Inside Ava Gardner's Relationship With Frank Sinatra

With tumultuous celebrity couples generating headlines on a daily basis, folks might be inclined to think that A-listers were more reserved during Hollywood's Golden Age. But the truth is that the celeb paramours of yesteryear were as messy and scandalous as the TikTok power couples of today. Sure, they didn't have social media to document their every cancelable offense, but the paps were certainly on their backs selling scandal to the tabloids. And when it comes to iconic hot mess couples, few can compare to Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra.

She was the raven-haired, ruby-lipped starlet who wowed fans with her smoldering screen presence. He was Ol' Blue Eyes, the diminutive yet commanding baritone whose singing was matched only by his acting. Though Gardner and Sinatra were the epitome of old-school chic, appearances can be deceiving.

Behind closed doors, both stars were deeply troubled individuals, and in time, their marriage inevitably turned toxic. Gardner, for instance, had a legendary bad girl reputation — this was, after all, the woman who was once banned from the Ritz for urinating in the lobby, or so the legend goes. Sinatra's profile, meanwhile, was something of a precursor to Beatlemania in its sheer ability to ignite the passions of hordes of screaming young women in his 1940s heartthrob heyday. Together, the two were dynamite. But of course, it doesn't take much to set dynamite off. From their boozy first date to their poignant goodbye, let's take a look inside Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra's relationship.

Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra first crossed paths at a club in 1943. At the time, Gardner was married to Mickey Rooney, whom she would soon divorce due to alleged mental cruelty. Meanwhile, Sinatra was married to Nancy Barbato, with whom he had two children. Though their attraction to one another was evident, their affair wouldn't begin until years later.

The pair reunited at a Palm Springs party in 1949. Sinatra was still married to Barbato, and the couple had recently welcomed their third child. As for Gardner, she had divorced Artie Shaw, who was allegedly abusive, three years earlier. Sparks flew as soon as the two A-listers set eyes on one another. "I looked at her and said, 'Jesus, you got prettier since last time I saw ya,'" said Sinatra, as quoted in "Ava Gardner: A Life in Movies." "This was not the young girl from Carolina at the studio. This was a woman who was glorious."

As expected from these fiery stars, their first date was nothing short of epic. The pair fled the glitzy party and went drunk driving, engaging in a steamy make-out sesh before shooting out streetlights (for which they were arrested, but as was common at the time, studio execs paid the cops off). Though to most folks this would hardly seem like a dream first date, Gardner thought otherwise. Chatting with her sister, Bappie, that morning, the starlet declared she'd had the most wonderful time.

Although Frank Sinatra was married to Nancy Barbato for over a decade, he later claimed that the marriage was a huge mistake. "What I had mistaken for love was only the warm friendship Nancy had brought me," he once conceded, according to The Times. As his affair with Ava Gardner heated up, he realized he had to tell his wife the truth sooner rather than later. Tabloids were already catching wind of the extramarital dalliance because the brazen duo often attended events together.

Initially, Barbato refused to grant Sinatra a divorce. She relented when Gardner reportedly forced Sinatra to break things off with her (though Gardner later defended Barbato for wanting to protect her marriage). The divorce left the crooner broke, awarding Barbato a substantial percentage of his earnings as well as the couple's home and stock in the Sinatra Music Corp. But Sinatra didn't seem to mind as long as he could be with Gardner. Though the lovers were now free to marry, the drama wasn't over. The night before their nuptials, Gardner reportedly received a letter from a sex worker purporting to be Sinatra's lover of several months, and she flew into a rage.

Despite this blip, the couple wed in Philadelphia in 1951, days after Sinatra divorced Barbato. Legend has it that as Gardner waltzed down the aisle, she stumbled over her wedding dress and fell to the floor, an omen, perhaps, of the mess that was to come.

From the outset of their relationship, Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra appeared to be engaged in an endless lovers' quarrel. Even their honeymoon was reportedly blighted by constant fighting. "There is one extant press photo of the couple on their honeymoon that does not show them running, snarling, cringing, cowering," biographer Lee Server wrote in "Ava Gardner: Love Is Nothing." "Of course, it was taken from a distance, and from the rear."

By Gardner's own admission, both were drinking heavily and living a codependent lifestyle. "Every single night, we would have three or four martinis, big ones in champagne glasses," according to The Times, "then wine with dinner, then go to a nightclub and start drinking Scotch or bourbon. I don't know how we did it." The drinking was exacerbated by Sinatra's furious outbursts. Indeed, Ol' Blue Eyes was famed for his foul temper and was known to take his anger out on his loved ones.

Meanwhile, the relationship was further complicated by Sinatra's alleged dealings with the mob. One night, as the pair made love, Sinatra received a call from a mobster, enraging Gardner. As detailed in the book "Frank & Ava: In Love And War," Sinatra likened the marriage to a war. "When you're at war with a woman, you don't have any chance," he told his friend Tony Consiglio. "The best you can hope for is an occasional truce."

