Sinatra-themed dance show lands in Toronto, where crooner shot his last film | Globalnews.ca (2025)

TORONTO – Though she won’t be able to attend this week’s Toronto premiere of “Come Fly Away,” a dance show featuring the vocals of her late crooner father, Tina Sinatra already has fond memories of bonding with her dad in the city.

Sinatra says she and her dad worked together in Toronto in the 1990s on the made-for-TV movie “Young at Heart,” co-starring Oscar winner Olympia Dukakis and Canadian actor Yannick Bisson.

“He came there for me one night to shoot his part in this picture and it was his last appearance on film, ever,” said Sinatra, 63, who produced the 1995 TV movie.

“Unfortunately it’ll never be seen (again) because there was so much of his music in it at the time, no one could afford to buy the music in worldwide perpetuity, as we say. So it really only had one or two runs (on CBS) and then it had to kind of disappear.”

“He was so sweet in it,” she noted.

“If I could afford it, I would fix all that licensing and then bring it out again.”

Dancap Productions is presenting the Canadian premiere of “Come Fly Away” at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts from Aug. 16 to 28.

It’s the second stop of a national tour for the show, which legendary dancer Twyla Tharp conceived, choreographed and directs.

Backed by a big band and the vocals of Ol’ Blue Eyes, 14 dancers move to the story of four couples looking for love in a New York City night club.

“Come Fly Away” premiered in Atlanta, Ga., in September 2009 and opened on Broadway in March 2010 before moving to Las Vegas.

Toronto audiences will see several dancers direct from the original Broadway cast, including John Selya, who plays Sinatra-esque character Sid.

Sinatra – the youngest daughter of Frank Sinatra and his first wife, Nancy Barbato – said she’s seen the show a dozen times and plans to watch it again when it hits her home city of Los Angeles this fall.

“A lot of it is the experience of feeling him closer again,” she said in a recent telephone interview from her L.A. home, where she lives with her 13-year-old dog, Rosie.

“It’s not just another needle drop or a digitally remixed master. It’s made to be live and it’s got a great impact.”

Tharp has choreographed to Sinatra’s music several times, starting in 1976 on “Once More Frank,” a duet with Mikhail Baryshnikov.

She then used his tunes in the dance shows “Nine Sinatra Songs” and “Sinatra Suite.”

“He was very moved and very proud of that,” said Sinatra, who founded TSProductions and has dabbled in acting and worked as an agent.

“He’d say, ‘She gives me class.’ And it was flattering.”

Sinatra is also a principal and manager of Frank Sinatra Enterprises, which owns and administers all intellectual property rights of her dad.

She’s produced several projects relating to her father over the years, including the 1992 miniseries “Sinatra” and the feature remake of the 1962 film “The Manchurian Candidate,” which starred her dad.

She said the family – which also includes sister Nancy and brother Frank Jr. – is now working closely with director Martin Scorsese to develop a film version of the 1992 miniseries. They’re still working on the script and nowhere near casting, she said.

“‘What would Frank do?’ is our motto. ‘Would he do this?'” she said of how they decide which projects can use his likeness.

“We just like to find points of expression that are going to compliment his talent and enhance the music and to keep him alive.”

Sinatra recalls having to turn down one project in particular because it didn’t jive with that motto.

“It was those bobbleheads, those big dolls when the heads bob,” she said with a laugh. “I said ‘No’ to that and everybody hated me because the Dean Martin estate and the Sammy Davis (Jr.) estate said ‘Yes,’ so everybody was really ticked at me because they thought they were kind of a fun novelty. I just couldn’t stand them.”

Frank Sinatra married three more times after he and Nancy Barbato split: first to Ava Gardner, then to Mia Farrow and then to Barbara Marx Hubbard, to whom he was married until he died in 1998.

“He was aware of Ava’s existence, shall we say, when I was in my mother’s tummy,” said Sinatra, who wrote about her relationship with her father in the bestselling 2000 memoir, “My Father’s Daughter.”

“He left home when I was about six months old. Frankie, my brother, would tease me and say, ‘It’s your fault.'”

Sinatra said she wasn’t bitter about the breakup, though, noting she became good friends with both Farrow and Gardner, who taught her how to apply lipstick and sew.

Her one-on-one time with her dad was usually low-key. During his downtime, he would either go to a ballgame or crank up the radio at his home in the desert in Palm Springs, Calif., she said.

“He was kind of a simpler guy than people think,” she continued. “He was a quiet, normal person. … He’d come home to be home. He worked most of his life so that down-period for him was very important.

“Conversely, if it went on too long, he’d call his attorney or booking manager and say, ‘When am I leaving?’ … He was happiest onstage, performing, that I can assure you. Everything else was second.”