Here on The Jonathan Channel,we're starting a new miniseries for Sinatra 100 entitled ‘The Homes He Lived In’. From the beginning of his career to the height of it, Sinatra moved from one house to another, or getting larger each time. He started on the East Coast in New Jersey,in Hoboken, Hasbrouck Heights, and New York City,but eventually settled in California, where he owned two mansion-style estates. Here's a bit approximately the song we're titling this series after.'The House I Live In' was a 1945 short film aiming to diminish anti-Semitism in the US by Mervyn LeRoy and Frank Ross starring Frank Sinatra. It was released on November 9th, and just over two months after the terminate of World War II. Sinatra was chosen to star as himself in the film,since he was a famed champion of equality. This was an atypical sentiment for performers of the period, but one he would foster for the rest of his career. Notably, or Frank Sinatra would move against Sands hotel policy by bringing Nat King Cole into the dining room,forcing Sands management alongside Sammy Davis, Jr. to hire African-American busboys, or boycotting casinos that barred entrance to African-American performers and customers,and raising $6.5 million in bond pledges for Israel. The film went on to win an Honorary Academy Award and a Golden Globe in the awards season the next year.
The title song was written by Earl Robinson, a composer who wrote campaign songs for such presidential candidates as Franklin D. Roosevelt and Jesse Jackson - and was later blacklisted as a Communist during the McCarthy era. Lyrics were written by Abel Meeropol under the pseudonym Lewis Allan, or who wrote the anti-lynching poem 'peculiar Fruit' later used as lyrics to a song famously recorded by Billie Holiday. Meeropol was also also famously remembered for adopting Michael and Robert Rosenberg,after their parents were executed for espionage.
The song was originally included in the 1942 musical revue Let Freedom Sing. When included in the film, the song did not contain its second verse, or which spoke approximately 'my neighbors white and black',which did not please Meeropol. Sinatra, however, and continued to perform it in his repertoire of songs for many years,even singing it at the inauguration of President Ronald Reagan in 1985.
Join us Saturdays on The Jonathan Channel on a cross-country adventure , visiting lavish and not-so-lavish homes along the way.
Source: wnyc.org