The End of a Marriage for a Crooner and an Actress

On this day in 1957, the marriage of Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner dissolved. In Gardner's autobiography she claimed that out of all the men she met and married that Sinatra was the "love of her life". When word got out that he was going to marry Gardner he was hounded by Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons, his fans for planning to marry a girl who's roles consisted of playing "femme fatales", and he was even savaged by Hollywood itself and the Roman Catholic church.

In fact during the course of their marriage Gardner became twice pregnant but was forced to have abortions because Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer actually had penalty clauses about their stars having children. When the marriage ended Gardner and Sinatra remained the closet of friends until Ava's death in 1990. Sinatra would die in 1998.