Personal life of Frank Sinatra

These affairs also became public knowledge and caused great embarrassment to Nancy Barbato Sinatra, who considered calling off their marriage then and had an abortion when she became pregnant in 1946.

The couple announced their separation on Valentine's Day, February 14, 1950, with Sinatra's additional extramarital affair with Ava Gardner compounding his transgressions and becoming public knowledge.

Less widely known were Sinatra's continuing visits, his long, confiding late-night phone calls, and the convivial family dinners on birthdays, holidays and other occasions.

"Throughout the many years after they split, my grandfather came to visit whenever his crazy life would allow it," Mrs. Sinatra's granddaughter A. J. Lambert wrote in a 2015 remembrance in Vanity Fair.

She remained profoundly private, uttering barely a word in public about her life with Sinatra, though their mutual feelings were clear, her granddaughter recalled, to those who knew them best.

Their similarities, however, from vices like smoking, drinking hard liquor and cursing, to their volatile tempers and love of violent sports, soon became apparent.

[7] Sinatra separated from Nancy on Valentine's Day 1950, after he confessed to his passionate affair with Gardner, and she subsequently locked him out of the house and hired a lawyer.

He was inconsolable in the fall of 1953 after the split, and according to Kelley, on November 18, Jimmy Van Heusen found him in the elevator of his 57th Street apartment with his wrists slashed.

At the time, Sinatra was enjoying a wave of renewed popularity as the song "Strangers in the Night" returned him to the top of the Billboard charts only seventeen days later.

[24] Sinatra had numerous extramarital affairs, the first of which was with blonde starlet Alora Gooding from October 1940 while in Hollywood, his "first big love away from home", according to Nick Sevano.

[45] Impeccable with his dress[b] and cleanliness, while with the Tommy Dorsey band he developed the nickname "Lady Macbeth", because of frequent showering and switching his outfits.

[48] Throughout his life, Sinatra had mood swings and bouts of mild to severe depression,[49] admitting to an interviewer in the 1950s that "I have an over-acute capacity for sadness as well as elation".

[52] Sinatra's mood swings often developed into violence, directed at people he felt had crossed him, particularly journalists who gave him scathing reviews, publicists and photographers.

He received negative press for fights with Lee Mortimer in 1947, photographer Eddie Schisser in Houston in 1950, and Judy Garland's publicist Jim Byron in 1954, whom he reportedly referred to as a "fucking parasite".

When Lee J. Cobb nearly died from a heart attack in June 1955, Sinatra flooded him with "books, flowers, delicacies", paid his hospital bills, and visited him daily, telling him that his finest acting was yet to come.

[58] In 1960, Sinatra bought a share in the Cal Neva Lodge & Casino, straddling the border between Nevada and California on the shores of Lake Tahoe.

Though it only opened between June and September, Sinatra built the Celebrity Room theater, which attracted the likes of the other Rat Pack members, Red Skelton, Marilyn Monroe, Victor Borge, Joe E. Lewis, Lucille Ball, Lena Horne, Juliet Prowse, the McGuire Sisters and others.

[59] Sinatra's gambling license was temporarily stripped by the Nevada Gaming Control Board in 1963 after mobster Sam Giancana was spotted on the premises.

[60] Due to ongoing pressure from the FBI and Nevada Gaming Commission and mobster control of casinos, and trouble with the Mafia, Sinatra agreed to give up his share in Cal Neva and the Sands.

[63] In Sinatra's early days, mafia boss Willie Moretti helped him for kickbacks and was reported to have intervened in releasing him from his contract with Tommy Dorsey.

She also claimed that Silvers had told her that "like Bugsy, Frank had a Mafia Redneck mentality", with their shared love of high-living and grandiose plans in Las Vegas.

[70] The FBI kept records amounting to 2,403 pages on Sinatra, becoming a natural target with his alleged Mafia ties, his ardent New Deal politics, and his friendship with John F.

[72] The FBI documented that Sinatra was losing esteem with the Mafia as he grew closer to President Kennedy, whose brother Bobby was leading a crackdown on organized crime.

[80] Sinatra frequently denied personal and professional links with organized crime figures such as Bugsy Siegel, Carlo Gambino, Sam Giancana, Lucky Luciano, and Joseph Fischetti,[81] despite the many connections and anecdotes reported.

[82] In January 1967, he stood before a Las Vegas grand jury investigating mobster influence in the casinos and denied any financial exploits with Giancana.