Mia Farrow Admits Frank Sinatra 'Had a Temper' but Was 'So Compassionate and Shy'

Farrow said on 'CBS Sunday Morning' that her relationship with Sinatra "ended up being a friendship that lasted until he died" in 1998

Mia Farrow arrives for the Time 100 Gala; Frank Sinatra during 43rd Annual Academy Awards
Mia Farrow in Los Angeles on April 26, 2023; Frank Sinatra in Los Angeles on April 15, 1971. Photo:

ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images; Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images

Mia Farrow is recalling the multi-layered person that was her late ex-husband Frank Sinatra.

During the 79-year-old actress' appearance on CBS Sunday Morning on Sept. 1 alongside her friend Patti LuPone (they costar together in the Broadway play The Roommate), Farrow opened up about Sinatra, whom she was married to from 1966 to 1968.

"Like Patti, he was Sicilian," she told journalist Seth Doane, laughing alongside LuPone, 75. "But unlike Patti, he had a temper."

Farrow, who was nearly 30 years Sinatra's junior, said that "the essential person" of the late actor and singer "was so compassionate and shy, and readily available, more than anyone I've ever known."

"It ended up being a friendship that lasted until he died," she added.

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After meeting on the 20th Century Fox lot in 1964, Farrow and Sinatra quickly fell in love. They wed two years later at a Las Vegas hotel in 1966, when Farrow was 21 and Sinatra was 50.

But the union ended in 1968, after the "My Way" singer served Farrow with divorce papers on the set of her horror film Rosemary’s Baby.

Still, that didn’t mean she and Sinatra completely parted ways. While speaking to Vanity Fair in 2013, the actress admitted that they “never really split up.”

The two enjoyed a long-lasting friendship until his death in 1998 at age 82. In the years since, Farrow has paid homage to her late ex-husband on social media.

In December 2023, she celebrated what would have been the singer’s 107th birthday with a sweet Instagram post captioned in part, “Happy Heavenly Birthday C.B. I will always love you ♥️."

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Mia Farrow Sinatra was granted a quickie Mexican divorce in Juarez on August 16th, from singer Frank Sinatra, a Sinatra representative reported. The couple is shown here following their wedding in Las Vegas on July 19, 1966.
Frank Sinatra and Mia Farrow on July 19, 1966.

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Elsewhere in their CBS Sunday Morning interview, Farrow and LuPone talked about working together on The Roommate, a one-act comedy by Jen Silverman about "an unexpected, life-changing friendship," a release says, "between two different middle-aged women as they navigate the complexities of identity, morality and the dream of reinvention."

LuPone plays a lesbian New Yorker who moves into the Iowa home of Farrow's character. Directed by Jack O’Brien, the 90-minute production is in previews now ahead of an opening night on Sept. 12.

Speaking with Doane, Farrow said she saw doing the show as a chance to have one last hurrah. "It was perhaps a feeling of maybe ‘Is this it, or might there be one last adventure?’ " she said, adding that she's "very good at doing nothing" when she's not working.

"It’s a gift," Farrow joked. "I’m endlessly entertaining to myself. I have good friends. I have no complaints."

Tickets for The Roommate are on sale now.

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