Frank Sinatra’s Children Lived In The Shadow Of His Fame — Their Untold Story

Three kids grew up hearing the most famous voice in America through a telephone, not a doorway. Frank Sinatra was an only child in Hoboken, the son of a mother who pushed hard and a father who wanted something steadier for him than singing. By 1942 that voice was on every radio dial, bobby-soxers lined up before dawn at the Paramount Theatre and fainted in the aisles, and in October 1944 roughly 30,000 of them mobbed Times Square, smashed the box office and forced the police to call in reserves. The man who had come home for dinner stopped coming home. Nancy Barbato held the house together through the tours, then through the headlines about Ava Gardner, then through a separation in 1951 that ended in divorce, and she never signed another marriage certificate. By 1950 Columbia had dropped him and his own agency cut him loose. Mid-song at the Copacabana a blood vessel burst in his throat and the sound just stopped. He chased the part of Maggio in From Here to Eternity and offered to work for scale, roughly $8,000 against the fortune he had once commanded, then stood up in March 1954 with Best Supporting Actor in his hand. His children got the televised version instead: holiday specials where the family gathered close under studio lights, then Las Vegas, the Rat Pack, Reprise Records and the nickname Chairman of the Board. Nancy signed to her father's label in 1961 and watched single after single disappear until Lee Hazlewood told her to sing like a girl who had been lied to, and These Boots Are Made for Walkin' went to number 1 in 1966. Her brother was already on the road, singing standards with Tommy Dorsey's old band for crowds who mostly came for the name. On December 8, 1963, in a blizzard off Lake Tahoe, a knock on room 417 brought a gun. Two men drove Frank Jr. into the storm, blindfolded him, switched cars south through the mountains and demanded $240,000. His father dropped small bills between two parked school buses while agents watched, then waited by phones that rang on someone else's schedule. His son came back two days later, walking a dark highway near Bel Air. Three men were arrested, nearly all the money recovered, and then a defense lawyer told a jury the whole thing had been staged for publicity. The jury threw it out. The speech model never left him. Mia Farrow married his father in 1966 at 21, a year younger than his eldest daughter. Retirement came in 1971 and lasted two years. Barbara Marx took over the Palm Springs compound in 1976, and Tina produced a five hour CBS miniseries in 1992 that the wife at the center of his life believed pushed her to the margins. Frank Jr. died on tour in Daytona Beach on March 16, 2016. Nancy Barbato died in 2018 at 101. Two sisters now decide who gets to use the voice.