LOS ANGELES – Nancy Sinatra Sr., the childhood love of Frank Sinatra, who became the first of his four wives and the mother of his three children, has passed away. She was 101 years old.

Her daughter, Nancy Sinatra Jr., tweeted that her mother died Friday and an ad on her website said she died at 6:02 pm.

"She was a blessing and the light of my life," says her daughter.

Attempts to join Sinatra Jr. representatives late Friday were unsuccessful.

Nancy and Frank Sinatra went out together as teenagers and were married at Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church in Jersey City, New Jersey, on February 4, 1939, at the time of Frank's singing career was about to take off. Three years before marrying ex-Nancy Barbato, he had received a 15-minute radio broadcast at local station WAAT

During the early years of the marriage, the Sinatras lived in a modest apartment in Jersey City, where their two eldest were born. . For a time she was employed as a secretary while her husband worked as a singer.

After Sinatra became a pop music sensation in the 1940s, the couple moved to Los Angeles, where the singer also became a movie star, storyteller, man about the city and notorious womanizer.

This latest achievement led Sinatra to leave him after an affair with actress Ava Gardner became public knowledge. A few weeks after the divorce, the ex-husband of Sinatra married Gardner, while Sinatra raised the three children of the couple: Nancy, Frank Jr. and Tina

After the gossip about the divorce and the marriage of Gardner died . Nancy Sinatra is dedicated to her family and many famous friends, largely retiring from the spotlight. She not only survived her husband, who died in 1998, but her son, who died in 2016.

She is credited, under the name of Nancy Barbato, on the Internet Movie database with only two appearances on television and in the cinema. Nancy and Lee in Las Vegas, 1975, and in 1974, the talk show of her friend Dinah Shore.

Later, she will become Nancy Sr., especially after her daughter Nancy became a star of the '60s. She also remained friendly with her ex-husband, the latter being supposed to have made requests over the years for pasta and other Italian dishes that she was known to be an expert in preparation. She never remarried.

"There is no bitterness, only great respect and affection between Sinatra and his first wife" writes Gay Talese in 1966, "and he has long been welcome in his home . »

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