Sinatra’s ‘devoted and loyal’ first wife Nancy dies at 101
FRANK Sinatra’s first wife Nancy – said to have never stopped loving the singer even after he left her for Hollywood sex siren Ava Gardner – has died at the age of 101.
If the star could have turned back the clock, he never would have ended his marriage to his childhood sweetheart, the couple’s eldest daughter, Nancy Sinatra Jr, once claimed.
‘I asked him, if he had to do it all over again, would he leave mum for Ava,’ said Nancy Jr. ‘And he said no.’ Granddaughter AJ Lambert said: ‘He never stopped loving her. And she never stopped loving him.’
Nancy was 22 when she married Sinatra, then a little-known jazz singer, in 1939. They had three children – Nancy Jr, Frank Jr and Tina – before the singer, known as Ol’ Blue Eyes, left his wife for siren Ava Gardner.
Although he married twice more, Nancy never walked down the aisle again.
She died peacefully on Friday night.