"Frankie says..." but who was Frankie?

Question

When I was really little, everyone was wearing "Frankie says relax" T-shirts and listening to Frankie goes to Hollywood (considered too risque for our school disco!) I may be being dim, but was Frankie someone in particular?

Answer 1

Ignore zerro, Holly Johnson is very much alive.
The Frankie refers to Frank Sinatra, from a headline in a newspaper which said 'Frankie Goes To Hollywood'
The label which FGTH were on was ZTT, and in the mid-eighties, they were notorious for their marketing campaigns, releasing records in a multitude of formats and remixes.
The Frankie Says...t-shirts were just a part of that campaign, and included Frankie Says Relax, Frankie Says No More, Frankie Says Make Love, Not War, and loads more.
They came, they conquered, and they very quickly disappeared.
Relax, and Two Tribes both sold over a million copies in the UK, thanks to their being released with different mixes (Two Tribes had 9 different 12" versions, some with the same sleeve and catalogue number)
Frank Sinatra, on the other hand, is quite simply the all time crooner, much imitated, but never to be bettered.

Answer 2

On the B-side to the group's first single, Johnson explained that the group's name derived from a page from the New Yorker magazine, featuring the headline "Frankie Goes To Hollywood" and a picture of Frank Sinatra. An alternate story relates that a similar article about Frankie Vaughan was the source for the group's name. The original group named "Frankie Goes To Hollywood" allegedly dates from 1980

Answer 3

This is an extract from the Wikipidia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankie_Goes_to_Hollywood

On the B-side to the group's first single, Johnson explained that the group's name derived from a page from the New Yorker magazine, featuring the headline "Frankie Goes To Hollywood" and a picture of Frank Sinatra. An alternate story relates that a similar article about Frankie Vaughan was the source for the group's name.

Answer 4

Frankie were the group Frankie Goes To Hollywood, lead singer Holly Johnson, also Paul Rutherford, and some others. Because of the plural, the t-shirts were Frankie Say not Frankie says (unless you bought em cheap off the market!)

Answer 5

Frankie came from the band Frankie Goes to Hollywood, British group they started the craze with the t-shirts, in their video for "Relax" if my memory serves me right

it's certainly not Frankie Howerd, dead comedian and bent as a nine bob note

Answer 6

It was a t-shirt that was first worn by Holly Johnson, the lead singer of Frankie Goes To Hollywood, to promote their hit single of the time called Relax.

Answer 7

The provocative notes on the back of the "Relax" sleeve were attributed to music journalist and ZTT associate Paul Morley, who was also responsible for the PR campaign that followed the BBC ban, and which led to a massive demand for both the band and the banned song. Part of this promotion (although it actually came later in the year, with the release of "Two Tribes") included the iconic "Frankie Say Relax Don't Do It" T-shirts, which were accredited to Morley but were in fact based on designs by Katharine Hamnett, who had produced similarly minimalistic black-on-white shirts depicting positive slogans such as "Choose Life" and "Go Go", as worn by Wham! in promoting "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go". "Frankie Say..." T-shirts would become ubiquitous in the UK during the summer of 1984 (anything lacking the FGTH logo in the corner or — worse still — stating "Frankie Says" in bold ungrammatical letters was an obvious knock-off).

Answer 8

It was for the band Frankie goes to Hollywood who were named after a newspaper headline about Frank Sinatra.

Answer 9

Frankie and Johnny were lovers. or Maybe Frankie Vallie

Answer 10

Frank Sinatra or Frankie Avalon - both singers.