MORE THAN A CENTURY OF SINATRA
(Ron Onesti, Daily Herald, October 6, 2019)
“Growing up in an Italian-American home, I experienced two trinities…the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Tony Bennett. They both referenced God in different ways in my neighborhood. So, when I had the opportunity not only to meet him, but also to be part of one of his concerts, in a sense I was “ordained” into a very exclusive club, very similar to that one in the Vatican.
It was May 8, 1984 (my 22nd birthday), when I had the privilege of being part of a fundraising event with Frank. It was the first of five concerts he was to perform at the Arie Crown Theater on the lake in Chicago. Francis Albert generously donated the proceeds from this first show to the Villa Scalabrini Home for the Aged in Northlake, a charity with which I was very personally involved.
I was in charge of distributing the commemorative keychains and paperweights to the different levels of patrons and ticket buyers.
It was then that I first experienced the way his personality and mere presence filled a room. As he and his entourage made their way through the backstage area, it seemed as if an entity was making its way onto the stage, much like the way a ball of Mercury comes together after being thrown onto a table.
I was standing near the curtains and he stopped and stood there about 4 meters away from me! He looked repeatedly at his watch while all his people looked at him waiting for the order to go on stage. The order came from him, yes… always. The last time he looked at his watch, his blue eyes made their way past the watch and met mine.
Probably one of the scariest things that has ever happened to me! I’m telling you, this guy was intense!
It was at that moment that my body was taken over by a spirit as my hand rose uncontrollably and I handed him a keychain with his own image on it. A touching moment in your life, I’m sure. He smiled and said, “Thanks, kid.”
I walked away with an immense sense of pride, feeling like I had just given him his microphone for the show and not a 25-cent souvenir.
Sinatra, Elvis, James Dean, Michael Jackson, Prince…these guys defined musical generations. But you could say that Frank was the first.”
- Ron Onesti (President and CEO of The Onesti Entertainment Corp. and The Historic Arcada Theater in St. Charles.)
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