Ol' Blue (Movie) Eyes: Sinatra 'was so broke at 19 he did a porn film'



Struggling to get his singing career started, a homeless and hungry Frank Sinatra was persuaded to appear in a porn film, according to a new biography.

He was paid $100 for his contribution to a 1934 movie called The Masked Bandit at the age of 19 – and spent the rest of his life hoping it would stay a secret.

The claim is made by Darwin Porter, who has been researching his biography, Frank Sinatra, The Boudoir Singer, for decades.



Idol: Sinatra and a gaggle of admirers in 1943, by which time he was enjoying huge success

Looking sharp: An early picture from around 1940 of the star sitting at a table in a nightclub next to his first wife, Nancy Barbato.

He says he was told about the film by British actor Peter Lawford, one of the five members of the Rat Pack – Sinatra’s gang of movie pals from the 1960s which also included Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jnr.

Lawford revealed that Davis – a collector of porn films at a time when they were not sold openly – had a copy of The Masked Bandit.

In 1972, he played a prank on Ol’ Blue Eyes at a party of celebrity friends, inserting footage of it into a reel of the notorious porn film Deep Throat, which he screened for the guests.



Because Sinatra was masked, nobody at the private screening except Lawford, Davis and Sinatra knew who the skinny teenager frolicking with two naked actresses was.



The Rat Pack often played pranks on each other but Sinatra wasn’t amused.



He masked his anger to keep the secret and, says Porter, was going to ‘cut Sammy Davis Jnr off for life, but then realised Davis might reveal his secret’.

Davis later agreed to destroy his copy of The Masked Bandit.

Crooners: Sinatra (right) alongside fellow 'Rat Pack' members Dean Martin, left, and Sammy Davis Jr. Sinatra was allegedly furious after Davis played a copy of the porn film at a party

Family man: Sinatra with his wife and daughter both called Nancy Sinatra

Referring to Sinatra’s involvement with the Mafia, Porter adds: ‘Years later, a segment of The Masked Bandit was considered for insertion in a film about stars such as Joan Crawford who had appeared in porn before they became famous.

‘When Frank heard about this, he called his friends in the mob. The bandit loop never resurfaced.’

Porter, who has published books on other Hollywood figures, adds: ‘A lot of stars do a porno loop when they are struggling. So many have this little dark period.’

James Kaplan, author of the biography, Frank: The Making of a Legend, said that he had not heard of the porn film, although Sinatra, who died in 1998, 14 years after Lawford, was certainly struggling during the early 1930s.



Sinatra’s career took off in the next decade, and was revived in 1954 when he won an Oscar for his performance in From Here To Eternity.