But I believe that to counter her steel will he'd developed his own. To prove her wrong when she belittled his choice of career Their friction first had shaped him; that, I think, had remained to the end and a litmus test of the grit in his bones.
It helped keep him at the top of his game. When Sinatra's mother, Natalina, was a child, her pretty face earned her the nickname "Dolly". As an adult, she stood less than 5 feet 1. Sinatra biographer James Kaplan describes her as having a "politician's temperamentβrestless, energetic, unreflective".
This earned her the respect of local politicians, who made her a Democratic ward leader. These activities kept Dolly away from home during much of her son's childhood.
Sinatra's father, Antonino β a small, blue-eyed, ruddy-complexioned man [ 19 ] β was from Lercara Friddi , near Palermo , Sicily.
In , Prohibition of alcohol became law in the US. Dolly and Marty ran a tavern during those years, allowed to operate openly by local officials who refused to enforce the law. They purchased the bar, which they named Marty O'Brien's, with money they borrowed from Dolly's parents.
