[Ed. Note: Ticket information and Larry O'Connor's interview with Robert Davi can be found below the fold.]

As a veteran of the film industry for more than 30 years, Robert Davi has become one of the most iconic and instantly recognizable faces and voices of American cinema.  So if you haven’t heard him sing, you’ll probably be as surprised as I was to find that Mr. Davi is not quite so gravelly when he picks up a tune.  In fact, he’s an effortless crooner, classically trained and ready for the stage.

In 2010, he performed three sold-out concerts in New York, solo performances wherein he covered the works of Frank Sinatra.  Sinatra, and the works of the early 20th Century known as the “Great American Songbook,” are more than just a passing interest to Davi.  He feels that these are an essential piece of American history and culture that deserve a closer look in order to understand who we are.

Hearing a few snippets of his upcoming album of Sinatra covers, I truly marveled at the rich quality he was able to belt out of  these songs, exuding classy charm, freewheeling fun, and timeless romance.  But you don’t have to take my word for it.  Ervin Drake, one of the only surviving contributors to the Great American Songbook (among his other accomplishments, he wrote the Sinatra hit “It Was a Very Good Year”), attended Davi’s opening night in New York.  Aside from seeing the show again on closing night, Drake’s compliments included this personal message to Davi:

Robert Davi would make a worthy successor to the incomparable Frank Sinatra, whether in the fields of Stage, Screen or Television. And having been chosen years ago by the Master himself, to act in a film side by side with him, this is not a vain pronouncement.

Continuing his pursuits, Davi is wrapping up work on his album with famed producer Phil Ramone, who has worked with Sinatra himself, and on January 15th, Davi is performing a concert with expanded orchestral arrangements entitled “Davi Sings Sinatra: A Tribute to Frank Sinatra, the Great American Songbook, and America,” at the Thousand Oaks Performing Arts Center in Los Angeles.

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Last Saturday I drove to Long Island, NY to see my friend’s long-awaited performance from the Sinatra songbook at Hofstra University. There were several times during this seven hour drive that I wanted to just turn around and go home. Traffic was terrible, I wasn’t familiar with the area and the friends I was planning to go with had canceled. Still, I didn’t want to miss the show.

When the curtain went up, the 30-piece orchestra came alive. A man with his back to the audience stood at the top of the stairs. The stage was awash in light blue and a clear voice sang out:

I’ve got the world on a string,
Sittin’ on a rainbow
Got the string around my finger,
What a world, what a life, I’m in love!

His performance sounded beautiful and effortless. When veteran actor Robert Davi turned around to face the audience, I couldn’t help but smile. He was in his element and could have no greater inspiration than Frank Sinatra. The show, “Davi Sings Sinatra: A Tribute to Sinatra, the Great American Songbook and America” packed Hofstra’s famous John Cranford Adams Playhouse for two evening shows and one matinee. The opening act, Tommy Dressen, is a top-notch, “old school” comedian that toured with Sinatra for more than a decade and has made hundreds of television appearances. It was the perfect opening act for passing the torch from Sinatra to Davi. (more…)

The Hollywood Reporter:

Leonardo Di Caprio is still to set to play Frank Sinatra for Martin Scorsese. But he’s probably not going to sing.

“With those records?” Scorsese asked me, his voice rising, at the premiere last night for his new DiCaprio collaboration, “Shutter Island.” “Frank will do the singing. But we’re waiting for a finished script.”

So while he’s waiting, Scorsese’s next film will likely take a break from DiCaprio. “The Invention of Huge Cabret” is lighter fare for Scorsese, about a 12-year-old boy who lives in Paris and meets famous French silent film director and magician George Méliès.

“Hugo Cabret” is a family movie, unlike “Shutter Island,” which opens Friday and is a complex, disturbing thriller. Based on a novel by Dennis Lehane (”Mystic River”), “Shutter Island” was set for release last fall but pulled back at the last minute. That turns out to be a good thing, because although DiCaprio could have earned an Oscar nomination “Shutter Island” is a perfect winter film. “Silence of the Lambs” and “Fargo” were each winter movies that went on to big things at the end of the year. (more…)

Not sure which is more revolting, Scorsese’s determination to cast Leonardo DiCaprio as Frank Sinatra or his determination to do to The Voice what he and Leo did to Howard Hughes: reduce and distill a great man who accomplished great things down to his worst elements; focus on the flaws instead of the many, many accomplishments…

Like anyone who lives to see his 82nd birthday, Sinatra the man is defined by more than just wherever some storyteller decides to point his soda straw focus. Sinatra the man was also a “man,” a virile, strong, fiercely independent, two-fisted scrapper who fought for everything he achieved. Regardless of his gifts as an actor, there is no way the eternal boy-faced DiCaprio can fill those shoes convincingly — especially if Scorsese wins the day and tells the story of the sixties, which began with the singer’s 45th birthday. (more…)

The life story of a Black star in a White world, a man who arguably was the world’s greatest entertainer, will not be coming to a theater near you anytime soon. If ever.

During a recent interview on my radio program “The Andrea Shea King Show”, Hollywood conservative Burt Boyar, longtime friend and biographer of the late great Sammy Davis, Jr., said he’s concerned that the true story about the talented entertainer who fought and broke through racial barriers will never be seen on the silver screen. Two years ago, Boyar had negotiated a deal to sell his two biographies to filmmakers who were all set to tell the story on celluloid.

Reflection: Sammy Davis Jr. snaps a photo of himself and Jerry Lewis posing in the reflection of a mirror.

What entanglements are keeping the former member of the Rat Pack’s compelling life from being made into a movie?  A life studded with Tinseltown’s glittering constellation of stars whose orbits intersected his?   Luminaries like Sinatra, Peter Lawford, Joey Bishop, Dean Martin, Tony Curtis, Jerry Lewis, Liz and Burton, Paul Newman, Berle, Bacall, Bennett, Damone… when Hollywood was at its most glamorous?

Who is Burt Boyar? And why does he care?

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There have been liberal movies stars for as long as there have been movie stars. The list of left-of-center Golden Age-era giants is a mile long. My admiration for an actor has ZERO to do with personal politics, but as Skip Press pointed out in his terrific piece last week, class is a big factor. Many of the greats didn’t share my beliefs, but few ever went out of their way to hurl insults at me and mine, either. Undoubtedly, someone could Google up a statement that contradicts me, but I would argue in return that human beings slip, even big-screen immortals. What can’t be argued is that once upon a time movie stars walked the earth who defined themselves, not with elitist, flame-throwing political rhetoric, but with dignity and class.

 
Sinatra and Ava for Democrat Adlai Stevenson

Where classic Hollywood mostly held their activism to advocating for their causes, too many of today’s classless breed defines their activism through the hurling of invective at the other side - at 50% of the customers. They do it up on the screen and they do it while hiding behind a Hollywood media-machine owned and operated by sycophants who mostly agree. There’s nothing wrong with passion, humor, disagreement and debate, that’s what Big Hollywood is all about, but ad hominem that dehumanizes is the tactic of a new generation eager to fit in with the A-list.   (more…)