Well Frank Sinatra had a cold back in the winter of 1965, and his sniffles inspired a landmark magazine profile in Esquire magazine by Gay Talese. In 2007, Vanity Fair called it “the greatest literary-nonfiction story of the 20th century.”
Sinatra refused to talk to Talese for the piece. So Talese spent three months tracking Sinatra from afar, watching him closely, building a long article out of his own observations and interviews with the people who surrounded the superstar – family, friends, flunkies, and fame-sniffers.
The piece, “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” was an extraordinary and incisive narrative, an early example of what has become known as New Journalism. America, celebrity, TV, motherhood, Sinatra, journalism – the piece hit all the notes, with meticulously researched detail throughout.
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It was greatness born of necessity.
The cover of the April 1966 issue of Esquire is also memorable and iconic. By Edward Sorel, the illustration gives us a weary Sinatra with a cigarette in his mouth and five hands with lighters and matches eager to serve the star.
Let’s see if Tom Brady’s cold inspires something special, perhaps on Sunday.
