Nancy Sinatra is 70 !

Oops...we failed to note Nancy Sinatra's birthday last week . On June 8, 1940: (singer/actress) Nancy Sandra Sinatra was born to Frank and Nancy Sinatra.

Young Nancy reports: "Dad was in Hollywood with the band (Tommy Dorsey) when I was born at Margaret Hague Hospital in Jersey City (New Jersey).
Already I was being prepared for having to share him with the rest of the world. It was the start of one of the themes of my life: a father who was always going away. But as Jo Stafford recalled, "He was so excited that all he did all night was talk about his new baby girl." Happy Belated Brthday Nancy!

Nancy with a laughing face...the true story

The authorship of the Sinatra classic, "Nancy...with a laughing face" is discussed/covered  at great lengths on both the internet and in several books covering the tunes of the great american songbook. In every case, they have it mostly wrong. Here is my personal story:

"In 1979, I was working with songwriter Jimmy Van Heusen (PHOTO) on a TV special with Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope that was never produced. Jimmy told me that one day (circa 1942) he and his lyricist Johnny Burke were working at 20th Century-Fox composing for a film. While Burke was out of their writer's bungalow, Phil Silvers, the comedian, a friend to both, entered and suggested to Jimmy that they write a song for Johnny's wife, Bessie, who was soon to celebrate a birthday. Silvers provided the lyrics, later revised by Van Heusen and Burke. 

At the party they sang "Bessie... with the laughing face" It was such a hit that they used it at other female birthday events. When they sang it as "Nancy... with the laughing face" at little Nancy Sinatra's birthday party, Frank broke down and cried thinking that it was written specially for his daughter - the trio wisely didn't correct him. