Former Jersey City resident Peter Begans remembers his mom’s stories about going to see the celebrated crooner Frank Sinatra at the Paramount theater in Manhattan.Sinatra debuted there at the end of 1942, he said, and, two years later, when promoters scheduled five shows a day, cops quelled rioting prompted by “bobby soxers” who wouldn’t give up their seats when a show ended.   “My mom was definitely not a ‘bobby soxer’, ’’ Begans said. “She was a working girl – a secretary for a New York company – and she was about the same age as Frank at the time.”  Begans, a longtime journalist and author whose career began at the old Hudson Dispatch, tonight (October 23) kicks off a three-part lecture series on Frank Sinatra, as America’s foremost “heart-throb” icon.Part 1 focuses on the rise of the singer in pop culture from 1941-1945. Part 2 deals with his fall and resurrection between 1946 and 1961. And Part 3 looks at his role as “chairman of the board” from 1961 to his death in 1998.Part 2 is slated for October 30 and Part 3 will be offered November 6.  All three talks start at 7 p.m. and are hosted by the Museum of Jersey City History, 298 Academy St., in Bergen Square. Admission is free.In a phone interview, Begans offered a broad outline of what he’ll discuss at length during his public talks. He said he sees Sinatra – a man of Hudson County origins – as the key figure in the rise of American pop culture.Peter Begans“Sinatra grew up as an only child in Hoboken where his dad was a boxer, then a fireman and later, a fire captain,” Begans said. His mother, Dolly, was a ward leader in the city. “He marries a girl from Jersey City (Nancy Barbato) and lives there for a time.”An indifferent student – except when it comes to contemporary music – Sinatra – who never finishes high school – is gifted by Dolly with a sound system that’s a valuable tool for joining bands.That leads to young Frank joining with a group of buddies to form “The Hoboken 4” and, in turn, to the group’s being picked in 1935 for a guest shot on the Major Bowes Amateur Hour hosted by Edward Bowes on CBS radio.Bowes sent the group on a national tour but Frank cut the tour short and, eventually, lands a job as a singing waiter at the old Rustic Cabin in Englewood Cliffs.Bands playing for the restaurant’s Saturday Night Dance Fever shows can be heard on WNEW radio via a live feed and that’s where orchestra leader Harry James hears Frank singing.“He immediately offers Frank a job singing in his band in June 1939,” Begans notes. “That was his big breakthrough.”Appearances with the James band, in turn, led to Sinatra working with the Tommy Dorsey orchestra and his introduction to the movie industry.“He makes a number of records, both with the band, and as a solo singer,” Begans said, and then comes his appearances at the Paramount and the beginning of “Sinatra mania.”Just before achieving this prominence on the music scene, according to Begans, Frank takes Nancy to see his idol Bing Crosby at the Loews Theater in Jersey City “and he tells her, ‘That’s going to be me one day.’ ’’Part 1 concludes with an overview of how Sinatra “becomes one of the country’s biggest entertainers” in music and in film during the war and a political activist for the Democratic Party.This period is also marked, Begans said, by the stirrings of ill feelings toward Sinatra over his draft deferment – justified by a punctured eardrum – and the rumors about his alleged mob ties which, Begans said, were reinforced by Sinatra’s move to Hasbrouck Heights where his neighbor happened to be mob underboss Willie Moretti.Part 2 outlines how Sinatra’s reputation falls from the top of the charts to a maligned entertainer, due to his marriage falling apart and his relationship with Ava Gardner, his alleged ties to the mob.On top of everything else, “his voice seemed to be going,” Begans said.But it is Gardner who persuades the Hollywood moguls to cast Sinatra – over Eli Wallach — in the key role of Maggio in the film “From Here to Eternity” and an Oscar for Frank in 1953.From that point on, Sinatra begins to rebound, signing with Capitol Records in Los Angeles and hiring Nelson Riddle as his arranger. “They made over 300 recordings together,” Begans said.And there were the classic movies he made, such as “The Man with the Golden Arm,” which he later describes as “his best film,” according to Begans.This period is also characterized by Sinatra’s association with the “Rat Pack” and his befriending Sammy Davis Jr. Politically, he was identified with left-wing causes, such as ensuring the hiring of Blacks as service workers at The Sands hotel in California.He is selected to host Russian head of state Nikita Khrushchev at a tour of 20th Century Fox film studio. And he runs the inaugural ceremonies for President John F. Kennedy.An unfortunate low-light of this period is Sinatra’s blowup with a major media member when he has a fistfight with Lee Mortimer, entertainment editor of the New York Daily Mirror, at Ciro’s Night Club in 1947. It creates a “press nightmare” for Sinatra at the time, Begans said.Episode 3, starting in the 1960s, illustrates how the lingering rumors about Sinatra and the mob helped “undermine the relationship” between the singer and the Kennedy Dems, Begans said.It was after the JFK assassination and the intensification of the Vietnam War under President Lyndon Johnson that “Sinatra began moving to the right,” Begans added.“He was still an active ‘Democrat for (Hubert) Humphrey,” Begans said, “but after that (election) he supports Republicans, especially (Spiro) Agnew (Nixon’s vice president) who visits Sinatra in Palm Springs more than a dozen times.”He also becomes close with then-California Gov. Ronald Reagan, also a former Hollywood actor and political “leftie” turned conservative. “He probably considers him part of old school Hollywood,’’ Begans surmises.In the ‘60s, Sinatra records personal “assessment” songs such as “My Way” and “It Was a Very Good Year.”“He’s decidedly on the old side of pop culture,” Begans says, “and then he marries (actress) Mia Farrow, who is 30 years younger than Frank.”Sinatra announces his retirement in 1971 but is “rediscovered” by a younger generation unaware of his contributions to the pop song culture and what Begans calls “perhaps the greatest entertainer of the 20th century.”As a professional singer, Sinatra was largely self-taught – he never learned to read music, according to Begans. “but he does inspire great art,” as evidenced by Gay Talese’s Esquire article, “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold.”For Begans and many more writers, it’s a prime example of what Begans calls the “fundamental ‘New Journalism’ circa 1965.”Some Hudson County footnotes: During his heyday as a performer, Sinatra could always count on a table reserved for him and his associates every night at Roy’s Beuna Vista Restaurant on Mallory Avenue or at any of several eateries in Hoboken. And he rented out the old Casino in the Park in Jersey City for his parents’ 50th wedding anniversary.The post Three-Part Lecture Series on Frank Sinatra Begins Tonight at Museum of Jersey City History appeared first on Jersey City Times.