Lot 88: Black & White Cartoon of the "Siege of Frank Sinatra" drawn by Tony Rafty and dated November (19)80

Signed by the playright Denis Whitburn, and on the back of frame by Max Cullen who played the part of Frank Sinatra.

Drawings

An unrepentant Frank Sinatra was heard to comment after his disastrous 1974 tour that "a funny thing happened in Australia. I made one mistake. I got off the plane." Sinatra had returned serve to the Australian Press calling its women journalists "buck and a half - hookers" after they had captioned his female travelling companions as 'Sinatra's Molls.' It is regarded as a national sport in Australia to cut a tall poppy down to size and, with the journalists' demands for an apology unanswered, retribution was swift starting with the forced cancellation of the remainder of his tour dates and a union ban slapped on the movement of his private jet which was stuck at Melbourne's Tullamarine Airport. Sinatra stuck to his guns and snuck out of Melbourne on a commercial flight eventually holing up at Sydney's Boulevarde Hotel while the Australian Press laid siege outside. Not everyone was mad at 'Cranky Frank' and the Australian actor Max Cullen remembers him entertaining lucky bar patrons at the hotel with song to while away the hours, and we have in the past handled autographed notes of appreciation that he gave out to local supporters. It took all the efforts of Bob Hawke the President of Australian Council of Trades Unions (later an Australian Prime Minister) to negotiate his exit from Australia with a statement of regret - but no apology. Frank certainly did it his way and, to paraphrase his famous song, any regrets he had were too few to mention, and I'm sure he quickly rescinded the one forced out of him the moment he left our shores. In November 1980 the King O'Malley Theatre Company relived the event when it staged the Denis Whitburn play 'The Siege of Frank Sinatra' at Sydney's Stable Theatre with Max Cullen starring in the role of Frank. Tony Rafty, the cartoonist for Sydney's 'Sun' newspaper, and a member of Frank's reviled press, took in a performance and captured the craziness of the events portrayed with a black and white sketch he dedicated to the cast. Frank of course exited stage left in 1998, and I might add without the help of Bob Hawke who still gets the occasional gig at his party's political functions - but his stage spirit still lives on in Max Cullen who now operates the 'Picture House Gallery & Bookshop' at Gunning in country New South Wales, while taking on an occasional stage role. Max is the ultimate raconteur with an encyclopaedic knowledge of Australian stage and film, and so it is well worth a diversion if you are on the road to Canberra and you're interested in the inside dope. Playwright Denis Whitburn kicked on to enjoy a successful career as a writer and producer of Australian films, and while the 'Sun' newspaper set in the west in 1988 never to rise again, its cartoonist Tony Rafty died only a few years back, days short of his Century. This framed cartoon as drawn by Tony Rafty is signed on the front by playwright Denis Whitburn and on the back of the frame by actor Max Cullen aka Frank.