Frank Sinatra was buried last night next to his parents in a bronze-lined vault in the California desert following a Beverly Hills funeral attended by the cream of Hollywood.
Earlier, 750 invitation-only guests provided Sinatra with his final full house as they crammed into the tiny Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Beverly Hills for a Mass celebrated over the singer's open coffin by Cardinal Roger Mahony, the Archbishop of Los Angeles.
In accordance with the singer's wishes, the funeral was kept as simple and as private as was practicable, given Sinatra's huge fame. Television and the press were excluded from the service and were kept behind barriers hundreds of yards from the church.
Inside the gardenia- and ivy-decked church, Sinatra's three children - Nancy, Frank Jnr and Tina - each gave short addresses, and close friends Jerry Vale and Tom Dreesen read from the Bible. The singer Tony Bennett and the actor Robert Wagner delivered eulogies.
His honorary pall-bearers included Bennett, bandleader Quincy Jones and veteran actors Kirk Douglas and Ernest Borgnine. Gregory Peck, Liza Minnelli, Tom Selleck and Shirley MacLaine were also among the mourners.
After the funeral, Sinatra's coffin was taken by private jet for an even more private interment ceremony at the California desert resort of Cathedral City, near Palm Springs.
The coffin was decked in the Stars and Stripes and was carried by a military guard of honour, to which Sinatra was entitled as a recipient of the Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Medal of Honour.
Interest in the singer's will continues unabated, with reports yesterday that his widow Barbara will inherit Sinatra's extensive properties, including those in Beverly Hills and his ocean retreat at Malibu. His three children will acquire the royalties from his catalogue of recordings.
The New York Post reported yesterday that Sinatra, who died last week aged 82, had left between $70 million and $150 million to charities specialising in help for abused children.