Mia Farrow and Frank Sinatra had a 29 years age gap and although their relationship didn't last long, he stays in her heart even now.
Editor's note: This article was originally published on December 31, 2020. It has since been updated.
Woody Allen, 87, isn't the only famous person Mia Farrow, 78, has been in a relationship with. However, that might be the one most talked about. Farrow was a very young woman when she married the legendary Frank Sinatra. They had a 29-year age gap and although their relationship didn't last long, he stays in her heart even now.
Farrow and Sinatra married when she was 21, and they divorced only two years later. She has even said that he was the love of her life, and it was rumored that one of her children, Ronan Farrow, was fathered by Sinatra.
The couple met in 1964 while working on the movie Von Ryan’s Express, which was a World War II film. Farrow was only 19 then while Sinatra was nearing 50, according to CheatSheet.
He used to call her "Angel Face," according to TheVintageNews. She called him "Frankie" and "Charlie Brown" lovingly. He would shower her with love and gifts and fly her to Palm Springs for the weekends on his private plane. Unfortunately, their relationship became fodder for ridicule. "I always knew Frank would end up in bed with a boy," said Sinatra’s ex-wife Ava Gardner after Farrow cut her hair short.
Initially, the age gap didn't matter to them and they tied the knot in 1966 at a small private ceremony in Las Vegas. This was soon after the actress turned 21 and said her first intimate partner was Sinatra, as per CheatSheet. Farrow was younger than his oldest daughter Nancy.
However, their age difference caught up with them eventually. Farrow's idea of a good time didn't match his anymore. He liked to drink martinis and hit the craps table or watching old movies at home. Once, when he suggested doing a screening of one of his movies in the desert, she said, "Oh, no. We’ve all seen it at least five times."
The singing legend also believed that his wife should stay home and let him provide for her but she wasn't going to have any of that. She did agree initially and would tag along on his work but that life bored her soon enough. When she was offered Rosemary’s Baby, she accepted the offer. Unfortunately, filming for it lasted longer than the scheduled time and it interfered with a project the Way You Look Tonight singer had planned for them.
She also refused to stop working on the film but she was agonizing over Sinatra's behavior. She was on edge, crying on the set, and losing weight that made her look unhealthily thin. Rosemary's Baby was being directed by Roman Polanski, who was a perfectionist, and Farrow even asked him to work faster. Farrow was stunned when she received divorce papers on the set of the film. Her husband was not used to people standing him up.
They ended up divorcing in Mexico in August 1968 but stayed friends through the years. "I loved him 'til the day he died and beyond, he was the love of my life," Farrow told RTÉ Radio 1. She also believed that he shouldn't have left his first wife, Nancy Barbato. "Here's the thing, he was Sicilian and he was of a generation where he felt he should be enough, that women shouldn't work, that they should be in the home, like his first wife Nancy, who was the greatest, and who he never should've left by the way," she said.
Her son, Ronan, who was previously thought to be her and Allen's son, may have been Sinatra's, she told in an interview for Vanity Fair. Allen said he wouldn't "bet his life" on Ronan being his child.
References:
https://www.thevintagenews.com/2019/04/06/frank-sinatra-and-mia-farrow/
https://www.rte.ie/entertainment/2017/0218/853645-mia-farrow/#
https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2013/11/mia-farrow-frank-sinatra-ronan-farrow
