Sinatra Barbara - Lady blue eyes: my life with Frank

This memoir is based on my recollection of events spanning more than eight decades, which may not be exactly as others recall them. Where conversations cannot be remembered precisely, I have re-created them to the best of my ability. Where people need to be protected or to avoid offense, I have altered names. Any mistakes are my own.

Copyright 2011 by Barbara Sinatra

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crown Archetype, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com

Crown Archetype with colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint their material:

Daniel E. Kaplan: Its Vine on the Line! by Daniel E. Kaplan. Reprinted
by permission of the author.

Shannon Moseley: Im Free by Shannon Moseley. Reprinted by permission
of the author.

Principle Management: Excerpt from a speech given by Bono on the occasion
of Frank Sinatras Lifetime Achievement Grammy in 1994. Reprinted
by permission of Principle Management on behalf of Bono.

Frankie Randall: Lyrics from Twenty Years Ago Today by Frankie
Randall. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sinatra, Barbara.
Lady blue eyes : my life with Frank / Barbara Sinatra.1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Sinatra, Frank, 19151998. 2. SingersUnited States
Biography. 3. Sinatra, Barbara. I. Title.
ML420.S565S59 2011
782.42164092dc22
[B] 2010031907
eISBN: 978-0-307-44994-8

TITLE PAGE PHOTO: COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR
COVER PHOTOGRAPHY BY BETTMANN/CORBIS

v3.1

Dedicated to the next generation,
and especially my granddaughter,
Carina Blakeley Marx

I have always been a private person, so the idea of writing a book about my life with Frank didnt come naturally to me . My husband was also extremely private and never wrote his memoirs, although he did consider it for a while. I think if he had, though, his reminiscences would have been much more about the music than about the life.

The decision to sit down with the writer Wendy Holden and bear witness came about because several of those closest to me persuaded me that I had a unique perspective on what it was like to live with Frank Sinatra, a man who still commands worldwide fascination years after his death. Who else but his widow could speak of him so honestly, writing an open love letter to her husband while revealing him as a fully rounded individual, brilliantly talented yet utterly human, warts and all? What really clinched the idea of a book for me, though, was the fact that Frank spent so much of his time trying to set the record straight. He was a prolific writer of letters to editors and publishers, in which he railed against the numerous lies, innuendos, and misrepresentations about him printed in articles and books across the globe. These mistruths tend to take on a life of their own, being repeated and embellished over the years until people believe them to be true.

With Wendys gentle coaxing, I have drawn on my memories spanning eight decades to chronicle not only my twenty-six years with Frank but the journey my life took me on before I was even by his side. It has been quite an adventure, and when I look back on it now, I sometimes cannot believe that I managed to fit all this in during just one lifetime. In sharing my memories with those who still remember and revere Frank Sinatra, I hope that I have been able to present a different view, one that is written from the heart. This book is for Frank, the love of my life, and I am confident that he would fully support me in this. Most of all, I want everyone to know what a truly wonderful man he was and how, by becoming his bride, I ended up being the luckiest woman in the world.

With my wonderful husband.
COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR

The year I married Frank Sinatra was a very good year . It was 1976, but it had taken us five years of flirting and courting to finally say I do. It probably took another year before I grew accustomed to the idea that I now carried his iconic name. At first, Id almost whisper when booking a restaurant reservation or beauty parlor appointment. Even to say Mrs. Sinatra out loud felt like bragging.

For a long time I had to pinch myself almost daily to believe that I, Barbara Ann Blakeley, the gangly kid in pigtails from the whistle-stop of Bosworth, Missouri, had somehow become the wife of Francis Albert Sinatra. Could I really be married to the singer whose voice Id first heard at a drive-in when I was fifteen years old? Ill walk alone because to tell you the truth Ill be lonely. I dont mind being lonely when my heart tells me you are lonely too, he sang with such sincerity at the height of the Second World War. Even though he didnt make me swoon like some of the bobby-soxers at his concerts, the tenderness in his voice still melted my tomboy heart.

Our love affair began almost thirty years later, long before we took the wedding-day vows that were to last for more than two decades. By then I was married to Zeppo Marx, the youngest of the famous comedy brothers. Our next-door neighbor Frank Sinatra had recently divorced for the third time and was dating some of the worlds most desirable women. Id met his second wife, Ava Gardner, and Mia Farrow, his third. Id seen Marilyn Monroe when she stayed with him not long before she died, and would meet Lauren Bacall, Kim Novak, Juliet Prowse, and Judy Garland, all of whom hed stepped out with.

Not that I was a complete naf. As a young model and the wife of a gambler named Bob Oliver, Id been wooed by John F. Kennedy. As a Las Vegas showgirl, Id resisted Franks advances, and Id lived with a television host named Joe Graydon. Id been chased by some of the worlds most drop-dead, knockout movie stars, none of whom had anything on Frank. He had a sexual energy all his own. Even Elvis Presley, whom Id met in Vegas, never had it quite like that.

A big part of Franks thrill was the sense of danger he exuded, an underlying, ever-present tension only those closest to him knew could be defused with humor. One of the greatest things about Frank was that he loved to laugh. He not only surrounded himself with comedians like Don Rickles, Tom Dreesen, Joey Bishop, and Dean Martin (the most natural comic of them all) but took great delight in devising elaborate practical jokes. Even his fieriest Italian tantrum could be extinguished with a witty one-liner.

On one of my earliest visits to Villa Maggio, his sprawling mountain home at Pinyon Crest high above Palm Springs, California, which hed bought against the fierce summer months, I joined in a late-night game of charades. I was on the opposing team to his, which included his drinking buddies the comedian Pat Henry, the golf pro Kenny Venturi, the songwriter Jimmy Van Heusen, and Leo Durocher, the baseball manager. Having placed a large brass clock on my lap, I called time before Franks team guessed his charadethe government health warning on a pack of cigarettes.

Three minutes are up, I cried gleefully. You didnt get it!