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| Barbara Marx | |
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| Born | Barbara Joanna Blakeley October 16, 1927 Missouri |
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| Other names | Barbara Sinatra |
| Occupation | Former Las Vegas showgirl and model |
| Spouse(s) | Frank Sinatra (1976-1998) Zeppo Marx (1959-1973) Robert Oliver (?-?) |
| Children | Bobby Marx, to Robert Oliver |
Barbara Marx, (born Barbara Joanna Blakeley on October 16 1927) was the wife of former comedian-turned agent, Zeppo Marx, from September 18, 1959 until she divorced him in 1973 and also Frank Sinatra from 1976 until his death in 1998.
Missouri-born Barbara Blakeley married Robert Harrison Oliver, an executive with the Miss Universe pageant, in the mid- to late-1940s, a marriage which produced a son, Robert (aka Bobby), but ended in divorce. Blakeley became a Las Vegas showgirl in the 1950s, modeled clothing for Mr. Blackwell and, according to Blackwell, was a regular at hotel/casino bars in order to come into contact with high rollers, where she reportedly met Zeppo Marx.[citation needed]
Her son Bobby assumed the family name of his stepfather when Zeppo and Barbara married on September 18, 1959, and it has been generally assumed that Bobby Marx had been legally adopted by Marx. Tina Sinatra would, years later, claim that according to Robert Harrison Oliver, no such adoption took place. Decades later, after marrying Frank Sinatra, Barbara would try to get Frank to legally adopt Bobby Marx when Marx was a grown man; Sinatra's children intervened and prevented it.[citation needed]
In the early 1970s she started seeing Frank Sinatra, as a friend at first and later as a lover. The two were married from July 11, 1976 until his death on May 14, 1998. It was Sinatra's fourth and final marriage, and the longest-lasting one, despite Barbara's cool relations with the children from his first marriage.
According to Sinatra's biography by Kitty Kelley and confirmed by his daughter, Tina, in her book, My Father's Daughter, Frank Sinatra's mother, Natalie, railed at the prospect of Barbara Marx as a daughter-in-law, declaring "I don't want no whore in this family!"
Actress Melanie Griffith played her in a film about Frank Sinatra titled The Night We Called It a Day.
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