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# 74 •DECEmBER 14 , 2015
vy and active, and well-e- ces, and prompting his
friends and business asducated mother, Dolly.
sociates to do the same.
Thanks to the research I As with most of his phidid in producing my pre- lanthropic endeavors, Sisentation, “CENT’ANNI! natra never wanted public
Celebrating 100 Years of attention drawn to them
Francis Albert Sinatra – An and certainly did not tout
American Icon,” I discove- them through public rered more information than lations staff, flacks, or the
I ever knew or imagined media types that hover
about the non-performer over today’s celebrities.
side of Sinatra. I was aware of his philanthropy to a The biggest difference
certain extent, but the list between Sinatra and toand enormity of his contri- day’s “celebrity philanbutions remains unknown thropists” is that he actualto most people. He raised ly believed in what he did
millions upon millions of and took it personally.
dollars through founda- Most importantly, his getions he created, benefit nerosity came from his heconcerts and appearan- art, and not the quest for
publicity and ego enrichment that drives most, if
not all, of today’s “celebrity philanthropists.”
To give you a better sense
of the breadth of Sinatra’s
philanthropy, here is a partial list of the organizations,
charities, and country that
benefitted from his largesse: American Italian Anti-Defamation League; St.
Jude Children’s Research
Hospital; Cabrini Medical
Center; Marian Medical
Mission; Memorial Sloan
Kettering Cancer Center;
St. John’s Hospital; Cedars Sinai Hospital; Duke
University’s Children’s Hospital; Atlantic City Medi-
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