The last of Frank Sinatra’s four wives will be buried next to her famed crooner husband Tuesday after a public memorial service in the desert near Palm Springs.
Barbara Sinatra died of natural causes at her Rancho Mirage home last Tuesday while surrounded by family and friends, according to family spokesman John E. Thoresen, director of the Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center Foundation. she was 90.
The Las Vegas showgirl had been married to Marx Brothers legend Zeppo before her marriage to Sinatra.
She will be memorialized at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Palm Desert during a ceremony that is open to the public. Sacred Heart’s Father Howard Lincoln also read Sinatra’s last rites.
Following the service, she will be buried next to Frank Sinatra at Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City.
Barbara Sinatra’s Rancho Mirage home is in the upscale community just east of Palm Springs, and Palm Desert and Cathedral City are also desert cities near the better-known resort town.
The onetime model and Las Vegas showgirl tied the knot with Frank Sinatra in 1976 at Walter Annenberg’s Rancho Mirage estate, the first of only three couples to be married at what is now known as Sunnylands. They traveled the world together until his death in 1998.
In 1985, the couple began raising funds to establish the Barbara Sinatra Center for Abused Children in Rancho Mirage, which advocates for children suffering the effects of physical, sexual or emotional abuse. The nonprofit center on the Eisenhower Medical Center campus also focuses on prevention, community education and breaking the generational cycle of abuse. It has provided treatment for more than 20,000 children through age 18 since its inception, according to Thoresen.
Sinatra chaired the children’s center’s Board of Directors and advocated on behalf of abused children throughout the United States and abroad. She also served on the Board of Trustees of the Princess Grace Foundation.
In 2016, the Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center Foundation developed a series of animated videos entitled “The Protect Yourself Rules” for children in grades K-6. The videos are distributed to teachers, school counselors, after-school programs and parents, free of charge. In the past 11 months, the program has been shown to more than 700,000 children throughout the United States and in many foreign countries, according to Thoresen.
A 2011 book,”Lady Blue Eyes … My Life with Frank,” details Sinatra’s humble beginnings in Missouri, her life with her iconic husband and her philanthropic efforts.
Born Barbara Blakeley in Bosworth, Missouri, her father Willis owned Blakeley’s General Store on Bosworth’s Main Street. When she was 18, her family moved to Long Beach and she married Robert Oliver and began her modeling career. Following their divorce, she wed actor-comedian Zeppo Marx in 1959 in Las Vegas and they settled in Palm Springs, where she began her journey as an activist for children’s causes.
Sinatra, who also maintained homes in Beverly Hills and Malibu, is survived by her son, Robert Marx, his wife, Hillary Roberts, and a granddaughter Carina Blakeley Marx.
—City News Service