First wife of Frank Sinatra

Born: March 25, 1917;

Died: July 13, 2018

NANCY Sinatra Senior, who has died aged 101, was the childhood sweetheart of Frank Sinatra who became the first of his four wives and the mother of his three children.

She was born as Nancy Barbato on March 25, 1917 and met Frank in 1934 at the New Jersey holiday resort of Long Branch. He was 19, she was 17 and the couple got engaged almost immediately, marrying

at Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic church in Jersey City, New Jersey, on February 4, 1939, just as Frank’s singing career was about to take off. Three years before marrying Nancy, he had landed a 15-minute radio show on local station WAAT.

Over the next few years, they rarely saw each other because of Sinatra's virtually non-stop work-schedule. During the marriage’s early years, the Sinatras lived in a modest apartment in Jersey City. For a time Nancy was employed as a secretary while her husband worked as a singing waiter.

Frank had admitted, when questioned by Nancy, that he had been involved with another woman, but he insisted there would be no more and the pair got married.

However, in September, 1950, Nancy was granted a legal separation because of his mental cruelty.

The couple had three children, beginning with Nancy Junior, who was later famous or her song These Boots Were Made For Walkin', followed by singer Frank Junior who died in 2016 and actress Tina.

After Sinatra became a pop-music sensation in the 1940s, the couple moved to Los Angeles, where the singer would also become a movie star, raconteur, man about town and notorious womaniser.

Nancy left Frank after his affair with actress Ava Gardner became public knowledge. Weeks after the pair’s divorce became final in 1951, Sinatra’s ex-husband married Gardner, while Sinatra went on to raise the couple’s three children.

After the gossip over the divorce and Gardner marriage died down, Nancy Sinatra devoted herself to family and numerous celebrity friends, largely withdrawing from the spotlight. She not only outlived her husband, who died in 1998, but her son, who died in 2016.

In later years she would become known as Nancy Sr., especially after daughter Nancy became a 1960s singing star in her own right with These Boots Are Made For Walking and other hit songs.

She also remained friendly with her ex-husband, the latter being said to have put in requests over the years for pasta and other Italian food dishes she was known to be an expert at preparing. She never remarried and, when asked why not, she is said to have replied: "After Sinatra?"

Nancy Junior posted the news of her mother's death online. She wrote: "My mother passed away peacefully tonight at the age of 101. She was a blessing and the light of my life. Godspeed, Momma. Thank you for everything."

She is survived by her two daughters.