Valley-Area Friends, Fans Reminisce About the Sing and Swing of Sinatra

People of a certain age on Friday were sipping one for Sinatra and one more for the road.

More saddened than shocked by the death of Old Blue Eyes, his fans in the San Fernando Valley and Ventura County told stories about a man who swung well past the era of swing. Friends reminisced about a generous pal.

Fellow musicians recalled Sinatra’s genius for coaxing truth from a mere lyric. In memory of Sinatra, Ventura’s singing plumber closed early.

“He was the man,” said Lou Penta, a crooner who exercises his pipes on the job as he runs Paradise Plumbing. “He was the man, the myth, the legend. I’ve got to go up to the lake and contemplate this.”

“It’s a tremendous loss,” said Charlie Pignone, 32, president of the Toluca Lake-based Sinatra Society of America.

He was introduced to Sinatra’s music by the recordings his parents played throughout his childhood. At 18, Pignone began the fan club, which now has about 3,500 members worldwide.

“Everyone from this century knows something about Sinatra.”

Sinatra’s music touched even younger listeners, he said. “Now you see all these music writers trying to sum up his life, but the legacy he leaves is his music. . . . The music transcends generations. Someday we’ll look back and consider it like we do classical music.”

Vito Giovannelli, owner of Casa de Pizza in Granada Hills, sponsors an evening of Sinatra’s music every Thursday night in “the Sinatra Room,” a dining room with walls lined with photographs of Sinatra and the Rat Pack.

“We kind of did it as an experiment,” said Giovannelli.

“Thursday night was known as the slowest night of the week, but now with the band it is the busiest.” His dad, Mike, who opened the restaurant 38 years ago, was a dedicated fan and personal friend of Sinatra, he said.

The lunch crowd Friday was talking about Frank--and annoyed that anyone would want to talk about anything else. “Somebody got upset that all the talk at work was about the ‘Seinfeld’ episode last night and that there was not anybody talking about Frank Sinatra,” said Ron Hey, an accountant from Burbank, over a lunch of anchovy pizza.

“It’s what Frank would have ordered,” he said.

“I have great respect for his sophistication, his suaveness,” said Joan Villarreal, 49, a makeup artist from Sherman Oaks, in the Tower Record store there. “I really think he is indicative of the authenticity of life. I think he is a fine actor, but he’s known best for his music. Anyone with any sophistication, with any worldliness would have to be a fan of Sinatra.”

Newbury Park financial planner Ric Ross has made a lifetime of Sinatra contemplation. The owner of a huge, meticulously cataloged collection of Sinatra memorabilia, he fielded calls all day Friday from news organizations as far away as Tokyo.

Ross has been asked to set up a display coinciding with Sinatra observances in Las Vegas. Three years ago, he helped Nancy Sinatra with her account of Frank’s life, and he is planning his own definitive reference work.

“I’m absolutely numb,” he said with a touch of hoarseness Friday evening. “The voice for the 20th century is stilled. He was the greatest interpreter of popular songs; in my lifetime there will never be an equal.”

In Ventura, Larry Dudley was thinking of a popular song not usually associated with the swaggering Chairman of the Board.

Dudley, who sells yachts at Ventura Harbor, for years played first mate to Humphrey Bogart’s skipper. The two raced sailboats up and down the California coast and cavorted with, among others, Sinatra.

“At this one party for Christmas Eve and Bogie’s birthday, Frank needed to leave,” Dudley recalled. “He said he’d bought Nancy a new Thunderbird and had to get home to tie a big red ribbon around it.”

But someone demanded a song and Sinatra, drifting out the door with Dudley and Bogart, obliged. The well-lubricated trio dished out “Silent Night” as it had never been performed before.

“Sinatra was a very likable person,” Dudley said. “When he turned on the charm, he was tremendous, but it was like a spigot; he could turn it off, too. As Bogie said, he was a good friend and a tough enemy.”

Sinatra’s well-documented tantrums weren’t high on the reminiscence hit parade Friday.

At his Thousand Oaks picture-framing shop, Murray Wald, a former saxophone player for the Glenn Miller Orchestra, wasted no words in pinpointing Sinatra’s remarkable appeal.

“He didn’t sing words,” Wald said. “He sang a story.”

In his basement, Wald often plays along with Sinatra recordings.

“As we used to put it, he really knew how to swing.”

Woolf Phillips wouldn’t disagree.

A British emigre to Camarillo, he remembers the favors a swinging Sinatra used to pass out, like Panatellas.

As music director of the orchestra at London’s famed Palladium theater, Phillips came to like Sinatra immensely. Out of the blue one time, Sinatra gave all 45 or so players in the orchestra gift certificates to Harrod’s. He called Phillips into his dressing room and presented him with a pair of inscribed gold cuff links bearing the image of St. Genesius, the patron saint of entertainers.

“I just had this flown in from New York,” Sinatra said. “Take it.”

“I can’t take it. . . . “

“Take it!”

Phillips took it.

A gift like that would have sent Beatrice McConnell into a dead swoon. At her Thousand Oaks home on Friday, she leafed through the thick Frank Sinatra scrapbook she started in 1944, when she was 14.