All of which were severely challenged in the early ’60s when the newly elected President Kennedy decided not to take his family on a long-planned trip to go and stay with Frank and his (possibly worrying) friends. Sinatra may have installed a helipad for the President, but Bing Crosby’s house was a safer bet, especially as Bobby Kennedy was out to clip the wings of crime bosses at the time. Having endured the indignity of being out-padroned in his own home, Frank was said to have attacked the helipad with a sledgehammer.

That need to be seen to be important was instilled in him from a young age by his mother. Dolly Sinatra was a social hub in Hoboken, New Jersey, acting at one time or another (according to James Kaplan’s Frank: The Voice) as a court translator, midwife, supplier of back alley abortions, ward leader for the Democratic Party and prohibition-breaking bartender. She knew a lot of people and did a lot of favours, and put up with very little in the way of nonsense, and that’s the spirit in which Frank went on to conduct his affairs.

The chairman

Generous to a fault, Frank would reward loyalty with thoughtful and expensive gifts – gold cigarette lighters were a particular favourite – he always made a show of having the very best and extravagantly dispensing his bounty. He was also meticulous about how he dressed, even training himself to sit in a certain position while sleeping on the Dorsey tour bus, so as to avoid creasing his suit. This habit of conspicuous grooming and gladhanding put him at the very centre of a good many rooms, acting the role of a (mostly) benevolent monarch, taking tributes from everyone and offering the olives from his martini to favoured courtiers.