Frank Sinatra sighed, loosened his tie, and leaned back from the table at a Miami Italian restaurant before breaking the news to his friends: 'I'm retiring.' 

At the table sat the youngest of the Rat Pack, 26-year-old Paul Anka, who immediately panicked. 

'Sh**, this is my last chance,' he said to himself. 

'In the course of the meal, you could sense it,' Anka told the Daily Mail in an exclusive interview this week. 'Sinatra was in a fragile, intense part of his life then.

'The Beatles and Presley came in, and then Hendrix changed everything. The environment that he knew was changing.'

By the time of the dinner, during filming of the 1968 Sinatra/Raquel Welch movie Lady in Cement, Anka had earned his place in the Rat Pack. Teen hits like Puppy Love, Diana, and Put Your Head on my Shoulder had made his name and he then carved out a role as a blockbuster songwriter under producer Don Costa's wing. 

But for all his success, there was still one goal he hadn't achieved – and Sinatra's shock announcement had suddenly started a countdown.

'I always wanted to write for him, but I was very intimidated, and maybe I wasn't ready,' Anka said.

'But this guy is going to do one more album with Costa, who I was in the midst of working with, and then it's over.

'So I went home to my apartment in New York City and sat down at my typewriter. There was a huge thunderstorm outside, I'll never forget it.'

As the heavens opened, Anka channeled Ol' Blue Eyes, and set some new words to an old French ballad about falling out of love.

Five hours later, My Way was written.

Sinatra accepted the tune with a cool, 'Yeah kid, I like it.'

'Two months later he called me from the studio in Los Angeles,' Anka said. 'He put the phone up to the speaker. I heard it for the first time, and I started crying. 

'I knew then that I had something very special.'

Sinatra's signature song is referenced in the title of a new HBO documentary, Paul Anka: His Way, released on the streamer December 1.

It chronicles the 84-year-old Canadian crooner's life, from leaving Ottawa at age 15 with $100 in his pocket for a New York City songwriting gig, to performing to millions and writing for stars from Buddy Holly to Michael Jackson and even Drake.

But despite his success, Anka told the Daily Mail that My Way was the only song he knew from the get-go would be a hit.

'None of us know all the time that we've written a hit,' he said. 'The only time I really had something, frankly, was My Way.

'You do the best you can. You write for yourself, and you try to keep a consumer in mind.'

The octogenarian is still going strong, with another tour beginning in January, an upcoming album in fall, and a Broadway biographical show slated for 2027.

And he still has unfulfilled musical ambitions – including writing for Elton John.

'Could I really have a great experience with a guy like Sting? Yeah, could I come off with something with Elton? Yeah. Could I sit down with Bruno Mars? Sure,' he said.

Though many A-listers would leap at the chance to work with Anka, back in 1962 he had to convince director Darryl Zanuck to include his – or any – music in the star-studded movie The Longest Day, starring John Wayne, Sean Connery, Henry Fonda, and Robert Mitchum.

'I was in The Longest Day as an actor, every star in the world was in it. I was a kid, 20 years old. I was with all these guys that I admired,' Anka told the Daily Mail.

'Zanuck and I had lunch one day. I said, "who's doing your music?'" He said: "Nobody. I don't want any music. It's an authentic film. No love story and no music".'

'I went back to New York and finished a damn song. I thought, what am I going to lose here? I shipped it off to him in France.

'I got a telex back a few weeks later. He said, "Dear Paul, there will be music." And that's how the song got in the picture.'

Known for his lilting love songs, Anka was more philosophical and jaded about romance in his interview this week – reflecting on his second failed marriage with former Miss Sweden Anna Aberg and his relationship with Lisa Pemberton that ended in 2020.

'If you're lying in a bed with someone wanting to be single, you're dead,' he said. 'You came in the world alone and you're going out of the world alone.

'The falling in love period in a relationship, it's false,' he added. 'You're being fooled. You're being manipulated.'

Rather than love, Anka said his two best songwriting inspirations have been failure and revenge.

'Revenge is amazing. I wish my fellow artists really owned up to the fact. It is so motivating when there's rejection,' he said.

'It's not the successes, it's the revenge and the failure. I love it. It just drives you on.'

The documentary, which heavily features interviews with Anka, captures his work ethic and commitment that produced over 900 songs, but is light on details of struggles in his own personal life.

He discussed in the film his first marriage to model Anne de Zogheb, mother of his five daughters, mentioning the stress fame put on the relationship.

Zogheb's side, untold in the film, is that she gave up her career to raise the kids, but when she asked him to stop touring once their daughters had all left home, he refused.

His eldest, Alexandra, hinted at the tension, telling the documentary that his long periods on the road were hard on her mother.

But Anka – who first hit the big time with his huge hit Diana when he was just 16 – did have some words of wisdom to share with fellow Canadian child star Justin Bieber, following reports of his mental health struggles, prescription drug use, and conflict with ex-manager Scooter Braun.

'Whether it's guys like Michael [Jackson] or the kid from Canada who's going through it, Justin Bieber, you've got to be careful, the people that you trust,' he said.

'They try to manipulate you into what they want you to be.

'When you get on that journey of fame, like Michael and Bieber and I was, you're a big star, but you don't know what to do with it.

'You're crawling along, hoping that one day you become smart enough to deal with it.

'There's a lot that I learned from others by not being the smartest guy in the room.'

Unlike some of his Rat Pack pals, Anka did not over-indulge in drink and drugs. For him, he said, performing is his preferred stimulant.

'The performing part of my life is the needle in the arm,' he said. 'I loved doing it, and I still love doing it.'