One night a year, they do it his way

Nobody does it (or rather, did it) like Frank. There was just something in the way he wore his hat, in the way he wooed the ladies, and of course, in the way he carried a tune, that was quite simply like nobody else. “He was a gentleman,” says Ashley Joyce, co-owner of the Hollywood bar the Room, “he was loyal and hard-working, and he had true class.”

Joyce and his partner Jeremy Thomas are Sinatra aficionados. Their club was one of the pioneers of a once-desolate strip of Cahuenga now brimming with nightlife, and it is just the sort of place Frank would have enjoyed: dark and plush and private, the perfect spot to sit quietly and drink a whiskey in peace. Above the Room’s bar hangs an autographed photo of The Man himself, in trademark suit and tie, his arms crossed and his look sly.

“I like to think he’s watching over the place,” Joyce says, “and nodding his head in approval.” Since 1990, as a show of respect to Frank, who died in 1998, Joyce and Thomas have been throwing a birthday bash in his honor. Each Dec. 12, the Room goes high Rat Pack style for dancing, reminiscing, paying tribute and guzzling top-shelf alcohol.

This year, on the special day, women in black cocktail dresses and pearl earrings sipped martinis and batted eyelashes at the bar. The men wore hats, pulled low over one eye, with jackets slung casually over one shoulder. Joyce spun Sinatra and lots of it.

In the small, close club, Frank’s one-of-a-kind voice seeped out of the speakers and into the air and somehow made everything richer. Men stood a little taller; women fixed their lipstick and smoothed their hair.

At midnight, Joyce dropped the needle on “New York, New York” and signaled for the bar to be set on fire. Everyone hoisted glasses, toasted noisily and sang in unison. The higher the harmless blue flames reached, the louder they sang. Then it was “My Way,” more lighter fluid and more cheerful chaos.

“He’s up there right now, “ says Joyce, pointing toward the heavens, “sipping a Jack Daniel’s and having a damn good time.”