Lady Blue Eyes

Barbara Sinatra 

Barbara Marx Sinatra was an American model, showgirl, socialite, philanthropist, and the fourth wife of Frank Sinatra.

On March 10, 1927, she was born Barbara Ann Blakeley in Bosworth, Missouri,  the elder of two daughters. Her parents were Charles Willis Blakeley and Irene Prunty . At age 10, she moved with her parents and younger sister, Patricia, to Wichita, Kansas, where she was raised. In 1944, she graduated from Wichita North High School. At age 18, she moved to Long Beach, California.

She married Frank Sinatra on July 11, 1976. 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 in 1998, 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.

Barbara Marx Sinatra 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.

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.