Friends for Life
On 20 July 1998, a sunny Los Angeles day like any other, at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills, Frank Sinatra’s funeral was attended by his family and Hollywood friends. Sinatra’s daughter Nancy slipped a mini-bottle of Jack Daniel’s, one of Frank’s most important mementos, into his blue suit. A pack of Camel cigarettes, a Zippo lighter, and a roll of ten dimes accompanied the whiskey into the singer’s afterlife.
Frank Sinatra’s close relationship with Jack Daniel’s was one of the greatest and most enduring relationships between a whiskey and an artist – probably between any celebrity and any brand. Sinatra was never the spokesman or hired hand for this whiskey. Had he been propositioned for payment, he would likely magazine declared “the 20th century’s greatest singer of popular song” is, ultimately, a story of familiarity and friendships.
