Frank Sinatra’s mother, Natalina Garaventa, was nicknamed Dolly. The nickname reportedly came from her appearance as a child, when her family considered her especially pretty. She later became widely known as Dolly Sinatra.
Born in 1894 in Lumarzo, near Genoa in northern Italy, Natalina was brought to the United States as an infant. She married Antonino “Marty” Sinatra in 1913, and their only child, Frank, was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1915.
Dolly was far more than a background figure in Sinatra’s story. She was energetic and politically active in Hoboken, worked as a midwife, helped immigrants with translation, and became a Democratic ward leader. Her forceful personality and community influence were often described in biographies of her famous son. The names Nancy and Tina are particularly easy to confuse with Dolly because they belonged to later generations: Nancy and Tina were Frank Sinatra’s daughters, while Barbara was the name of his fourth wife.