He sang with Harry James’s band in 1939 and with Tommy Dorsey’s orchestra from 1940 to 1942, then went out on his own. His engagements at the Paramount Theatre in New York drew crowds of young fans, and for Columbia he recorded the ballads Axel Stordahl arranged for him.

After a slump at the start of the 1950s, he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for From Here to Eternity and signed with Capitol. There, mostly with the arranger Nelson Riddle, he made albums built around a single mood: In the Wee Small Hours, Songs for Swingin’ Lovers!, Only the Lonely.

In 1960 he founded his own label, Reprise. He recorded Sinatra at the Sands in 1966 with Count Basie’s orchestra, conducted by Quincy Jones, and an album with Antonio Carlos Jobim the year after. He retired in 1971 and came back two years later. He died in Los Angeles on 14 May 1998, at eighty-two.

This is a demo site, a tribute built to show what a musician’s page on TJP can hold. Its dates are the demo’s own.