through his sister. “She’d send me to the record store to buy 78s,”
Mark remembered. “It was kind of embarrassing for a teenage boy
to be buying Frank at the time, with all the girls screaming.”
But one winter, Mark was alone in a California military bar-
racks. “Frank came on singing ‘I’ll Be Home For Christmas,’ and I
said, ‘My God, listen to that.’ Th ere was nothing like it!”
By the mid-1950s, Mark was hosting an all-night broadcast on
WHAT in Philly. One evening, instead of the rock ’n’ roll his pro-
ducers wanted, Mark decided to play Sinatra’s new album in its en-
tirety. Th e next day, sales of the album spiked around Philadelphia.

Th at fi nally got the attention of Sinatra’s agent; the next thing he
knew, Mark was invited to spend a weekend with the icon in Las
Vegas. As their friendship blossomed, “Sounds of Sinatra” became
a radio destination for listeners who prized their host’s insider
knowledge. Philadelphia was a passionate fan base for Sinatra, said
Mark, who frequented the singer’s Manhattan apartment. “He’d al-
ways joke: Are you sure you’re Jewish? Because I hear the way you
say marinara,” Mark laughed.

While Mark was the less religious of the two, both men shared
a deep respect for family and Jewish tradition, which Sinatra saw
as akin to his own Italian culture. “Frank was the most charita-
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“I promised Frank
I’d do it as long as
I could. It’s been
a good ride. How
blessed am I?”
SID MARK
ble man ever, and a tremendous supporter of the state of Israel,”
Mark noted.

Th e hard-living singer also gave the radio host advice on deal-
ing with laryngitis. “He’d say, ‘Your problem is you don’t drink
enough,’” Mark recalled. (Th e broadcaster relies on tea, lozenges
and an evening schedule.)
Photographs show the craggy, 6-foot-4-inch Mark towering
over the singer, smiles intact as their hair whitens over the years.

“He’s been a friend for as long as I’ve been in this business,” Sinatra
told a crowd in 1991. “It’s wonderful to have a friend like Sidney,
and I’ve had maybe four or fi ve in my career. People who’ve stayed
with me when things were dark, who didn’t change when every-
thing else changed.”
You might say the same of Sinatra’s own fans, for whom the
Chairman of the Board remains as alluring as ever. “He’s intergen-
erational,” noted Mark. Annual Sinatra tribute concerts sell out;
millennials regularly host Rat Pack theme nights.

Th at’s because, as Mark observed, glamour is eternal. “And that
was Frank,” he said. “All the guys wanted to be like him, and all the
women wanted to date him. Sinatra is the convertible and the girls
and the golf clubs. Sinatra is a lifestyle.” l
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