 movies, she was active on television and the stage. In 1968-70, she appeared in the popular ABC-TV comedy-Western Here Come the Brides, winning two primetime Emmy nominations as Best Leading Actress in a drama series.

Another Golden Globe nod came for the John Cassavetes film Opening Night (1977). She also earned a Tony Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress for her performance on Broadway in 1958's The Rope Dancers.

Blondell was married and divorced three times: to cinematographer George Barnes, actor/singer/director Dick Powell and producer Mike Todd. She had two children, Norman Scott Powell and Ellen Powell. Her younger sister was actress Gloria Blondell.

Blondell died from leukemia in Santa Monica, CA, on Christmas Day 1979, with her children and sister at her side. She is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, CA.

Noted for her full-blooded performances, this former vaudevillian was no fan of underacting. Blondell once noted that there was "a very fine line" between that and "not acting at all. And not acting is what a lot of actors are guilty of... I'd hate to see them onstage with a dog act!"

by Roger Fristoe