Did Frank Sinatra Make a Porn Film?

Biographer Darwin Porter claims in his new book, Frank Sinatra: the Boudoir Singer, that Frank Sinatra was so broke at 19 "he had to make a porn film," earning $100 for his part in the 1934 porn movie called The Masked Bandit.

Frank Sinatra in the early 1940s, flanked by his admirers.

He says he was told about the film by British actor Peter Lawford, one of the five members of the Rat Pack – Sinatra’s gang of movie pals from the 1960s which also included Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jnr.

Lawford revealed that Davis – a collector of porn films at a time when they were not sold openly – had a copy of The Masked Bandit.




In 1972, he played a prank on Ol’ Blue Eyes at a party of celebrity friends, inserting footage of it into a reel of the notorious porn film Deep Throat, which he screened for the guests.

Early 1940s shot of Frank with first wife Nancy.

Because Sinatra was masked, nobody at the private screening except Lawford, Davis and Sinatra knew who the skinny teenager frolicking with two naked actresses was.

The Rat Pack often played pranks on each other but Sinatra wasn’t amused.

He masked his anger to keep the secret and, says Porter, was going to ‘cut Sammy Davis Jnr off for life, but then realised Davis might reveal his secret’.

Davis later agreed to destroy his copy of The Masked Bandit.

Referring to Sinatra’s involvement with the Mafia, Porter adds: ‘Years later, a segment of The Masked Bandit was considered for insertion in a film about stars such as Joan Crawford who had appeared in porn before they became famous.

‘When Frank heard about this, he called his friends in the mob. The bandit loop never resurfaced.’

Porter, who has published books on other Hollywood figures, adds: ‘A lot of stars do a porno loop when they are struggling. So many have this little dark period.’

James Kaplan, author of the  biography, Frank: The Making of a Legend, said that he had not heard of the porn film, although Sinatra, who died in 1998, 14 years after Lawford, was certainly struggling during the early 1930s.

Sinatra’s career took off in the next decade, and was revived in 1954 when he won an Oscar for his performance in From Here To Eternity.
Kaplan suggests it is possible that Lawford invented the porn film story after falling out with Sinatra in the 1960s.

Frank Sinatra with his wife and daughter, both named Nancy.