LOS ANGELES (AP) — Frank Sinatra Jr., who carried on his famous father's legacy with his own music career and whose kidnapping as a young man added a bizarre chapter to his father's legendary life, died Wednesday. He was 72.
The younger Sinatra died unexpectedly of cardiac arrest while on tour in Daytona Beach, Florida, the Sinatra family said in a statement to The Associated Press.
The statement said the family mourns the untimely passing of their son, brother, father and uncle. No other details were provided.
His real name was Francis Wayne Sinatra — his father's full name was Francis Albert Sinatra — but he went professionally by Frank Sinatra Jr.
Sinatra Jr. was the middle child of Sinatra and Nancy Barbato Sinatra, who was the elder Sinatra's first wife and the mother of all three of his children. Sinatra Jr.'s older sister was Nancy Sinatra, who had a successful musical career of her own, and his younger sister was TV producer Tina Sinatra.
He was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1943, just as his father's career was getting started, and he would watch his dad become one of the most famous singers of all time. But he usually watched from a distance, as Sinatra was constantly away on tours and making movies.
He did, however, sometimes get to see him from the wings of the stage, especially when his father performed for long stints in Las Vegas. Sinatra Jr. got to see many other storied performers too, like Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Count Basie.
"I saw all the top stars perform," Sinatra Jr. told the AP in 2002. He said one of his favorite memories of his father was a show in the late 1960s at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.
"He was sitting on a little stool, and he sang the Beatles song 'Yesterday' and 'By the Time I Get to Phoenix' and 'Didn't We,'" Sinatra Jr. said. "We were all crying and singing."
RIP to a good man and a good singer. It must have been hell growing up in his father's shadow and with his father's name, but he carried it off with grace. He didn't try to be his father and had his own individual career instead.
It was kind of like being Michael Jordan's son, trying to play basketball. No matter what you do you are in a shadow.
I'm sure he didn't need the money, but he toured with a big band show and made some records, and did it for a long time.
RIP