Barbara Sinatra - Marriages

Marriages

Blakeley first married Robert Harrison Oliver, an executive with the Miss Universe pageant, in the mid- to late-1940s, a marriage which produced a son, Robert "Bobby" Oliver, but ended in divorce. She became a Las Vegas showgirl in the 1950s, also modeling clothing for Mr. Blackwell, fashion designer. She met Zeppo Marx in Las Vegas, and the two eventually married. Her son Bobby assumed the family name of his stepfather when Zeppo and Barbara married on September 18, 1959. It had been assumed that Bobby Marx had been legally adopted by Marx. Tina Sinatra has claimed that, according to Robert Harrison Oliver, no such adoption took place. Barbara and Zeppo divorced in 1973. Later, after marrying Frank Sinatra, Barbara would try to get Frank to legally adopt Bobby Marx when Marx was a grown man; Sinatra's children intervened to prevent it. In her book, Lady Blue Eyes, she disputes this, claiming that Frank offered but Bobby did not want the adoption despite their close relationship.

In the early 1970s she started seeing Frank Sinatra. The two were married from July 11, 1976 until his death on May 14, 1998. It was Sinatra's fourth and final marriage, and the longest-lasting one. She converted to Roman Catholicism before she and Frank were married. According to her book, Lady Blue Eyes: My Life With Frank, "He never asked me to change faith for him, but I could tell he was pleased that I'd consider it."