DID SINATRA PLAY ROCKY?

I’ve heard Frank Sinatra made a private eye TV series titled Rocky Fortune. Are any of the programmes available on DVD? J.J. Stone, via e-mail

Fred says: Rocky Fortune was an NBC radio series not a TV presentation, broadcast in the era just prior to Sinatra’s appearance in From Here To Eternity. It cast Sinatra as a tough cookie, named Rocky Fortunato, who undertook various jobs – a museum tour guide, a process server, a truck driver, etc – solving mysteries and various problems which often involved women of dubious intent. One running gag in the series, which was basically radio’s equivalent of a B-movie, involved the use of the phrase “from here to eternity” in some scripts. All 25 episodes can be heard via the Old Time Radio Research location, online at tinyurl.com/gkwlc9l. The sad and untimely death of Phife Dawg from A Tribe Called Quest brought to mind an interview I read with him years ago. I seem to remember that he said that his father was a footballer/soccer player. However, I can’t find any reference to this. Did I just dream it? Are there any other musicians with footballing parents? I know that Gil Scott-Heron’s father played for Glasgow Celtic.

John Wilding, Hull

Fred says: Being a QPR supporter I know little about soccer. So can I hand this one over to followers of Leicester and suchlike?