Unavailable
Unavailable
Unavailable
Audiobook14 hours
Lady Blue Eyes: My Life With Frank
Written by Barbara Sinatra
Narrated by Lorna Raver
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this audiobook
Barbara Sinatra's first public love letter to the husband she adored, she celebrates the sensational singer, possessive mate, sexy heartthrob, and devoted friend that she found in Frank in Lady Blue Eyes.
For more than two decades, Barbara was always by Frank Sinatra's side, traveling the globe and hosting glittering events for their famous friends, including presidents, kings, queens, Hollywood royalty, and musical legends. Among them were Sammy Davis, Jr., Princess Grace of Monaco, Bob Dylan, and Ronald Reagan. Each night, as Frank publicly wooed his bride with love songs from a concert stage, she'd fall in love with him all over again.
From her own humble beginnings in a small town in Missouri to her time as a fashion model and her marriage to Zeppo Marx, Barbara Sinatra reveals a life lived with passion, conviction, and grace. A founder of the Miss Universe pageant and a onetime Vegas showgirl, she raised her only son almost single-handedly in often dire circumstances until, after five years of tempestuous courtship, she and Frank committed to each other wholeheartedly. In stories that leap off the page, she takes us behind the scenes of her iconic husband's legendary career and paints an intimate portrait of a man who was variously generous, jealous, witty, and wicked. Coupled with revealing insights about many of Frank's celebrated songs, this is much more than the story of a showbiz marriage. It is a story of passion and of a deep and lifelong love.
For more than two decades, Barbara was always by Frank Sinatra's side, traveling the globe and hosting glittering events for their famous friends, including presidents, kings, queens, Hollywood royalty, and musical legends. Among them were Sammy Davis, Jr., Princess Grace of Monaco, Bob Dylan, and Ronald Reagan. Each night, as Frank publicly wooed his bride with love songs from a concert stage, she'd fall in love with him all over again.
From her own humble beginnings in a small town in Missouri to her time as a fashion model and her marriage to Zeppo Marx, Barbara Sinatra reveals a life lived with passion, conviction, and grace. A founder of the Miss Universe pageant and a onetime Vegas showgirl, she raised her only son almost single-handedly in often dire circumstances until, after five years of tempestuous courtship, she and Frank committed to each other wholeheartedly. In stories that leap off the page, she takes us behind the scenes of her iconic husband's legendary career and paints an intimate portrait of a man who was variously generous, jealous, witty, and wicked. Coupled with revealing insights about many of Frank's celebrated songs, this is much more than the story of a showbiz marriage. It is a story of passion and of a deep and lifelong love.
Unavailable
Related to Lady Blue Eyes
Related audiobooks
Frank Sinatra, My Father: The Authorized Biography Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSoldier of Love: Frank Sinatra: an Audio Biography Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTHREE CHORDS AND THE TRUTH Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Frank Sinatra: My Way Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSinatra: The Chairman Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Been There, Done That: An Autobiography Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted: And All the Brilliant Minds Who Made the Mary Tyler Moore Show a Classic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5There Was a Time: James Brown, The Chitlin' Circuit, and Me Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Promise That You Will Sing About Me: The Power and Poetry of Kendrick Lamar Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Wild: The Life of Peter Beard: Photographer, Adventurer, Lover Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ocean is Closed: Journalistic Adventures and Investigations Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bing and Billie and Frank and Ella and Judy and Barbra Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFrank Sinatra: His Life, His Music Career and His Acting Career Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Perfect Union of Contrary Things Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Barbra: The Way She Is Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Everybody Had an Ocean: Music and Mayhem in 1960s Los Angeles Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Frank Sinatra: An American Legend Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Chased By Love Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Acid Jazz Singer Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGod Only Knows: The Story of Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys & the California Myth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Real Ambassadors: Dave and Iola Brubeck and Louis Armstrong Challenge Segregation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChestnut Lane (Unabridged) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRebound: Soaring in the NBA, Battling Parkinson's, and Finding What Really Matters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gold Experience: Following Prince in the '90s Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ruby Red Skies Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Life in the Purple Kingdom Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Irresistible Attraction Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Robin Williams: When the Laughter Stops 1951 - 2014 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Frank Sinatra Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNancy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Women's Biographies For You
