Sinatra, Nancy

Sinatra, Nancy, 1960s-era pop icon, daughter of famed crooner Frank Sinatra; b. Jersey City, N.J., June 8, 1940. Being the daughter of Frank Sinatra gave Nancy Sinatra a leg up on the entertainment biz. As a four-year-old, she inspired Phil Silvers and Jimmy Van Heusen to write “Nancy (with the Laughing Face),” a Top Ten hit for her dad in 1945. By 19, she was sharing the small screen with dad and Elvis Presley in a group called the Tri-Tones. She married teen sensation Tommy Shaw shortly after and curtailed her own career for a while. In the early 1960s, Nancy made several records for her father’s company, Reprise. “Cuff Links & a Tie Clip” cast her as an Annette Funicello wannabe, to the extent of using Funicello’s producer Tutti Camarara. She scored a small success with “Like I Do,” which charted well in places like Italy and Japan.

By 23, however, Nancy had turned her attention to acting in teen movies, starting with For Those Who Think Young. This led to other forgettable films and some TV performances. Her career started to eclipse her husband’s, and as she filmed Marriage on the Rocks, her own union ended.

Not giving up on recording, Nancy started to explore a different direction, working with country music legend Jimmy Bowen. Although this didn’t yield the success she sought, she started to make other changes, segueing from Disney-esque good girl to miniskirted siren. Her transformation was completed when she hooked up with Duane Eddy’s songwriting mainstay, Lee Hazelwood. Hazelwood created a sound that perfectly complemented her new bad-girl image. Their first collaboration, “These Boots Were Made for Walking,” with its walking bass and swingy beat, zoomed to #1 in the winter of 1966, going gold. She followed this a couple of months later with the #7 “How Does that Grab You, Darlin’?” During that summer, “Friday’s Child” went to #36. The Boots album also went gold.

By the end of 1966, with another project in the works, Nancy rose to gold with the adult contemporary chart topper (#5 pop) gold record “Sugar Town.” The Sugar album was banned in Boston for the cover, which featured Sinatra in a very revealing (for the time) bikini. Despite the pop hit, the album only rose to #18.

By 1967, with his daughter’s meteoric pop success during the previous year, Frank Sinatra began introducing himself as “Nancy Sinatra’s father” during shows. They got together for the duet “Something Stupid.” A song more in tune with her dad’s oeuvre than her own, it rose to the top to both the pop charts for four weeks and the adult contemporary charts for nine during the spring of that year, going gold. She followed this a month or so later with the #15 “Love Eyes.” Teaming with Hazelwood, she recorded the #14 version of the Johnny Cash and June Carter hit “Jackson.” Her theme from the James Bond film You Only Live Twice, another string-laden ballad with the odd touch of an acid-tinged guitar, didn’t quite make the Top 40 (stalling at #44), but she rode “Lightning’s Girl” to #24 toward the end of 1967.

Nancy recorded a TV special that co-starred her dad, Dean Martin, and Hazelwood. The album version of the show, Moviri with Nancy, hit #37. She started dating the show’s choreographer, Hugh Lambert. In 1968 she recorded a duet album with Hazelwood, which produced the #20 single “Lady Bird” and the #26 single “Some Velvet Morning.” That album, Nancy and Lee, went gold, rising to #13. She continued to act, appearing with Elvis in Speedway, among others.

By 1970, Sinatra and Lambert had married and she once again dropped out of show business to become a wife and mother, recording sporadically and with little success. In 1985 her public profile rose once more upon the publication of her book about her father, an antidote to an especially nasty volume by Kitty Kelly. In 1995, with her daughters grown, Sinatra started recording and concertizing again, starting where she left off in 1968 with a country rock record One More Time. She announced her comeback with a six-page photo spread in Playboy magazine. She toured with a rock band, joined every now and then by Hazelwood. In 1998 she cut a collection of old, rare songs Sheet Music. In early 1999 she played a show celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Los Angeles club, the Whiskey a Go Go.

Discography

Boots (1966); How Does That Grab You? (1966); Nancy in London (1966); Sugar (1967); Country, My Way (1967); Movin’ with Nancy (1968); Nancy & Lee (1968); Nancy (1969); Woman (1970); This Is Nancy Sinatra (1971); Sheet Music: Collection of Her Favorite Love…(1998).

—Hank Bordowitz