I'm a Fool to Want You by Frank Sinatra Song Info
"I'm A Fool To Want You" is one of the most personal and emotionally exposed ballads Sinatra ever sang. He first recorded this hauntingly dark and pain-etched song, which he helped write, in early 1951 during a dark and desperate period in his soap opera-like relationship with actress Ava Gardner ("The Last Goddess" was "the" love of his life). So great was Sinatra's grief and deep his despair over losing her that her attempted to end his own life on two separate occasions. Their intensely passionate and wildly stormy relationship has been well documented; it was one of the most dramatic and heavily reported Hollywood affairs in the early 1950s. At the time, the two were rage of every gossip rag. Sinatra and Gardner began their affair in the fall of 1949 while Sinatra was still married to his first wife (the mother of Nancy, Frank Jr. and Tina). Granted a divorce, Sinatra quickly married Gardner in November '51. But their fervent and volatile love was simply too hot and all-consuming and they separated in October '53. After a series of many failed reconciliations the two finally divorced in July '57, two short months after Sinatra made a second recording of this song. Nothing in life wounded Sinatra more, or gave greater depth and meaning to his art, than his affair and marriage with Ms. Gardner.
