{"id":2019706,"date":"2025-09-13T18:06:25","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T18:06:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2019706"},"modified":"2025-09-13T18:06:25","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T18:06:25","slug":"frank-sinatras-1964-letter-on-sons-kidnapping-that-shows-rare-vulnerability-is-up-for-auction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/frank-sinatras-1964-letter-on-sons-kidnapping-that-shows-rare-vulnerability-is-up-for-auction\/","title":{"rendered":"Frank Sinatra\u2019s 1964 letter on son\u2019s kidnapping that shows \u2018rare vulnerability\u2019 is up for auction"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n

All eyes are on a never-before-seen side of \u201cOl\u2019 Blue Eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

A 1964 letter\u00a0Frank\u00a0Sinatra\u00a0penned on the kidnapping of his son is being offered at Bonhams\u2019\u00a0Unplugged & Unforgettable Music Auction<\/a>,\u00a0which starts Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The six-page letter<\/a> to a prison chaplain, regarding the infamous 1963 kidnapping of then-19-year-old Frank Jr., is estimated\u00a0to fetch up to $30,000.<\/p>\n

\"Frank<\/span><\/div>\n

Frank Sinatra\u2019s son Frank Sinatra Jr., was kidnapped in 1963. Arthur Pomerantz\/celebrity.land Archives<\/p>\n

\"Bonhams<\/span><\/div>\n

Bonhams is auctioning a six-page letter that Frank Sinatra wrote about the kidnapping of his son. Courtesy of Bonhams<\/p>\n

\u201cThe raw emotion portrayed in this letter reflects a man speaking openly, with less concern for the confines of public scrutiny. It\u2019s this rare vulnerability that makes us especially excited to offer a glimpse into another side of a legend like Frank Sinatra,\u201d Katie Allen, associate specialist for Bonhams pop culture in Los Angeles, told The Post.<\/p>\n

In 1963, two amateur criminals, Barry Keenan and Joe Amsler, kidnapped Frank Jr., Sinatra\u2019s son he had with his first wife, Nancy Barbato.<\/p>\n

With the help of the FBI, the crooner paid a $240,000 ransom to have him returned safely.<\/p>\n

Sinatra sent the note to\u00a0Father Roger Schmit, the chaplain at the prison where Keenan was serving time, in response to the priest asking him to forgive his son\u2019s kidnappers.<\/p>\n

At the time, the kidnappers\u2019 attorneys claimed Frank Jr. \u2014 a singer-songwriter who died in 2016 at 72 \u2014 staged his own kidnapping to gain fame.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir conduct in permitting this claim of \u2018hoax\u2019 was, in my opinion, another crime against society,\u201d Sinatra wrote, adding that \u201cthe cloud of suspicion which hangs over [Frank Jr.\u2019s] head will continue to affect adversely his life and his career.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/span><\/div>\n

The lengthy letter could fetch as much as $30,000. Courtesy of Bonhams<\/p>\n

The seller is the son of a man who was incarcerated in the same prison at which Schmit worked.<\/p>\n

His father worked for Schmit and the chaplain gifted him the letter, which has been in his family since 1964.<\/p>\n

Allen has her predictions on the type of \u201cChairman of the Board\u201d fans who will bid on the letter.<\/p>\n

\u201cMemorabilia like this is perfect for a collector interested in who the man Sinatra was outside of the entertainment industry. It is a peek behind the curtain, so to speak, and opens itself to someone really trying to understand Sinatra as a family man.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All eyes are on a never-before-seen side of \u201cOl\u2019 Blue Eyes.\u201d A 1964 letter\u00a0Frank\u00a0Sinatra\u00a0penned on the kidnapping of his son is being offered at Bonhams\u2019\u00a0Unplugged & Unforgettable Music Auction,\u00a0which starts Tuesday. The six-page letter to a prison chaplain, regarding the infamous 1963 kidnapping of then-19-year-old Frank Jr., is estimated\u00a0to fetch up to $30,000. Frank Sinatra\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2019707,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[370975,370979,370980,370976,305355,370974,370977,370978],"class_list":["post-2019706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-barry-keenan","tag-bonhams","tag-father-roger-schmit","tag-frank-jr","tag-frank-sinatra","tag-frank-sinatra-jr","tag-katie-allen","tag-prison-chaplain"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Frank-Sinatras-1964-letter-on-sons-kidnapping-that-shows-\u2018rare.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2019706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2019706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2019706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2019707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2019706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2019706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2019706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}