Relationships of Frank Sinatra

Frank Sinatra had many close relationships throughout his life. He was married four times, and had many other notable relationships before, after and during these marriages.

Marriages

Nancy Barbato

Sinatra met Barbato at the age of nineteen, and they were married on February 4, 1939 in Jersey City, New Jersey, Barbato's home town. ["The Rough Guide to Frank Sinatra", Chris Ingham, pg 9] The wedding was held at Our Lady of Sorrows Church at 93 Clerk Street, after which time the couple resided in an apartment at 137 Bergen Avenue. Their first child, Nancy Sinatra, was born in June 1940, and a son, Frank Sinatra, Jr. was born in January 1944. Both children were born at Margaret Hague Hospital in Jersey City. [ [http://www.cityofjerseycity.org/sinatra.shtml "Frank Sinatra's Jersey City Connection"] , CityofJerseyCity.org. Accessed June 30, 2008.]

After moving to Hollywood, Los Angeles, Sinatra's extramarital affairs with the actresses Lana Turner and Marilyn Maxwell were causing public embarrassment for Barbato, and she aborted a third child in 1946. [Ingham, pg 10, as related in Tina Sinatra's memoir] A fourth child, Tina Sinatra was born in 1948.

Barbato announced their separation on Valentine's Day, 1950 as his affair with Ava Gardner became public. After originally only seeking a separation, they divorced on October 29, 1951, as Sinatra's relationship with Gardner became ever more serious.

Ava Gardner

Sinatra first met Ava Gardner in 1944, but saw her only sporadically until late 1949, when they began their relationship. Their relationship was extremely tempestuous, and coincided with the collapse of Sinatra's professional career, as Gardner's blossomed.

They married on November 7, 1951, ten days after Sinatra's divorce from Barbato became final. Both were frequently made jealous by the other's extramarital affairs, [Summers, Antony and Swan, Robbyn. "Sinatra: The Life". Doubleday, 2005. ISBN 0552153311. pg196.] [Ingham, pg44]

Gardner's power in Hollywood helped Sinatra get cast in "From Here to Eternity" (1953), [Ingham, pg41] and his subsequent Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor helped revitalize Sinatra's professional career. They separated in October 1953, and finally divorced in 1957.

Mia Farrow

Sinatra married the actress, Mia Farrow on July 19, 1966, when she was 21 and he was 50. They met on the set of Sinatra's film, "Von Ryan's Express". [Ingham, pg80] She agreed to appear in his 1968 film, "The Detective", but when she reneged as her filming schedule for "Rosemary's Baby" overran, Sinatra served her divorce papers in front of the cast and crew. [Ingham, pg81]

Barbara Marx

In 1976, Sinatra married Barbara Blakeley Marx (formerly married to Zeppo Marx, "the unfunny Marx brother" [Nash, Eric P. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9507E4D61531F93BA25751C0A9679C8B63 "Books in Brief: Nonfiction"] , "The New York Times", February 18, 2001. Accessed January 7, 2008. "Sinatra's last wife, Barbara Marx, who had been married to Zeppo, "the unfunny Marx brother," is depicted as the wicked stepmother, isolating the aging star from friends and family, persuading him to change his will and failing to notify the children in his last hours."] ), who converted to Catholicism to marry him. She remained his wife until his death, although her relations with Sinatra's children were consistently portrayed as stormy, something Nancy Sinatra confirmed when she publicly claimed that Barbara had not bothered to call Frank's children even when the end was near, although they were close by, and the children missed the opportunity to be at their father's bedside when he died. [ [http://www.contactmusic.com/new/xmlfeed.nsf/mndwebpages/nancy%20sinatra%20blames%20final%20wife%20for%20dad%20franks%20death Nancy Sinatra - Nancy Sinatra Blames Final Wife For Dad Frank'S Death ] ]

Relationships

Judy Garland

Sinatra and Garland remained good friends up until her death in 1969, but on only two occasions were the two legendary singers romantically involved. The first was in 1949, when Garland was recovering from a nervous breakdown and the two went on a romantic rendezvous in the Hamptons (Garland was still married to director Vincente Minnelli). The second was during one of Garland's many separations from her third husband Sid Luft in 1955. Sinatra had just come off his messy separation from Ava Gardner and was spotted in Garland's company until Luft found out.

Lauren Bacall

Sinatra proposed to Lauren Bacall, shortly after her husband Humphrey Bogart died in 1957, but reneged when word of their relationship became public. They split little over a year later.

Juliet Prowse

Sinatra was also engaged to South African-born actress and dancer Juliet Prowse for a short while in early 1962, before Sinatra broke the engagement late that year. The two first met on the set of the 1960 film "Can-Can".

Angie Dickinson

Sinatra was romantically involved with Angie Dickinson off and on for ten years from around 1954 to 1964. "We had an incredible 'like' for each other" and "a very comfortable relationship", stated Dickinson in 1999, adding that if they'd had "a burning love affair" then the romance might not have lasted as long. The two remained friends until Sinatra's 1998 death.

Children

Sinatra had three children with his first wife, Nancy Barbato: Nancy Sinatra (born June 8, 1940), Frank Sinatra, Jr. (born January 10, 1944), and Christina "Tina" Sinatra (born June 20, 1948). Although Sinatra did not remain faithful to his wife, he was by many accounts a devoted father.

On December 8, 1963, Frank Sinatra, Jr. was kidnapped. Sinatra paid the kidnappers' $240,000 ransom demand (even offering $1,000,000 though the kidnappers bizarrely turned down this offer), and his son was released unharmed on December 10. Because the kidnappers demanded that Sinatra call them only from pay phones, Sinatra carried a roll of dimes with him throughout the ordeal, and this became a lifetime habit. The kidnappers were subsequently apprehended and convicted. A movie called "Stealing Sinatra" was made about the incident.

Julie Sinatra (born Julie Ann Maria Lyma on February 10, 1943) claims to be Sinatra's daughter through an unacknowledged affair that he had with a showgirl, Dorothy Bunocelli, in the 1940s. She changed her last name by deed poll to Sinatra in 2000. [http://www.dougiethompson.com/frank-sinatra.htm Interview with Julie Sinatra] Awarded $100,000 by the Sinatra estate in 2002, [http://www.dougiethompson.com/frank-sinatra.htm Interview with Julie Sinatra] elements of her story concerning her mother's trip to Cuba with Sinatra have been disputed. [ [http://www.contactmusic.com/news.nsf/article/sinatra%20biographers%20question%20new%20lovechild%20claims_1004038 Frank Sinatra - Sinatra Biographers Question New Lovechild Claims ] ]

Alleged organized crime links

Sinatra has been frequently linked to members of the Mafia and it has long been rumored that his career was aided behind the scenes by organized crime. [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1998/05/98/sinatra/94360.stm Mafia reports dogged Sinatra] ]

One of his uncles, Babe Gavarante, was a member of a Bergen County armed gang connected to the organization of Willie Moretti. Gavarante was convicted of murder in 1921 in connection with an armed robbery in which he had driven the getaway car. Sinatra was also allegedly personally linked to Willie Moretti — his first wife Nancy Barbato was a cousin of one of Moretti's senior henchmen and Sinatra sang at the daughter's wedding in 1948. According to testimony from Moretti, Sinatra received help from him in arranging performances in return for kickbacks and marijuana.

He had associations with and did favors for Charles Fischetti, a notorious Chicago mobster dating back to 1946 (according to the FBI). Sinatra was also friends with Charles's brother Joseph who ran the Fontainebleau Hotel complex in Miami, who arranged work for him and introduced him to Charles Luciano in Havana. After Luciano's deportation to Italy, Sinatra visited him at least twice, singing at a 1946 Christmas Party and gifting the famed mobster with a gold cigarette case engraved "To my dear pal Charlie, from his friend Frank" the next year.

These visits were widely reported by the media and used as further evidence of Sinatra's ties to the mob, haunting him for the rest of his life. Among the allegations was the $2 million that Sinatra gave Luciano. As Joseph "Doc" Stacher later recalled of the Havana meeting, "The Italians among us were all very proud of Frank. They always told me they had spent a lot of money helping him in his career ever since he was in Tommy Dorsey’s band. Lucky Luciano was very fond of Frank’s singing. Frankie flew into Havana with the Fischettis, with whom he was very friendly, but of course, our meeting had nothing to do with hearing him croon. Everyone brought envelopes of money for Luciano. But more important, they came to pay allegiance to him." The "Havana" allegations — while the basis of rumors for Sinatra's mob ties — have never been proved, and in his autobiography Luciano himself denied there was any criminal association.

Sinatra had a strong friendship with Sam Giancana, who always wore a sapphire friendship ring given to him by Sinatra. A number of alleged incidents have been noted where people who angered Sinatra had been threatened by Giancana's mob. Comedian Jackie Mason has alleged that after mocking Sinatra in his routine, he received threats and his hotel room was shot up in his presence. After he continued, he received death threats and was roughed up and his nose broken.

J. Edgar Hoover apparently suspected Sinatra over the years, and Sinatra's file at the FBI ended up at 2,403 pages [ [http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/sinatra.htm FBI - Freedom of Information Privacy Act] ] , detailing allegations of extortion against Ronald Alpert for $100,000. Sinatra publicly rejected these accusations many times, and was never charged with any crimes in connection with them.

The character Johnny Fontane in the book and movie "The Godfather" is widely viewed as having been inspired by Frank Sinatra and his alleged connections. Indeed, Sinatra was furious with "Godfather" author Mario Puzo over the Fontane character and reportedly confronted Puzo in public with profane threats supposedly on the basis that Fontane is shown to cry in the film, an emotional weak display Sinatra would not imply as a part of his personality.

In June 1985, soon after Sinatra received his Medal of Freedom, satirical cartoonist Garry Trudeau ran a series of "Doonesbury" strips resurrecting photos of Sinatra "Doing It My Way", posing with known mafiosi many years earlier. Sinatra complained that the strip series was "unfair", and pointed out that his mob associates gave him work when no one else would.

References