Fifty years after Frank Sinatra’s debut at the Desert Inn resort, the Chairman of the Board will be honored with his own day. Wednesday (Dec. 12), which would have been Sinatra’s 86th birthday, will be celebrated as “Sinatra Day” in Nevada, Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt and Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman announced last week.
“If anyone deserves his own day in Las Vegas, it’s Frank Sinatra, who epitomized all the best of Las Vegas style and cool,” Goodman said.
Las Vegas Strip hotel-casinos will display “Happy Birthday Frank” on their marquees, and the Bellagio fountains and the Fremont Street Experience will play musical tributes. As part of the celebration, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority is releasing a CD that features the song “It’s Time for You.”
The Frank Sinatra Foundation allowed the use of the song in a series of TV ads to promote Las Vegas as a travel destination. The ads were launched following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, which caused anxiety about air travel.
Sinatra died of a heart attack in May 1998 at the age of 82. A remake of the 1960 film “Ocean’s Eleven,” which centered around a Las Vegas casino robbery, was the top-grossing film in U.S. theaters this weekend.
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