Frank Sinatra was many things: musical genius, cultural icon, magnet for power.

But when it came to the women's liberation movement, he was more of a 'do it my way' kind of guy.

And during a 1974 tour to Australia, he said the wrong thing to the wrong people at the wrong time.

"The broads who work in the press are the hookers of the press. I might give them a buck-and-half, I'm not sure," Sinatra told a crowd at Melbourne's Festival Hall.

The on-stage slur set in motion a bizarre series of events that sparked a lengthy siege — and was only resolved thanks to some clever peace-brokering by future Australian prime minister Bob Hawke.

Ol' Blue Eyes is Back... in Australia

By the 1970s, Frank Sinatra was insecure about his appearance and voice, a biographer says ( Getty: Art Zelin )

Sinatra arrived in Australia in July 1974, having removed the shackles of a short but uncomfortable retirement from showbusiness.

He was back in the game, but his 59 years on earth showed.

His levels of alcohol consumption were gargantuan — often two bottles of Jack Daniels a day — and he smoked at a similar rate.

"He was insecure, about his looks, about his voice," Sinatra biographer James Kaplan says.

"And he didn't like the way the world was."

'A complete frenzy'

As Ol' Blue Eyes was battling his demons, women in Australia were exorcising theirs.

Feminism was in the ascendency, and the women's liberation movement had begun dismantling the social constructs of the workplace.

"I think all female journalists were feminists, you had to be," says former ABC journalist Margot Marshall.

Sinatra refused to talk to the media, of either sex, while in Australia. There would be no interviews, no press conferences.

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Obliged to cover the tour even without hearing from the man himself, the press hounded Sinatra.

"The media were determined to get to him," says Sinatra's Australian concert producer Robert Raymond.

"It was a complete frenzy."

The media chased his motorcade, mobbed his hotel, corralled him at concert venues and generally made sure Sinatra's team of bodyguards were earning their dime.

Media reporting of the tour covered the usual Sinatra fodder — mob connections and ex-wives. In general, there was a sense of cutting the tall poppy down to size.

By the time he took the stage for the first time at Melbourne's Festival Hall, Sinatra was ready to unload.

"They're parasites. They're bums and they're always going to be bums," he said of the press.

"They're pimps, they're just crazy. A pox on them."

Then he rolled out his line about female journalists being hookers.

That was the turning point.

A superstar gets blacklisted

Frank's comments were poisonous, but they were also mistimed. You just couldn't publicly put women down in that way anymore.

Margot Marshall was an ABC journalist who remembers Frank Sinatra as a man with an ego. ( ABC Archives )

"What an ego!" says Marshall, who remembers one fellow journalist calling him a pig.

"Our backs got up and we thought 'we're not going to put up with this!'"

The unions also read the room. They knew it was feminism, not chauvinism, that was the prevailing social movement of the day.

Workers from the Australian Theatrical and Amusement Employees Association, who controlled the lighting, staging and musicians for Sinatra's tour, announced they would strike until they got an apology from the crooner.

It was not forthcoming.

"Unless within 15 minutes Mr Sinatra had an apology for '15 years of shit' from the Australian press, he would be leaving the country within the hour," was the response given to the unions after a meeting with Sinatra's lawyer.

The Transport Workers Union joined the fray the next day, refusing to fuel any jet — private or commercial — that Sinatra attempted to fly on.

This soon expanded to a total black ban from every union that mattered.

Sinatra was grounded and under siege.

The strikes coincided with Sinatra's second show in Melbourne, scheduled for that same day.

But with no musicians, no stage, no drivers, room service, the show would not go on.

Sinatra somehow flew back to Sydney that night — some media reported his private jet had enough leftover fuel to make the trip, while other reports have him sneaking onto an Ansett flight under an assumed name.

Hawke swoops in to broker peace

The following night, at the 11th hour, an expert negotiator was called in.

"There's only one man who can solve this for you," then prime minister Gough Whitlam said in a phone call to the Sinatra hotel suite.

"Bob Hawke."

Mr Hawke was indeed the man for the job.

When some Sinatra fans turned up to his second cancelled Melbourne show, they were met with a pre-recorded apology. ( ABC Archives )

As president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, he was sent in to try to broker a deal to lift the black ban.

Mr Raymond took the future PM up to the suite.

"I noticed that the dining table had on it a bottle of Courvoisier and a box of cigars. That was it! No papers or anything," Mr Raymond says.

After many drafts of a 'statement of regret', and many draughts of the brandy, Mr Hawke and Sinatra's lawyer Micky Rudin managed to hammer out a deal.

Mr Hawke had negotiated hard.

"He was half pissed, almost legless," Mr Raymond says.

"Micky knew how to get to Bob Hawke: that bottle of Courvoisier."

Ultimately, the joint statement of regret from the crooner and unionists — read by Mr Hawke on the steps of Sinatra's hotel — in effect agreed to disagree.

It was not an apology per se from Sinatra, nor journalists or unions; more a statement that both had a job to do and could, within reason, say whatever they pleased.

A concession from Sinatra's lawyer was that to televise one of his Sydney's shows as a gesture of good will to fans who missed out in Melbourne.

It was a draw; neither side had much to gain by Sinatra leaving. The unions had their PR win, while Sinatra was keen to complete his payday and maintain the momentum of his comeback tour.

So the tour went on and Sinatra sang to adoring crowds in Sydney before leaving Australia.

"His feathers were ruffled while he was in Australia, but the minute he was back in the United States his feet were being kissed again by everybody in sight," Kaplan says.

Sinatra performed at Madison Square Garden in New York later that year.

"Ol' Blue Eyes is back", he told the audience.

"Or as they say in Australia, 'Ol' Big Mouth is back!'"