Love, Pamela: A Memoir of Prose, Poetry, and Truth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Glass Castle: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finding Me: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Class: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Uncultured: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Own It All: How to Stop Waiting for Change and Start Creating It. Because Your Life Belongs to You. Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Year of Magical Thinking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hello, Molly!: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Down the Drain Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Tell Me Everything: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Stash: My Life in Hiding Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In the Dream House: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You Got Anything Stronger?: Stories Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Stories We Tell: Every Piece of Your Story Matters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Butts: A Backstory Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My Mother Was Nuts: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Worthy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We're Going to Need More Wine: Stories That Are Funny, Complicated, and True Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sex Cult Nun: Breaking Away from the Children of God, a Wild, Radical Religious Cult Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Written in Bone: Hidden Stories in What We Leave Behind Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Everything I Know About Love: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Babysitter: My Summers with a Serial Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation’s Largest Home Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Lady Blue Eyes
Rating: 3.8333333333333335 out of 5 stars
4/5
15 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It made me laugh, it made me cry. That's the best kind of book you can ask for.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The personal side of this great man is told in this book. I love him even more
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Frank Sinatra. I don’t have to type anything else. I came of age when hard rock was blasting from every kids radio, but I have always preferred songs that told a story, crooners, and of course, a great saloon song. When someone asks me about the music of the last 50 years, I always say, “I quit listening when Sinatra quit recording.” What a voice for a man whose ear drum was perforated at birth!I had the pleasure of seeing Mr. S. two of the times he performed in St. Louis…once in the 1980s and the other in the mid-1990s. By the latter, his voice wasn’t as strong as it used to be and he would forget some of the lyrics. But his charisma exuded from the moment he walked on stage was overwhelming. It’s was worth every penny I paid for those tickets.When I stumbled upon his widow’s memoir of her life with the legendary singer, I couldn’t pass up a chance to read about his life. The all-nighters, the parties, the loyalty, the charm, the compassion, the women, the generosity, are tales fit for the tabloids. I learned he liked to paint in his later years, loved to read (I knew we had something in common), and do crossword puzzles (and he did them in ink).Barbara Ann Blakely, from Bosworth, Missouri, first heard Sinatra at a drive-in when she was fifteen years old. She had no way of knowing that she would someday become the love of her life. At least that’s her story. But I have to wonder. True, she was his longest-lasting marriage, 22 years. In Lady Blue Eyes: My Life With Frank, Barbara comes off as a gold digger. As much as I enjoyed reading about their personal lives, there was always that feeling I had that she didn’t love him as much as she loved his money and his fame; not near as much he seemed, in this telling, to love her.I liked the conversational, breezy style Barbara uses (with the help of co-author Wendy Holden). The stories were intriguing but never went into gory detail, except perhaps in the details of Mr. S’s good friend Jilly Rizzo’s death. That gave me nightmares. At the very heart of Barbara’s remembering, in my eyes, is Mr. S’s loneliness. An only child, he seemed to have felt that his entire life. He felt as deeply as his songs made others feel. That’s the best way to describe it. His descent into old age was glossed over. There were two mentions of him sitting in wheelchairs and mentions of his health issues. They were disconcerting, and I wanted to know more about how old age was wearing him down.The most touching scene in the book is Mr. S’s death at age 82. As Barbara begs him to fight him to fight, he whispers, “I can’t.” Probably the only time in his life that he said that. I wondered how other readers felt Barbara came off, so I perused that reviews on Amazon. There I noticed many attacks on Barbara. While she didn’t come off so well, I don’t feel a need to hate her. It’s okay to hate characters, but the ones I read were really tough on her. I tried to judge the book by its ability to hold my attention, to keep turning the page, and to allow me to take a small peek at one of the entertainers I most admire. And Lady Blue Eyes does just that, which is why I give it 5 out of 5 stars.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Biography of Frank Sinatra by his fourth wife, Barbara Sinatra. This is an entertaining book with lots of name dropping. This is definitely an idealized version of his life with all the warts removed and the controversies overlooked, but I enjoyed reading it.