As part of the celebration of Esquire‘s 75th anniversary year, the 75th page of the December 2008 issue of the magazine contains brief quotes from what the staff considers to be the seven greatest stories they’ve ever published, with a link pointing to the complete stories.

In addition to Tom Wolfe’s “The Last American Hero Is Junior Johnson, Yes!” (which I’d read over over again in the collection The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine Flake Streamline Baby back in college when I thought I was going to follow in Wolfe’s footsteps) and Norman Mailer’s “Superman Comes to the Supermarket” (which is not about the superhero, but rather the Kennedy/Nixon debate), they’ve posted the full text of Gay Talese’s classic personality piece from the April 1966 issue, “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold.”

For those of you who’ve never read the piece and don’t understand why you should care, well, aside from the fact that it’s wonderfully written, it also includes a cameo by Harlan Ellison, who went head-to-head with the Chairman of the Board and lived to tell the tale.

Here’s how the encounter begins, as described about a quarter of the way into the essay:

Frank Sinatra, leaning against the stool, sniffling a bit from his cold, could not take his eyes off the Game Warden boots. Once, after gazing at them for a few moments, he turned away; but now he was focused on them again. The owner of the boots, who was just standing in them watching the pool game, was named Harlan Ellison, a writer who had just completed work on a screenplay, The Oscar.

Finally Sinatra could not contain himself.

“Hey,” he yelled in his slightly harsh voice that still had a soft, sharp edge. “Those Italian boots?”

“No,” Ellison said.

“Spanish?”

“No.”

“Are they English boots?”

“Look, I donno, man,” Ellison shot back, frowning at Sinatra, then turning away again.

Now the poolroom was suddenly silent.

To see how the encounter played itself out, go check out the complete story.