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James Kaplan and "Sinatra: The Chairman" on Monday's Access Utah

In "Frank: The Voice" (2010), James Kaplan told the story of Frank Sinatra's meteoric rise to fame, subsequent failures, and reinvention as a star of live performance and screen. Frank Sinatra was the best-known entertainer of the twentieth century-infinitely charismatic, lionized and notorious in equal measure. Kaplan examined the complex psyche and turbulent life behind that incomparable voice, from Sinatra's humble beginning in Hoboken to his fall from grace and Oscar-winning return in From Here to Eternity. 

The story of "Ol' Blue Eyes" continues with Kaplan's new book "Sinatra: The Chairman," (recently published ahead of Sinatra's 100th birthday on December 12) which picks up the day after Sinatra claimed his Academy Award in 1954 and had reestablished himself as the top recording artist in music. Sinatra's life post-Oscar was incredibly dense: in between recording albums and singles, he often shot four or five movies a year; did TV show and nightclub appearances; started his own label, Reprise; and juggled his considerable commercial ventures (movie production, the restaurant business, even prizefighter management) alongside his famous and sometimes notorious social activities and commitments.

James Kaplan's essays and reviews, as well as more than a hundred major profiles of figures ranging from Madonna to Helen Gurley Brown, Calvin Klein to John Updike, Miles Davis to Meryl Streep, and Arthur Miller to Larry David, have appeared in many magazines, including The New YorkerThe New York Times MagazineVanity FairEsquire, and New York.

His first novel, Pearl’s Progress, was published by Knopf in 1989. His nonfiction portrait of John F. Kennedy International Airport, The Airport (1994) — called “a splendid book” by Gay Talese — remains a classic of aviation literature and New York storytelling. His second novel, Two Guys From Verona, published in 1998 by Atlantic Monthly Press, was chosen by The New York Times as one of its Notable Books of the Year. In 2002 Kaplan co-authored the autobiography of John McEnroe, You Cannot Be Serious, which was an international bestseller (and number one on the New York Times list). His 2005 book Dean and Me: A Love Story, co-written with Jerry Lewis and published by Doubleday, was a New York Times bestseller as well.

In November 2010, Doubleday published Frank: The Voice, the first volume of Kaplan’s definitive biography of Frank Sinatra, which quickly went onto the New York Times bestseller list and was chosen by Times chief book critic Michiko Kakutani as one of her Top Ten Books of 2010. In 2011, Kaplan signed with Doubleday to write Volume Two, Sinatra: The Chairman, to be published in 2015. In 2012, James Kaplan was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in nonfiction. He lives in Westchester, New York, with his wife and three sons.

Tom Williams worked as a part-time UPR announcer for a few years and joined Utah Public Radio full-time in 1996. He is a proud graduate of Uintah High School in Vernal and Utah State University (B. A. in Liberal Arts and Master of Business Administration.) He grew up in a family that regularly discussed everything from opera to religion to politics. He is interested in just about everything and loves to engage people in conversation, so you could say he has found the perfect job as host “Access Utah.” He and his wife Becky, live in Logan.