Forever Frankie

Nobody gets to Sinatra.

--The 11th Commandment.

*

Old timers here still joke about the time Kitty Kelley came to town, digging up dirt for her scalding biography of Francis Albert Sinatra, the city’s most famous son.

She wanted to photograph some Sinatra memorabilia on the walls of Piccolo’s, a cheese steak joint run by Joseph “Sparky” Spaccavento. But she only got as far as the door. Roaring like a lion, Sparky chased her the hell out of his eatery.

“I got nothin’ for ya!” he shouted down the street. “Ya can’t take pictures here! I got no use for negative writin’!”

Savoring the memory, Sparky brings 10 fingertips to his lips and gives them a big fat kiss. Then he gets mad.

“I don’t care about Frank’s poissonal life,” he says. “He’s the best. He is. And that’s that.”

Locals like Sparky carry a torch. Most have never met Old Blue Eyes, never will, and it doesn’t matter. They’re fans, gritty guys who never left the old neighborhood. True believers who blow off reports of Frank’s poor health and swear he’s fine.

Tucked away in a drab corner of this factory city, Piccolo’s will never win any stars in the Zagat Guide. Yet it’s a shrine, one of a handful of local monuments to Frank Sinatra that show how deeply folks still care about the man and his music. Frank is not just a celebrity to these people; he’s a hero.

Of course, Sinatra has followers like this all over the world. There are hundreds of clubs, Web sites, music groups and other organizations honoring one of the 20th century’s greatest performers. There are classy, upscale restaurants reflecting his magic from coast to coast--Matteo’s in Los Angeles, Patsy’s in New York, Jilly’s West in Chicago, the Summit in St. Louis.

But Hoboken, where “break a leg” doesn’t mean “good luck,” is crazier than most places when it comes to Sinatramania.

One woman here collects old cigarette butts he’s tossed onstage, stashing them in her purse. Another insists that Frank has made regular visits (in disguise) to her small diner, where she cooks him scungilli and he sings her ballads until 3 a.m.

Over Piccolo’s door, a scratchy loudspeaker booms Sinatra’s music night and day. Vintage photos fill the walls of the Sinatra Room in back, and framed newspaper clippings detail the crooner’s long, fabled career. It’s here that Sparky throws an elaborate birthday bash for Sinatra every Dec. 12.

“Is it big?!” Sparky asks incredulously. “Are you serious? Are you kiddin’ me? It’s bigger than freakin’ Christmas!”

On that Day of Days, corks pop out of Frank Sinatra wine and champagne bottles, labeled specially for the occasion. Print, TV and radio reporters jam the place while videos of Frank’s movies and songs beam from a huge television. Handmade signs wishing him well are taped to walls and propped up on Formica tables, while platters of cheese steaks circle the room.

“Mr. Sinatra--That Book Lies!” read one such sign after Kelley’s book appeared. Sparky, who talks like an Italian Don Rickles, loves that story. His green eyes twinkle, his white-aproned chest swells with pride. He struts like a king.

But when it comes to Frankophilia, he’s got competition.

Nearby, there’s Lepore’s Chocolates, run by Eddie Shirak and Mario Lepore. They, too, have a loudspeaker playing Sinatra music outside, plus letters from the man himself. They recently persuaded the city to commission a song saluting Frank, and Shirak wrote “Our Way,” a 139-page book chronicling his persistent but failed efforts to meet Sinatra.

A few blocks away, Leo’s Grandesvous Restaurant is packed with veteran fans and yuppies who cram $1 bills into a jukebox and swing with Sinatra late into the night. There are 75 photos of Frankie on the walls, and Leo DiTerlizzi, 82, has an envelope with some additional shots he got of Sinatra in Hoboken. He happily would have taken more--but bodyguards told him to scram.

Then there’s John “Pinky” Spano, who runs Pinky’s Anything & Everything variety shop right next door to the site of Sinatra’s birthplace, an old wooden building that burned down in 1967. Now nothing is left except a small archway. Yet tourists still flock there, and Spano does a brisk business in Sinatra T-shirts, mugs and copies of his birth certificate.

Hoboken, perched on the Hudson River opposite Manhattan, is only a mile square, and its longtime residents are not exactly strangers in the night. When it comes to the King of Ring-a-Ding-Ding, there are blood feuds going back years.

Leo boasts that he throws the biggest birthday party for Frank, and Sparky rolls his eyes. Eddie claims he had a “mystical” meeting with Sinatra at the Sands Hotel in Atlantic City, while Pinky swears he knows Frank the best.