At first, Ava Gardner was the main breadwinner in the marriage. The Hollywood icon had a string of hit films to her name, having starred in "Show Boat" the year she wed Frank Sinatra and for which she was paid a princely $140,000. Meanwhile, Sinatra's career languished, and he love-bombed Gardner when she was at work. "Every single day during our relationship, no matter where in the world I was, I'd get a telegram from Frank saying he loved me and missed me," she revealed in her memoir. "He was a man who was desperate for companionship and love." But he was also intensely jealous of her male co-stars, exacerbating their arguments.

As Sinatra's career declined, so did his bank balance. In fact, he was so broke that he bought Gardner gifts using her own account. Nevertheless, Gardner said it was to the couple's benefit that Sinatra was struggling for work because it made him a better husband. "We were happy when Frank was on the skids," she admitted, according to the BBC. "When he became successful again, his old arrogant self came back."

But the lack of work coupled with the remorse he felt for leaving Nancy Barbato and his children left Sinatra deeply depressed. Subsequently, Gardner helped her husband find work through a clause in her studio contract and eventually helped him secure his Oscar-winning role as Private Maggio in "From Here to Eternity" in 1953.

Famed for being a diva, Ava Gardner was so quick-witted she could put Mae West to shame. And she reserved the most cutting of barbs for the men in her life (this was, after all, the woman who branded her first husband, Mickey Rooney, a 5-foot-2 "sod"). As she recalled to Peter Evans for his book "Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations," Sinatra was something of a sex god, which is what initially drew the vivacious screen siren to him. "Jesus, he was like a god in those days, if gods can be sexy," she mused. "A cocky god, he reeked of sex."

Infamously, Gardner made some NSFW remarks on the size of Sinatra's appendage after a critic asked her what she saw in the singer, whom he dubbed "a 119-pound has-been," press photographer Murray Garrett recalled in Lee Server's biography "Ava." "And Ava says," he continued, "very demurely, no venom, just very cool, in the most perfect ladylike diction, 'Well I'll tell you ... '" Gardner replied that Sinatra may have been 119 pounds, but 19 pounds of that was his, ahem, manhood.

But for all her risqué one-liners, Gardner ultimately felt dissatisfied with the pair's sex life. "It's like being in bed with a woman," she told ex-husband Artie Shaw, according to "Frank & Ava: In Love And War." "He's so gentle. It's as if he thinks I'll break."

While filming "Mogambo" in 1952, Ava Gardner got pregnant. Although the film's director, John Ford, told her not to have an abortion, Gardner knew that she wasn't in an emotionally healthy state to be a parent (it's alleged that Gardner was terrified of motherhood). She took control of her own body and had an abortion without telling Sinatra, who was working in Hollywood at the time. However, when he found out that his wife had terminated her pregnancy, Sinatra reacted with misogynistic rage. "The only thing he ever said to me about it was, 'I shoulda beaten her [expletive] brains out for what she did to me and the baby, but I loved her too much,'" his manager Hank Sanicola said, according to "Ava Gardner: A Life in Movies."

At a later date, she became pregnant for a second time and once again terminated the pregnancy. Though he had previously been unsupportive of her decision to have an abortion, Sinatra accompanied her to her second procedure.

Later, Gardner would say that Hollywood "gave me everything I never wanted," she said in Lee Server's biography, "Ava Gardner." Rather, she lamented that she didn't have children or opt for a more conventional life. "I'm sorry I spent 25 years making films," she admitted in 1966, according to "Ava Gardner: A Life in Movies." "I wish now I had the things most important to a woman — a good marriage, children, a better education."

"I hate cheating," Ava Gardner once said, according to The Times. "I won't put up with it." Despite this, Gardner did cheat on Frank Sinatra. Two of her lovers were bullfighters: Mario Cabré and Luis Miguel Dominguín, whom she dated in 1951and 1952, respectively. Sinatra was so jealous of Cabré that he wanted to murder him. There are also longstanding claims that she was romantically involved with Howard Hughes, whom Sinatra despised, though Gardner denied this. Moreover, there has been some suggestion that Gardner was bisexual and had an affair with Lana Turner, which the latter denied (Sinatra himself allegedly had a rendezvous with Turner).

Likewise, Sinatra cheated frequently. In an effort to make Gardner jealous, he once called her while he was in bed with another woman. "I was deeply hurt," Gardner said, according to "Frank & Ava: In Love And War." "I knew then that we had reached a crossroads. Not because we had fallen out of love, but because our love had so battered and bruised us that we couldn't stand it any more."

Additionally, Gardner was angry that her infidelity was tabloid fodder, whereas Sinatra's was seemingly swept under the rug, something she attributed to misogynistic double standards. "Ava felt that for a man to be admired while he played the field while a woman was called a slut for doing the same thing was 'bulls***, honey!'" actor Farley Granger said, according to "Ava Gardner: A Life in Movies."

