Mia Farrow is one of my all-time favorite humans, mostly because I like her films and love the home life she appears to have cultivated. She also shares a fair bit on Instagram and always seems so genuine and real: I just dig her. So I was extra pleased when she recently shared a few photos of her ex-husband Frank Sinatra and offered a tiny glimpse into their life together.
Mia and Frank got married when she was 21 and he was 50, which in and of itself caused quite the uproar. Even though they divorced two years later, they ended up staying friends throughout the rest of Frank's life.
In fact, Sinatra biographer Darwin Porter has said, "She never stopped loving him. Sinatra was the love of her life. It was a love affair that continued even after their divorce and they remained close till the end. She told friends that she was still very much in love with him."
So it really isn't surprising that social distancing and sheltering in place has Mia taking a stroll down memory lane. In one post, she wrote: "I took this when a butterfly landed on Franks hand. Its blurry because i got too excited."
Considering that Frank Sinatra and Mia Farrow are giants in the eyes of many, it's pretty sweet to imagine them sharing such a human moment.
The two reportedly divorced because Frank wanted Mia to take a more traditional stay-at-home wife role in the relationship, or to work less, just as her career was beginning to skyrocket. She said no, and "Sinatra divorced Farrow because he demanded that she drop out of filming Rosemary's Baby after three-quarters of the movie had been filmed, to co-star with him in a forgettable movie The Detective."
Apparently, this kind of behavior was part of the deal. "That was Sinatra being crazy, he'd do things like that. Mia loved him but his demands were unreasonable. She couldn't do it."
Frank also reportedly offered Mia money after their divorce, but she declined. "I didn't accept one penny from Frank Sinatra. What I wanted was his respect and friendship."
Mia later married composer André Previn, but she and Frank allegedly remained "intimate friends" throughout that relationship. (Mia: Absolutely no one blames you. Those eyes!)
Mia and André had six children together but ended up divorcing after nine years of marriage. Mia entered into a new relationship with a film director the following year.
Her relationship with the director was sometimes troubled, and Mia would turn to her old friend Frank for support and camaraderie. Darwin Porter explained, "There was a time in her relationship with [the director] when things weren't going well and Sinatra was still very close to her."
Frank died in 1997, and Mia remained close to his family. Tina Sinatra remembers that at his funeral, "I was really surprised to see Mia, accompanied by her son [Ronan]. My sister had invited the people closest to us and to dad."
Darwin has also said that amid rumors that Frank may have been Ronan's biological father, "Tina Sinatra is not very accepting of Ronan but Nancy is fond of him."
In the years that followed Frank's death, Mia has built a life that centers on activism and serving others. In 2000, UNICEF asked her to visit Nigeria and help with efforts meant to eradicate polio. Mia had polio when she was 9, and she was well-steeped in the ways the disease can ravage someone's body.
Mia is also close with her son. While speaking about the two, a friend commented, "How they work together is amazing. They are both incredibly smart. People know that about Ronan, but people don’t appreciate how smart Mia is. In the process of thrashing out an op-ed, they are confident of what they know and obsessive over their words. Try to write 800 words with them; it’s excruciatingly painful, because it has to be absolutely right — draft after draft after draft."
Rumors have swirled around the possibility that Frank may be Ronan's biological father, but honestly, it sounds like most of the people closest to the truth of the story feel that whatever is or isn't true just doesn't change anything about them.
Frank's daughter Nancy has said of Ronan and Mia, "He is a big part of us, and we are blessed to have him in our lives. From the early days until now, we have been like sisters. My mother is also very fond of her. We are family and will always be."
Touchingly, Mia also told Vanity Fair that she put "a small bottle of Jack Daniel’s" in Frank's coffin, along with "a dime, because he always told us never to go anywhere without a dime. ‘You never know who you’ll have to call.’"
