Sinatra with a cold is Picasso without paint, Ferrari without fuel — only worse. For the common cold robs Sinatra of that uninsurable jewel, his voice, cutting into the core of his confidence.” —Gay Talese

In the winter of 1965, writer Gay Talese set out for Los Angeles with an assignment from Esquire to write a major profile on Frank Sinatra. When he arrived, he found the singer and his vigilant entourage on the defensive: Sinatra was under the weather, not available, and not willing to be interviewed.

Undeterred, Talese stayed on in L.A., believing Sinatra might recover and reconsider, and used the meantime to observe the star from a careful distance and to interview his friends, associates, family members, and hangers-on. Sinatra never did grant the one-on-one he had hoped for, but Talese’s tenacity paid off: his profile Frank Sinatra Has a Cold went down in history as a tour de force of literary nonfiction and the advent of the “New Journalism.” Its incisive portrait of Sinatra in the recording studio, on location, out on the town, and with the eponymous cold, revealed as much about a singular star persona as it did about the Hollywood machine. In this Collector’s Edition, Frank Sinatra Has a Cold is published in traditional letterpress, with an introduction by Gay Talese and facsimile reproductions of

manuscript

pages,