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Martin Scorsese to direct Frank Sinatra biopic?

May 11th, 2008 by Scott Marks

Will Tina Sinatra force Marty to sleep with the fishes?

Don’t hold your breath.

May 14th marks the ten year anniversary of Frank Sinatra’s death and his kids are out making noise to peddle repackaged CDs.

My guess is that Tina Sinatra is hoping that fairy tales can come true when she proclaimed Marty the Chosen One. In an interview with the Winnipeg Sun, Mr. Sinatra’s daughter let slip that Scorsese is going to direct a major theatrical bio of the The Voice for Universal.

“Marty has always wanted to do this,” Ms. Sinatra told Sun Media during a phone interview from Los Angeles.

Years ago there was talk of Marty bringing Nick Tosches’ astounding biography Dino to the screen. If memory serves, the “dream” cast went something like this: Tom Hanks as Dean Martin, John Travolta as Frank Sinatra, Wesley Snipes as Sammy Davis, Jr. and Adam Sandler as Joey Bishop.

Forrest Gump as the swinginest borracho ever to swizzle a stick? Better Tony Danza or Eddie Mecca. With plenty of makeup and a camera placed at a safe distance, bloated Travolta could probably have doubled Frank’s later years, but the singer’s rawboned beginnings would have been a stretch. Tommy Davidson is the only man alive capable of doing Sammy justice, not the musclebound Snipes who’ll probably be finishing his jail sentence right around the time shooting commences. The only preordained bit of casting was Happy Gilmore as the Rat’s Pack’s resident nebbish. He has the hair for it, and for once Sandler would have found a part worthy of his limited talent.

This will mark daughter Tina’s third big screen attempt to cash in on her father’s legacy. She produced Sinatra, a 1992 mini-series, as well as Jonathan Demme’s ill-fated (and underrated) remake of The Manchurian Candidate.

Ms. Sinatra admitted that it might be somewhat premature to announce that Marty has signed on for the biopic. When she dubbed her choice for director, “the most prominent Italian-American filmmaker” working today, Sun Media instantly guessed Francis Ford Coppola.

“We adore him,” she said, “but he didn’t step up to it.”

She later confirmed it was Scorsese. “You’ll be reading about it very soon … oh, go ahead and print it, I don’t care!”

With Ashecliffe in production, Marty has four upcoming features on his plate that should take him through 2011: A pair of musical documentaries on the lives and careers of George Harrison and Bob Marley, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, and Silence, a Bergmanesque sounding tale of two Jesuit priests questioning the death of God in seventeenth century Japan.

Will the Sinatra estate allow Marty to paint a “warts and all” portrait? Borrowing a metaphor from her father’s own words, Sinatra said, “He never drove the getaway car” and in the forthcoming picture, “I don’t want him to be driving the getaway car. That would not be fair. But I trust Him (Scorsese) implicitly.”

In God we Trust!

***UPDATE***

In a interview in today’s Los Angeles Times, Tina Sinatra appears “particularly enthusiastic” about Marty’s chances of directing. It’s not a lock. There is also disharmony between Tina and Nancy. The paper reports, “Nancy Sinatra, 67, is against a feature film, even if Oscar-winner Scorsese fulfills his longtime goal of directing it. She fears it would dwell on the negative and ugly moments of her father’s complicated life. She prefers an eight- to 10-hour documentary, which needs to be ‘very, very precise.’”

Links:
Martin Scorsese photos
Frank Sinatra photos
Dean Martin photos
Martin Scorsese Reviews and Articles

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Filed Under News

Dig A Hole: Joey Bishop was 89… Son of a Gun!

October 19th, 2007 by Scott Marks

joey-bishop.jpg

 
Aside from looking good in Alpaca sweaters, hanging with the Rat Pack and a putting green haircut, just why the hell should we remember Joey Bishop?

He wasn’t a song and dance man, nor do I recall him delivering standup in nightclubs. His big screen roles were few and far between. In The Naked and the Dead, Bishop made the perfect foil for anti-Semitic jabs and his death scene always guarantees giggles. (Wasn’t he the one who had his little bird crushed? Ahahahahahaha!)

The Rat Pack connection offered him deeper access to Hollywood. Blending in with Frank Sammy, Dean and Henry Silva is one thing. You try sitting through Texas Across the River, Joey’s big solo shot.

He was on television, but the funniest thing about The Joey Bishop Show was that it provided Joe Besser steady income.

As a talk show guest he gave good panel. So good, that Bishop was the first (along with sidekick Regis Philbin) to have balls big enough to go up against the unconquerable Johnny Carson.

After his late night talk show crashed and burned Joey adopted a Brigadoon-like deportment. In the past 20 years, it seems the only time Joey surfaced was to eulogize a passing Rat Packer. I can’t even recall a Telethon appearance.  

His groundskeeper manicured hairdo eventually gave way to a style that bore more than a passing resemblance to Gary Oldman’s cut and blow in Coppola’s Dracula.

Next to Ocean 11’s Mushy, he will best be remembered (at least in my heart) for his cameo as the used car salesman in Johnny Cool. Directed by Bewitched auteur William Asher, this late period noir-wannabe is a Rat Pack opus minus Frank and Dean. Sammy’s in it, but it’s basically a showcase for Henry Silva that houses loads of star cameos.

Joey was a natural as a used car pitchman. He missed his true calling. Instead, the Son of a gun became famous by being famous.

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Filed Under Obituaries