Sinatra’s Tailor is the remarkable coming-of-age story of Umberto Autore, set in Italy during WWII. Orphaned at the age of four, Umberto’s grandfather who can no longer care for Umberto deposits him in an orphanage run by nuns in the coastal town of Gaeta. As the Allies invade Italy, the 94th division of the German army, fearing that the enemy will attack at the Gulf of Gaeta, barrack their soldiers in the orphanage, thus leading to a quip that Umberto was “raised by nuns and Nazis.” Umberto survives everything from being shot by a German soldier to beatings on the soles of his feet by the nuns. After a series of misadventures and unexpected revelations Umberto receives his training as a tailor and immigrates to the U.S. He eventually becomes the tailor to Frank Sinatra, the Rat Pack, as well as Steven Spielberg and many other Hollywood luminaries and current California sports figures.
Mark Thompson, member #1205, enjoys telling stories about iconoclasts and people who inspire, sometimes altering the course of history. During the International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009), Thompson toured the U.S. in An Evening With Galileo, a one-man musical stage play that he wrote to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the first recorded astronomical observations with a telescope by Galileo Galilei.