From Sinatra To The Spice Girls

As the tributes come pouring in over the next few days, much will be written and said about Frank Sinatra's exalted place in the pantheon of American music. And even those who make the most extravagant claims about his talent will get no argument from me.

To many of us who are old enough to have seen and heard him in his prime, Sinatra was The Man. It was often said in those days that when it came to male vocalists, there was Frank Sinatra and then there were other singers. Like Michael Jordan in his line of work or Albert Einstein in his, "old Blue Eyes" had no peer. He was truly in a class by himself.

Yet in reflecting on Sinatra's long and extraordinary career, I suddenly found myself thinking about that other great icon of American popular music, the acknowledged king of rock 'n' roll - Elvis Presley.

In terms of style, of course, the two giants had little in common. Sinatra came out of the Big Band era of the 1940s, and from there his vocal personality evolved into the jazz-driven rhythms and phrasing that shaped his performances when he reached the top of his form a decade or so later.

As for Presley, he was both the pioneer and the high priest of the rock revolution that swept across the world in the 1950s and '60s.

Yet in one vital respect, Presley consciously set out to emulate Sinatra, as I discovered when I interviewed him in 1960. At the time, I was just out of college and making my start in journalism, and Elvis had just completed his tour of active duty with the U.S. Army in Germany.

In those days (and indeed throughout his career), Presley was firmly under the thumb of his over-protective manager, Col. Thomas Andrew Parker. The honorary colonel had a rather shady past as a smooth-talking con man (he liked to boast of the time he painted sparrows yellow and sold them as canaries), and after hooking up with Presley, he chose to regard the press with morbid distrust.

As a result, Elvis was almost never allowed to talk to newsmen, and for a rookie reporter like me to bag an exclusive interview with him was a remarkable coup. (Not that it's any of your business, but I was able to get to him through the help of a good friend who just happened to have been one of Presley's Army buddies.)

To put this in the appropriate context, it should be noted that Elvis had already become a rock legend by the time he was drafted in 1958. But during his two years in the Army, he was under strict orders to concentrate on his military duties and put his sensational singing career on hold until his return to civilian life.

And now, in the spring of 1960, that much-anticipated day had finally arrived, and so I asked him if he had any particular goal, something special he hoped to accomplish in the next phase of his career.

Presley pondered that a moment, then replied that he wanted to become "the Frank Sinatra of my generation." Somewhat startled by that answer, I assured him that he already was as big a star aSinatra was.

"I don't mean just the singin'," he elaborated in his soft Memphis drawl. What impressed him so much about Sinatra, he explained, was that after establishing himself at the top of the charts in music, he developed his skills as a movie actor and made a success of that, too. And that, Elvis confided, was now the goal he set for himself.

True to his word, Presley went on to Hollywood, which soon became his main base of operations. Instead of resuming the explosive live rock performances that had electrified audiences in his pre-Army days, Elvis spent the next decade or so sweet-talking his way through romantic roles in lighthearted movie musicals.

Although he had no way of knowing it at the time, Presley was starting a modest but enduring trend. In making the decision to follow Sinatra's lead and become a star on the silver screen, Elvis himself became an object of emulation.

A few years later, when the Beatles were at the height of their fame, they chose to put their talents on display in a film called A Hard Day's Night, then followed that up with another one called Help.

And according to John Lennon, one reason they performed before the cameras was because Presley was enjoying so much success in his movie career. (The Elvis influence was understandable, for the Beatles were fully aware that, among other things, they were Presley's natural heirs.)

Nor was that the end of it. Just a few months ago, the Spice Girls - the top flavor of the current season in the pop music world - announced plans to make their first movie. And why? Because they wanted to cover the same artistic ground the Beatles had traveled over three decades ago.

Yes, we're talking serious legacy here.

Still, there is one significant difference that should be stressed, and it is this: Frank Sinatra did not merely use the movies as a vehicle for his musical talent. He more than earned his stripes as a serious, dramatic actor.

In such films as From Here To Eternity, The Man with the Golden Arm and The Manchurian Candidate, Sinatra didn't sing a note but managed to impress critics with his strengths as an actor.

In this respect, he resembled Babe Ruth, who would have been elected to the Hall of Fame as a star pitcher even if he hadn't become baseball's first great home run hitter. Similarly, Sinatra would be remembered with esteem as a first-rate, Oscar-winning actor even if his superb gifts as a singer had mysteriously deserted him.

To put it politely, no such claim can be made for Presley or the Beatles or the Spice Girls or any other pop music stars who have appeared in movies.

But then as I said, Sinatra was The Man, and measured against his towering talent, all his emulators pale in comparison.

Written by CBS.com producer Gary Paul Gates