When Sinatra recently fell ill, Eddie told Sparky he was going to Los Angeles to make a presentation to Frank.

“You’re going to see Sinatra?” Sparky said.

“I’m going,” Eddie insisted.

“Yeah, right,” said Sparky.

To some, this might seem childish and self-serving. After all, Sparky, Eddie, Pinky and Leo have boosted business by milking the Sinatra legend. Yet their passions for him appear deep and genuine. For each, Frank represents a golden time, long ago, when they were among the very young at heart.

They’ve got him under their skin--and their tributes to the singer put Hoboken to shame. There are no Sinatra memorials in town, beyond a sidewalk star near his birthplace, and none is planned, says Angela Scervello, aide to Mayor Anthony Russo.

“There was some talk awhile back of doing something,” she notes. “But the family decided they had other plans.”

Other plans, as in: Get lost.

Lee Solters, a longtime spokesman for Sinatra, remembers a story from years ago when he and Sinatra were about to land in New York on a flight from Los Angeles. Someone in their party mentioned that the plane was cruising right over Hoboken.

“Sinatra spit at the window,” Solters recalls. “There were some hard feelings there, at least at one point.”

It didn’t help that locals who’d been envious of the young man’s incredible talent had booed him at local appearances in the ‘40s; some pelted him with eggs and vegetables. Throughout his career, Sinatra has acknowledged growing up in Hoboken but has never gone out of his way to promote his hometown.

To Sparky, that’s just a technicality.

“Frank loves Hoboken, and I know that Hoboken loves him,” Sparky swears. “To me, he is the greatest guy that ever was.”

Love has a lot to do with it. When Sparky starts talking about The Man, he gets a strange, misty look in his eyes.

“Let’s put it this way. Didja ever have a crush on a girl? You finally get a date and you take her out in an old jalopy. It’s foggy at night, there’s some rain fallin’ and suddenly you hear a Frank Sinatra song on the radio.

“You got the girl! You got Frank! You’re on cloud nine!”

*

Like many of his pals, Sparky cut school constantly to catch Sinatra at the Paramount and Radio City in New York. He remembers the singer in his early prime, snapping the microphone cord behind him, jumping to the beat of a big band.

“O-o-o-o, I missed a lot of school for Frankie,” he says. “If it wasn’t for all that I missed, I’d be a doctor today.”

Piccolo’s is 43 years old, and Sparky looks younger than his 69 years. He refuses to discuss Frank’s mortality.

“We’ll always have Mr. Sinatra’s music,” he vows. “We’ll always have that guy singing to us. The music is enough.”

Not for Eddie Shirak.

Call him obsessed, dedicated or just plain weird, Eddie really doesn’t care. For years, the chocolate shop owner has tried to bring Sinatra and Hoboken together.

“It’s time for this town to honor Frank,” says Shirak, adding that he would kill for the chance to make a presentation to him. Just a few short minutes would do the trick, he says.

Well, lotsa luck.

Once, Shirak tried to hide song lyrics written for Sinatra in a gift of chocolates. Another time, he flew to Los Angeles hoping to give him “Our Way,” his personally penned tribute.

“I’ve wanted to do so much for him,” he sighs on a quiet, drizzly morning in the back of his little candy shop.

Take the hotel, for instance. Shirak, who twice has run unsuccessfully for mayor, wants Hoboken to build a resort in Sinatra’s honor. He’d call it “From Here to Eternity,” after the movie in which the singer won an Oscar for best supporting actor in 1953.

Shirak hoped that a personal blessing from Frank would give him momentum. He caught a break in 1994 when he and his business partner accidentally found themselves dining in the same Atlantic City restaurant as Sinatra and his entourage.

As Shirak tells it, the singer’s friends drifted out until Shirak and his partner were alone with the man.

“I guess he thought we were members of the band, so he pulled up a chair,” Shirak recalls. “He lit up a Camel, drank some Jack Daniel’s and started talking to us about life.”

They listened dumbstruck for 30 minutes, and when Sinatra mentioned that he’d grown up in Hoboken, Shirak saw an opening. But then he went and spoiled it all by saying something stupid like: “You know, sir, I’m from Hoboken, too. . . .”

Immediately, three security guards jumped out of nowhere, hustling Sinatra away and ordering Shirak and his pal to stay in their seats. End of interview, end of hotel.

There were other projects, including the sidewalk star, which Shirak helped bring to fruition. Yet no big success.

“I never gave up trying,” says Shirak. “And finally, miraculously, we got a letter of thanks from Frank Sinatra. It was great, but the coincidences are even more amazing.”

