ALISON BOSHOFF: Kevin Spacey’s dream of playing Sinatra is squashed after Frank’s girl puts her foot down

Frank Sinatra’s daughter Tina has dropped a biopic about her father that would star Kevin Spacey.

The film would be directed by Taxi Driver and Raging Bull writer Paul Schrader, and he indicated last week that he was willing to work with Spacey despite the repeated (and repeatedly denied) allegations of sexual misconduct against him. ‘I wouldn’t use Kevin if he was convicted. But he was not convicted,” he said.

However, when I met him this week at a dinner in Cannes, the 77-year-old Schrader told me that the project was canceled after all due to opposition from Sinatra’s daughter.

“We had a great script and we were ready to go, but Tina wasn’t having it,” he said. ‘We couldn’t get her permission for the music and we can’t do that without it.

‘Tina is protective – very protective – of her father’s image and this was not exactly a flattering portrait of him. I think Kevin would have been good,” he added. “He was a great Bobby Darin (in Beyond The Sea).”

In the film, Kevin Spacey (photo) would play the crooner. The actor has not worked in Hollywood since several men accused him of sexual misconduct in early 2017

Frank Sinatra (left) and his daughter Tina Sinatra (right) at her wedding

The script focuses on Sinatra at the end of his career – after Mia Farrow – when he made several comebacks while struggling with ill health and controversy.

Spacey was touched by Schrader’s support, which followed positive statements about him from Liam Neeson, Stephen Fry and Sharon Stone. Speaking at a dinner hosted in his honor by fashion house Lanvin and film magazine A Rabbit’s Foot, Schrader said Spacey had contacted him twice by email to express his gratitude. Schrader visited the festival for his film Oh, Canada! starring Richard Gere as a documentary filmmaker on his deathbed, and Jacob Elordi as a younger version of him.

Spacey is a jazz fan and an avid singer (the vocals on 2004’s Beyond The Sea were all his) and he has been spotted singing Sinatra in bars in Baltimore.

The actor has not worked in Hollywood since several men accused him of sexual misconduct in early 2017.

In 2022, a New York court dismissed a sexual assault lawsuit filed by fellow actor Anthony Rapp. Last summer he was acquitted of nine charges brought against him in London.

This month, ten more men came forward with claims of alleged abuse in Spacey Unmasked, a two-part Channel 4 documentary. Spacey labeled it “one-sided” and “inaccurate.”