Paul Anka has confirmed a long-standing rumor about Frank Sinatra’s anatomy, which was fueled by comments once made by his famous ex-wife, Ava Gardner, after she was asked why she stayed married to him for six turbulent years in the 1950s.
In an interview with Page Six, the 84-year-old Anka said, “Yeah, it was huge.” The singer-songwriter then said, “I don’t know what that does for you!”
Anka told Page Six that he would know about Sinatra’s private parts because he used to hang out with him and other members of the notorious Rat Pack in Las Vegas. Anka also wrote the lyrics to one of Sinatra’s signature songs, “My Way.” Anka said that he, Sinatra and the other guys would often take saunas together.
“I had trouble with eye contact,” Anka joked, before bringing comedian Milton Berle into the conversation. According to Anka, Sinatra had “nothing on Milton Berle.”
The Berle reference is probably TMI, while the Sinatra disclosure may only add to the “Chairman of the Board’s” legend — not just as one of the premiere entertainers of the 20th century, and among the world’s best-selling music artists, but as a ladies man. He was married four times, including to Gardner and Mia Farrow, and he also had reported affairs with some of the most famous, glamorous women in the mid-20th century, including Marilyn Monroe and Lana Turner. He was briefly engaged to Lauren Bacall, following the death of Humphrey Bogart, and married Farrow in 1966, when he was 50 and she was 21.
“Frank attracted women. He couldn’t help it,” his fourth wife, Barbara Sinatra, wrote in her 2011 memoir, “Lady Blue Eyes: My Life with Frank Sinatra.” “Just to look at him — the way he moved, and how he behaved — was to know that he was a great lover and true gentleman. He adored the company of women and knew how to treat them.”
But Gardner, the brash Hollywood beauty whom Sinatra married in 1951, offered another assessment of Sinatra’s allure, according to Vanity Fair. Their marriage was tumultuous and “their fights were legendary,” but so was their passion for each other and their makeups, according to Vanity Fair. Unlike some of Gardner’s other famous lovers — who included bullfighters, John F. Kennedy, Robert Mitchum and Steve McQueen — Sinatra physically presented a more slight figure. He only stood 5 feet 7 inches and weighed around 119 pounds when they were together.
“Well, I’ll tell you — 19 pounds is …” Gardner once said, referring to his penis, according to Vanit Fair.
Before Gardner met Sinatra, she was married to the more diminutive Mickey Rooney. After divorcing her second husband, bandleader and jazz musician Artie Shaw, Gardner met Sinatra at a Palm Springs party in 1949, Vanity Fair reported. He was still married to his first wife, Nancy Barbato, the mother of his three children.
For their first date, Sinatra lured Gardner away from the party and they drove to a nearby desert town to shoot guns at shop windows and street lights, Vanity Fair reported. They were arrested, but perhaps a call to Sinatra’s publicist and/or the studio ensured their release from custody.
Sinatra ended up leaving his first wife for Gardner, and they married in 1951. Three years later, Gardner filed for divorce, after she and Sinatra were both nominated for Academy Awards for their respective performances in “Mogambo” and “From Here to Eternity.” But the couple didn’t finalize their divorce until 1957. Despite their turbulent relationship, they reportedly remained good friends until her death in 1990 from pneumonia at age 67, according to all accounts. Sinatra died in 1998 at age 82.