As he wrote in his book: “In 1993, I ran for mayor and received 77 votes. At the time, Mr. Sinatra was 77 years of age. . . . I’m rejected as mayor at Signore’s, the old Continental Lounge. Right across the street, Mr. Sinatra tried many times to sing at the Continental Hotel and met the same fate.”

There are fans . . . and then there are fans, says a highly placed Sinatra aide who asks not to be identified.

“Some are always trying to meet him,” the associate says. “Some think they know him. And some think they are him.”

Shirak has heard the laughter, the put-downs from people who say he resembles Rupert Pupkin, the obsessed stalker played by Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese’s “King of Comedy.” It used to grate. But now Shirak says he feels a bond with Sinatra, since he, too, has experienced rejection. Just like Frank.

“After all I’ve done,” Shirak says dejectedly, his voice trailing off. “I mean, I’ve had an impact on higher-ups, you know? They don’t see me now as just a candy maker.”

Leo DiTerlizzi couldn’t care less what big shots think. He’s just happy that Frank Sinatra remembers him from the old neighborhood, and he worries about the singer’s health.

On a midweek afternoon, Leo’s Grandesvous is empty, except for two cops chowing down on Shrimp Sinatra. The CD jukebox is booming “I’ve Got the World on a String.”

Leo, whose gait is slow but who still tends bar, points proudly to the gallery of pictures on the walls of his 50-year-old restaurant. They’re all shots of Sinatra, with whom he grew up 82 years ago.

“We played in the streets together, we knew the same guys,” he says softly. “And there is no greater guy.”

Over the years, Leo’s kids and grandchildren have sent him photos of Sinatra, and the smoky walls glow with memories:

There’s Frank on a movie set, Frank in a recording studio. In one shot, Frank’s goofing with Dean Martin; in another he’s gabbing with Brooklyn Dodgers Manager Charlie Dressen. There are photos of the women, too--Nancy, Ava and Barbara.

“I saw him briefly years ago in Atlantic City, and he told me, ‘Leo you look great!’ But I had to say to him: ‘Frank, you don’t look too good. What happened?’

“He said: ‘You did the right thing, Leo. You stayed away from drinking. I had to drink because I had lots of company.’ ”

Sinatra will be OK, Leo insists. But the talk is of what he was. Waitress Betty Penn stops by and remembers when Frank was at the Paramount and she was in bobby socks.

“Oh, c’mawn,” she says wistfully. “Ya sawr dat skinny t’ing step up to a microphone and ya doyed. Ya jus’ doyed.”

Five blocks away, “Pinky” Spano feels the glow. He grew up on the same block as Frank and realized a lifelong dream when he finally was able to buy the small store next to Sinatra’s birthplace at 415 Monroe St. Today, Pinky is a gold mine of trivia and other vital information.

Like, who does the best Sinatra imitation?

“Hadda be the guy who comes to my shop one day, a guy from Southern California named Gilbert,” he recalls. “Said he’s the biggest Frank fan. All he wants to do is sing in front of the place where Frank was born. I tell him, ‘Go for it!’ ”

The man ran to his car, opened the hatchback, and a makeshift curtain came down, said Pinky. Then the man’s pants came down.

“He changed into a tuxedo right in front of me!” says Pinky. “He had blue eyes, like Frank. He turned on a sound system and started singing. The SOB sounded just like him!”

Some 50 people gathered, Pinky remembers, and when it was over, Gilbert handed out roses to the ladies. The next day he told neighbors to start spreading the news, and 300 showed up.

“We know what’s important here,” Pinky says. “In 1984, President Reagan came to town, and people turned out in big numbers to see him. But Sinatra paid a surprise visit that same day, and when he arrived, all the attention shifted to him.”

*

Asked whether they’d like to send a message now to the Chairman of the Board, Sparky, Eddie, Leo and Pinky jump at the chance.

Sparky: “Frank, I know it’s impossible to see you anymore. But just a recognition letter would be nice. Just to say, ‘Hi, Spark, Howya doin’, Spark? I know you’re there, Spark.’ I’m not lookin’ for a handout. And thank you for everything!”

Eddie: “I just want to say, Mr. Sinatra, you’re loved so deeply in this city. You will live on from here to eternity.”

Leo: “Frank, this is Leo. I hope you live forever.”

Pinky: “Thanks for all the good years, Frank, and I’m getting choked up. You know, I’d really like to stand in front of you and say thanks 100 times. But then I’d start to cry.”