Frank Sinatra and Barbara Marx - Dating, Gossip, News, Photos list. Help us build our profile of Frank Sinatra and Barbara Marx!
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In 1976, 16 years after their first meeting, Frank proposed to Barbara Marx, the ex-wife of Zeppo, the youngest of the Marx Brothers. The marriage, on July 11, was a grandiose affair at the home of the former ambassador Walter Annenberg. The guests included Ronald Reagan — he interrupted his presidential campaign to attend. Frank’s wedding gift was a peacock-blue Rolls-Royce. She gave him a green Jaguar. Frank had had his doubts about marrying Barbara as he had before marrying Mia. Just minutes before the ceremony, Frank told his daughters that he had been hoping to reconcile with Nancy — 25 years after their divorce. He had also been clinging, as ever, to the fantasy that he and Ava could make a fresh start.
Yet being married, Frank said nine months later, gave him a “kind of wonderful tranquillity”. It also seemed to have renewed his appetite for work. He made 92 concert appearances in those nine months alone. There would be well over 1,000 live performances between 1976 and 1990. Barbara greatly changed the Palm Springs compound, and her husband’s coterie no longer had the same access. No one talked now of Frank having extramarital affairs. Frank was reported to have moderated his drinking, to be sleeping better, to have calmed down. Here at last was a woman who could challenge Frank’s authority and, much of the time, get away with it.