THE velvet-voiced singer Frank Sinatra was buried with five trinkets symbolising aspects of his life, including a lighter possibly referring to his links with the mafia.

According to friends of the singer who speak in What’s Inside Frank Sinatra’s Coffin? — a Channel 4 documentary to be broadcast later this month — the items were buried with “Ol’ Blue Eyes” at a ceremony following his death at the age of 82 in 1998.

As well as the lighter, other gifts placed in Sinatra’s casket at the interment in Palm Springs, California, included a bottle of his favourite Jack Daniel’s whiskey, a packet of Tootsie Rolls, the sweets made in his home town of Hoboken, New Jersey, and a ring inscribed with the word “Dreams” left by Mia Farrow, the actress and third wife of the singer.

However, it is the lighter, included by Sinatra’s stepson Bobby, which has the most controversial connotations. It is now thought to be linked to the discovery of a gold lighter inscribed as a gift from Sinatra at the home of Lucky Luciano, a mafia don, in the 1970s. The incident blackened the singer’s name by suggesting he was close to the mob.

According to Michael Munn, a Sinatra biographer who speaks in the programme, the lighter is significant because it was “the first tangible evidence that he had somehow had an association with Lucky Luciano”.

CP Lee, another writer on Sinatra, says the singer “liked to be intimidating” by claiming his mob links. As a “respectable front” for the organisation, he is said to have taken laundered money to mafia events and to his frequent Las Vegas concerts.

The other gifts are equally commonplace but also symbolic.

The singer’s daughter, Tina, left a handful of dimes, which refer to the botched kidnapping of Sinatra’s son Frank Jr in 1963. Sinatra had to make calls to the kidnappers from telephone boxes and it is claimed he ran out of loose change. After that he always carried a roll of dimes with him.

The Tootsie Rolls — from Sinatra’s first wife, Nancy — mark the singer’s promotion of the sweets during the second world war.

The ring, meanwhile, is believed to be Farrow’s reference to her separation from Sinatra in 1968 after she said that she didn’t want to make a movie with her husband, preferring to follow her “dreams” to star in Roman Polanski’s classic horror film Rosemary’s Baby, the film that launched her career.

The Jack Daniel’s was a memento from his niece Michelle.

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