CDMX, Mexico.- Who was one of the most influential artists of the 20th century visited Havana on two occasions. This is Frank Sinatra, also known as “The Voice”.
His first stay in the Cuban capital was in 1946, invited by the main bosses of the mafia. They stayed in the National Hotel and there they organized their meetings and parties.
The meeting would be attended by a group of admirers of the famous singer. Lucky Luciano said about it, according to the book The Havana Empire: “If someone had asked, there was an apparent reason for such a meeting. It was held to honor an Italian boy from New Jersey named Frank Sinatra, the singer who had become a teen idol in the country. He had flown to Havana with his friends, the Fischettis, to meet his friend Charlie Luciano and during the week there would be a gala in his honor (…) Frank was a good boy and we were all proud of him, the way he had risen to stardom.”
On the last day of that year, the guests who accompanied the singer reserved the Casino Parisién and put together a celebration in style. Nothing was missing: no luxuries, no drinks, no expensive food. They also hired artists to make it the most entertaining night. But the best part of the celebration was when, around midnight, the stage went up sinatra and began to sing until his voice could bear.
There are almost no photographs of those days that the singer spent in Havana, as the most illustrious guest of the mafia. But there are testimonies from the time that narrated how those “businessmen” with their bodyguards practically closed the hotel.
Even Sinatra denied the details of that visit and its attendants; and he sued an American magazine that published the event.
Return to Havana
On the other hand, what there are more photos and evidence of is his second visit to Havana.
It was five years later. In 1951 the singer returned to Cuba now with his wife, the actress Ava Gardner who dazzled everyone with her beauty, leaving Sinatra in the background.
“Sullen, angry, elusive, Sinatra keeps his new better half locked up in the hotel apartment, or secretly takes her back and forth, arguing contemptuously with everyone, not allowing anyone: the public, photographers or journalists to get close to them.” This is how the chronicler of the Bohemia magazine wrote the visit of the newlyweds. As it reads, it was she who attracted all the attention. To the point that she was called in the Cuban magazine: “the most beautiful animal in the world.”
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