On View : 80 Years His Way : ABC THROWS FRANK SINATRA AN ALL-OUT BIRTHDAY PARTY TO BENEFIT TWO CHARITIES

Frank Sinatra and his ol’ blue eyes turn 80 on Tuesday. And ABC is pulling out all the stops: “Frank Sinatra: 80 Years My Way” is a two-hour gala birthday party the network is airing Thursday.

Taped Nov. 19 at the Shrine Auditorium, “My Way” features such performers as Tony Bennett, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Bono, Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, Salt-N-Peppa and Hootie and the Blowfish paying tribute to the Chairman of the Board.

Executive producer George Schlatter conceived of the “My Way” extravaganza, which was also a benefit for the Barbara Sinatra Children’s Clinic in Palm Springs and AIDS Project Los Angeles. Schlatter (“Laugh-In,” “The American Comedy Awards”) also produced Sinatra’s 75th birthday party for CBS. For the last four years, he says, he’s been asking Sinatra and his wife Barbara what they wanted to do for his 80th. “I said, ‘We can have dinner at our house. We can have dinner at your house. Or, we will have a party at the Shrine.”

The very private Sinatra, Schlatter says, agreed to have a very public birthday only because the event would raise money for two charities. “It continues with what he has been doing all of his life. He has been responsible for raising more than one billion dollars in charity. I mean, you have to figure he started doing charity events when he was 18 years old. Sometimes he has done two or three a day.”

As for the guests, Schlatter says, there is a cross-section of ages and styles, as well as Sinatra cronies. Sinatra and Ray Charles, who sings “Ol’ Man River,” have been friends for years. He’s known Natalie Cole, who sings “They Can’t Take That Away From Me,” since she was a little girl. “He’s worked with Patti LaBelle. Tony Danza is a particular favorite of his. Of course, Vic Damone and Steve and Eydie have worked with him for a long time. Tony Bennett--you know what that relationship is about.” (Sinatra has called Bennett the best male singer around.)

Springsteen, who performs “Angel Eyes,” and Dylan, who sings his own 1964 composition “Reckless Forever,” are two rockers whom Sinatra appreciates. “And then we have three of the comedians who have worked the most with him--Don Rickles, Tom Dreesen and Norm Crosby. And then you have some of the people who are very hot today, like Salt-N-Peppa and Hootie and the Blowfish.”

Schlatter says he can’t really define what makes Sinatra unique in the world of popular music. “He lights up a stage,” Schlatter says of the Hoboken, N.J., native who won the 1953 best supporting actor Oscar for his role in “From Here to Eternity.”

“He lights up a room. He lights up a theater. He lights up a city. Part of it is the voice. Part of it is the memories he brings back.”

A high point in the show occurs when longtime friends Lawrence, Gorme and Damone sing a medley of two dozen Sinatra standards, beginning with his first bobby-soxer hit “All or Nothing at All,” which he recorded when he was with Harry James’ orchestra. Also in the mix are “Night and Day,” “Witchcraft,” “You Make Me Feel So Young” and “This Love of Mine,” which Sinatra also wrote.

No one, Lawrence says, can interpret a lyric like Sinatra. “The American popular song was poetry and, for the most part, there were a lot of poems that were set to music,” Lawrence explains. “Frank grew up in a period of time where we had some great intellectual people writing. People like Cole Porter, the Gershwins, Irving Berlin, Johnny Mercer, Sammy Cahn. ... Frank had the good taste to take the best of their music and make it better.”

Unlike his contemporaries of the day, Lawrence adds, Sinatra performed in such a way “that he was singing a story rather than ... in tempo. He personalized the story. He made it a small little drama.”

And he influenced singers like Lawrence. “His influence was profound on everybody who came after him,” he says. “And then it was up to you to take that, add yourself to it and become somebody else.”

Five years ago, Lawrence and Gorme opened for Sinatra on his worldwide tour. “It was extraordinary,” Lawrence says. “He’s the only performer--even out of the realm of performance--one of the few people in the world who has the recognition worldwide not only for his music, but for his acting. He gets the same reaction in Norway as he does in Newark!”

“Frank Sinatra: 80 Years My Way” airs Thursday at 9 p.m. on ABC.