Sinatra was Gardner’s third and last marriage, from 1951-1957. In her autobiography she claimed that Sinatra was the love of her life.
Sinatra left his wife Nancy to be with Gardner and their marriage received a lot of media attention. Sinatra was victim to a lot of verbal bashing from the Roman Catholic Church for leaving his wife for her, despite him having affairs right through his marriage, this relationship was the one that eventually led to his divorce from Nancy.
Gardner was influential in getting Sinatra a role in From Here to Eternity (1953) as she was very close to Harry Chon’s wife at the time, which subsequently catapulted his career to new levels as a singer and an actor.
In 1951, Sinatra was broke and Gardner had to pay for his plane ticket to visit her in Africa where she was filming Mogambo.
While they were married, Gardner became pregnant twice, both of which she had aborted and after their split they were still on very mutual terms.
He reportedly had a picture of Gardner by his mirror long after they had broken up.