He suffered a heart attack in Daytona Beach in Florida where he was due to play a concert on Wednesday evening.

He followed his father in the music business as a teenager, and later became his father's musical director and conductor.

He was famously kidnapped and held for ransom when he was 19. A gang seized him at gunpoint at a casino in Lake Tahoe. His father paid a $240,000 (£168,000) ransom, which was later recovered after the kidnappers were arrested.

When he died on Wednesday, Frank Junior was due to perform at the Peabody Auditorium as part of his Sinatra Sings Sinatra tour, which included some of his father's greatest hits interwoven with family reminiscences.

 

FRANK SINATRA Jr released six full-length albums and often made television appearances, recently starring as himself in two episodes of Family Guy.