SINATRA DIDN’T LIKE to say that Jule Styne or Sammy Cahn or Dean Martin or whoever had “died.” He would say they “had gone to the mountains.” When Sinatra was contemplating his own trek up the mountain, those last few months, he wasn’t always home. George Jacobs, his longtime valet, paid him a visit. “He said hello, and then ‘Sinatra will be here any minute now.’”
He wasn’t expected to last the winter of ’97–’98. He suffered from bladder cancer, panic attacks, dizzy spells. Blood clots broke through the lining of his bladder. Passing them was agony. A blood transfusion helped. The hospital released him on February 12. It was only a matter of time.
When Sinatra reached the summit of the mountain, on May 14, 1998, they lighted the Empire State Building in his honor. “That’s power,” a friend said. “No,” I said. “That’s love.”