In 1953, after two years of marriage, the couple called it quits. However, they wouldn't officially divorce for another four years. The split coincided with Frank Sinatra's ascension to Hollywood stardom. "Work took him in one direction and her in another," the couple's friend, Kathryn Grayson, told People. "They couldn't be together enough."

But Sinatra took this badly and again fell into a depression. He was obsessed with Ava Gardner and begged her to take him back. He was also hospitalized after an apparent suicide attempt. This wasn't the first time he tried to kill himself, however, having previously threatened suicide to Gardner during a phone call and again in the couple's home when Gardner was fast asleep. "Let me put it this way: There were about three occasions, possibly four, when he made suicide attempts," biographer James Kaplan told NPR. Gardner said in "Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations" that Sinatra's self-destructive behavior were a "cry for help."

Eventually, Sinatra and Gardner found love again with other partners. Rumor has it that Gardner had an affair with Fidel Castro. Meanwhile, Sinatra married 20-year-old Mia Farrow. According to the Chicago Tribune, Gardner, in her typically snarky manner, quipped, "I always knew Frank would wind up in bed with a little boy." And indeed, according to The Times, Sinatra himself referred to Farrow as a "child bride." But it was Gardner who would forever hold the key to the crooner's heart.

Although they went their separate ways, Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner still held a torch for one another. But for Ol' Blue Eyes in particular, that torch burned brightly. He often called Gardner and asked her to give him another shot. "And I'd say, 'OK!' and drop everything, sometimes even a part in a picture," she recalled, according to "Frank & Ava: In Love And War." "And it would be heaven, but it wouldn't last more than 24 hours. We could never understand why it hadn't and couldn't work."

Sinatra was tortured by their inability to reconcile and even kept a photo of Gardner taped to the mirror of his dressing room. Subsequently, he resorted to desperate measures to win her back. 

One day in 1968, he had his team call Gardner, claiming he was deathly ill. She traveled for 24 hours to rush to be by his bedside, only to see that he wasn't on his death bed at all. "Jesus Christ, you're not dying, are you?" she yelled upon her arrival, according to "Frank & Ava." "Faking it again. ... What the hell is really wrong with you? ... What am I doing here, anyway? Do you know what I had to go through to get here?" Though Sinatra attempted to persuade Gardner that he was indeed ill, she was having none of it and left for London, where she would remain for the rest of her life.

After the couple's split, Frank Sinatra sent Ava Gardner flowers on her birthday every year. The two remained close friends, and Sinatra supported his ex-wife when her health began to decline. "They helped each other," their friend Kathryn Grayson told People. "I think they wanted to get together again, but circumstances kept them apart."

Gardner's struggles with substance misuse worsened into the 1960s. She had long used drinking as a coping mechanism during challenging times in her life; for instance, she reportedly began drinking back when she was married to Artie Shaw as a means of dealing with his emotional abuse. Sinatra noticed this in Gardner but loved her all the same. "Frank turned to me one night," actor Brad Dexter explained, as quoted in The Times, "and said, 'She's the only woman I've ever been in love with in my whole life, and look at her. She's turned into a falling-down drunk.'"

The starlet's alcohol issues became the stuff of legend. In "Ava Gardner: Love Is Nothing," swimmer and actress Esther Williams is quoted as having written, "She had gone from famous to infamous to notorious and was now regarded as something of a menace to polite society." But having struggled with substance misuse himself, Sinatra didn't judge Gardner and helped her seek treatment. "Can you imagine?" he once mused, according to The Times. "The way I used to chase Ava! And now she's my patient."

Toward the end of Ava Gardner's life, the power dynamic that once typified her relationship with Frank Sinatra shifted. Sinatra became a huge star and a cultural icon; in the late '60s, he released "My Way," and in 1984, he played to a packed audience at Philadelphia's Spectrum arena. All the while, Gardner's star faded. By the late '80s, she was flat broke.

As she approached her 60th birthday, she reflected on her failed marriage to Sinatra with her quintessential wit. "I'll always love him," she said, according to UPI. "It was always great in bed. The troubles were all out of bed." After years of hard drinking, she had a stroke in 1986, leaving half her body paralyzed. According to "Frank & Ava: In Love and War," Sinatra called his ailing ex-wife when she was in the hospital, telling her, "I love you, baby. It stinks, getting old." He also sent her $50,000 to pay for medical treatment, which Gardner found insulting.

Four years later, at age 67, she died of pneumonia. Sinatra was devastated. "Ava was a great lady, and her loss is very painful," he told The Associated Press. He paid for her funeral but did not attend the ceremony out of fear of attracting paparazzi. Instead, he showed his respect by sending her an abundant wreath. "He never got over it," his daughter, Tina, conceded, as quoted in "Ava Gardner: A Life in Movies."