History Made Every Day™

Hollywood stars Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra marry. Gardner had already been married twice--to Mickey Rooney and band leader Artie Shaw--and Sinatra had been married once, to Nancy Barbato, mother of his three children. His divorce from Barbato became final just days before he married Gardner. The couple stayed together until 1957.

Sinatra, the New Jersey-born son of an Italian fireman, formed a singing quartet in his teens. The group won a popular radio talent show in 1935 and began touring small nightclubs. In 1940, Sinatra joined the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and began topping the charts.

Sinatra soon became a popular screen actor, but after his vocal chords suffered damage in 1952, his career took a drastic downturn. His talent agency dropped him, and he had to plead for roles. For the paltry sum of $8,000, he agreed to play a supporting role in From Here to Eternity (1953)-for which he won an Academy Award. He went on to receive an Oscar nomination for The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), for his portrayal of a drug addict. His career gained steam as he aged; his voice recovered and his songs became more popular than ever. After his marriage to Gardner, he was married two more times, to Mia Farrow and then to Barbara Marx, the widow of one of the Marx brothers.

Gardner, Hollywood's reigning glamour queen in the late 1940s and early 1950s, came from North Carolina, one of six children of a poor farmer. She planned to become a secretary, but at age 18 a picture taken by her brother-in-law accidentally landed in MGM's casting department, and the studio signed her. Gardner's career reached its peak in the early 1950s. She was nominated for an Oscar in 1953 for Mogambo, in which she competed with Grace Kelly for Clark Gable's interest. She continued to make film and TV appearances throughout the early 1980s and appeared on the TV series Knots Landing in 1985. Gardner died in 1990 and Sinatra died in 1998.