Frank Sinatra Relationships
After suffering another heart attack, Frank Sinatra died at 10:50 pm on May 14, 1998, at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center with wife Barbara and daughter Nancy by his side. Sinatra's final words were I'm losing. He was 82.
President Bill Clinton led tributes to Sinatra, claiming that he had managed to appreciate on a personal level what millions of people had appreciated from afar.
On May 20, 1998 at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills, Sinatra's funeral was held in front of 400 mourners. Gregory Peck, Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra, Jr. addressed the mourners, among whom were Jill St. John, Tom Selleck, Joey Bishop, Faye Dunaway, Tony Curtis, Liza Minnelli, Kirk Douglas, Robert Wagner, Don Rickles, Nancy Reagan, Angie Dickinson and Jack Nicholson. A private ceremony at St. Theresa's Catholic Church in Palm Springs was held later that day before Sinatra was buried a short distance east of St. Theresa's, next to his parents in section A-8 of Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, a quiet, unassuming cemetery on Ramon Road at the border of Cathedral City and Rancho Mirage and near his famous Rancho Mirage compound, located on tree-lined Frank Sinatra Drive. His close friend Jilly Rizzo is buried nearby in the same cemetery.
Legend has it that Sinatra was buried in a blue suit with a flask of Jack Daniel's and a roll of ten dimes which was a gift from his daughter, Tina, along with a card that said Sleep warm, Poppa — look for me. The ten dimes were a habit dating back to the kidnapping of his son, Frank Sinatra, Jr., due to the kidnappers' demands that negotiations be made via pay phone. A Zippo lighter (which some take to be a reference to his mob connections) is purported to be buried with him as is a pack of Camel cigarettes. The words The Best Is Yet to Come are imprinted on his tombstone.
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