Barbara Marx Sinatra

Born December 12, 1915 in Hoboken, New Jersey, USA Died May 14, 1998 in Los Angeles, California, USA Birth Name Francis Albert Sinatra Nicknames The Voice Chairman of the Board Ol' Blue Eyes Swoonatra The Sultan of Swoon La Voz Frankie Height 5' 7" (1.7 m) Mini Bio (1) Frank Sinatra was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, to Italian immigrants Natalina Della (Garaventa), from Northern Italy, and Saverio Antonino Martino Sinatra, a Sicilian boxer, fireman, and bar owner. Growing up on the gritty streets of Hoboken made Sinatra determined to work hard to get ahead. Starting out as a saloon singer in musty little dives (he carried his own P.A. system), he eventually got work as a band singer, first with The Hoboken Four, then with Harry James and then Tommy Dorsey. With the help of George Evans (Sinatra's genius press agent), his image was shaped into that of a street thug and punk who was saved by his first wife, Nancy Barbato Sinatra. In 1942 he started his solo career, instantly finding fame as the king of the bobbysoxers--the young women and girls who were his fans--and becoming the most popular singer of the era among teenage music fans. About that time his film career was also starting in earnest, and after appearances in a few small films, he struck box-office gold with a lead role in Anchors Aweigh (1945) with Gene Kelly, a Best Picture nominee at the 1946 Academy Awards. Sinatra was awarded a special Oscar for his part in a short film that spoke out against intolerance, The House I Live In (1945). His career on a high, Sinatra went from strength to strength on record, stage and screen, peaking in 1949, once again with Gene Kelly, in the MGM musical On the Town (1949) and Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949). A controversial public affair with screen siren Ava Gardner broke up his marriage to Nancy Barbato Sinatra and did his career little good, and his record sales dwindled. He continued to act, although in lesser films such as Meet Danny Wilson (1952), and a vocal cord hemorrhage all but ended his career. He fought back, though, finally securing a role he desperately wanted--Maggio in From Here to Eternity (1953). He won an Oscar for best supporting actor and followed this with a scintillating performance as a cold-blooded assassin hired to kill the US President in Suddenly (1954). Arguably a career-best performance--garnering him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor--was his role as a pathetic heroin addict in the powerful drama The Man with the Golden Arm (1955). Known as "One-Take Charlie" for his approach to acting that strove for spontaneity and energy, rather than perfection, Sinatra was an instinctive actor who was best at playing parts that mirrored his own personality. He continued to give strong and memorable performances in such films as Guys and Dolls (1955), The Joker Is Wild (1957) and Some Came Running (1958). In the late 1950s and 1960s Sinatra became somewhat prolific as a producer, turning out such films as A Hole in the Head (1959), Sergeants 3 (1962) and the very successful Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964). Lighter roles alongside "Rat Pack" buddies Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. were lucrative, especially the famed Ocean's 11 (1960). On the other hand, he alternated such projects with much more serious offerings, such as The Manchurian Candidate (1962), regarded by many critics as Sinatra's finest picture. He made his directorial debut with the World War II picture None But the Brave (1965), which was the first Japanese/American co-production. That same year Von Ryan's Express (1965) was a box office sensation. In 1967 Sinatra returned to familiar territory in Sidney J. Furie's The Naked Runner (1967), once again playing as assassin in his only film to be shot in the U.K. and Germany. That same year he starred as a private investigator in Tony Rome (1967), a role he reprised in the sequel, Lady in Cement (1968). He also starred with Lee Remick in The Detective (1968), a film daring for its time with its theme of murders involving rich and powerful homosexual men, and it was a major box-office success. After appearing in the poorly received comic western Dirty Dingus Magee (1970), Sinatra didn't act again for seven years, returning with a made-for-TV cops-and-mob-guys thriller Contract on Cherry Street (1977), which he also produced. Based on the novel by William Rosenberg, this fable of fed-up cops turning vigilante against the mob boasted a stellar cast and was a ratings success. Sinatra returned to the big screen in The First Deadly Sin (1980), once again playing a New York detective, in a moving and understated performance that was a fitting coda to his career as a leading man. He made one more appearance on the big screen with a cameo in Cannonball Run II (1984) and a final acting performance in Magnum, P.I. (1980) in 1987 as a retired detective seeking vengeance on the killers of his granddaughter in an episode entitled "Laura". - IMDb Mini Biography By: David Montgomery (qv's & corrections by A. Nonymous) Spouse (4) Barbara Marx (11 July 1976 - 14 May 1998) ( his death) Mia Farrow (19 July 1966 - 16 August 1968) ( divorced) Ava Gardner (7 November 1951 - 5 July 1957) ( divorced) Nancy Barbato Sinatra (4 February 1939 - 29 October 1951) ( divorced) ( 3 children) Trade Marks: Crooning voice. Black fedora. Blue eyes. Sports coat. Always wore a three piece suit or tuxedo. Use of 1950's slang. Frequently worked with fellow Rat Pack members Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford.

Barbara Sinatra Born Barbara Ann Blakeley March 10, 1927 Bosworth, Missouri, U.S. Died July 25, 2017 (aged 90) Rancho Mirage, California, U.S. Resting place Desert Memorial Park, Cathedral City, California Other names Barbara Marx Occupation Showgirl, model, socialite, philanthropist Spouse(s) Robert Harrison Oliver (m. 1948; div. 1952) Herbert "Zeppo" Marx (m. 1959; div. 1973) Frank Sinatra (m. 1976; d. 1998) Children 1 Barbara Marx Sinatra (née Blakeley; March 10, 1927 – July 25, 2017) was an American model and showgirl, later a socialite and philanthropist. Early years Barbara Ann Blakeley was born on March 10, 1927, in Bosworth, Missouri, the elder of two daughters of Charles Willis Blakeley (June 29, 1895 – October 5, 1989) and Irene Prunty (née Toppass) Blakeley (June 22, 1907 – December 15, 1993). At age 10, she moved with her parents and younger sister, Patricia, to Wichita, Kansas, where she was raised, and graduated from Wichita North High School in 1944. At age 18, she moved to Long Beach, California. Marriages Blakeley married Robert Oliver in September 1948 and had a son, Bobby on October 10, 1950. She divorced Oliver in 1952 and married Zeppo Marx on September 18, 1959. That union ended in divorce in 1973. Then she became the fourth and final wife of Frank Sinatra from 1976 until he died in 1998. Frank Sinatra Barbara Marx married Sinatra on July 11, 1976, and they remained married until his death on May 14, 1998. It was his fourth and final marriage, and her third and final marriage. It was also the longest-lasting marriage for both. She converted to Catholicism. According to her book, Lady Blue Eyes: My Life With Frank, "He [Frank] never asked me to change faith for him, ,but I could tell he was pleased that I'd consider it." Upon his death, Frank Sinatra left her $3.5 million in assets, along with mansions in Beverly Hills, Malibu, and Palm Springs. She also inherited the rights to Sinatra's Trilogy recordings, most of his material possessions, and control over his name and likeness. Death Barbara died on July 25, 2017, in Rancho Mirage, California of natural causes at the age of 90. She died a year before Frank’s first wife, Nancy died on July 14, 2018 at the age of 101. Legacy The Sinatras founded the Barbara Sinatra Children's Center in Rancho Mirage, California, in 1986. The center is adjacent to the Betty Ford Center on the campus of the Eisenhower Medical Center. The non-profit facility provides individual and group therapy for young victims of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. In 1998, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars was dedicated to her.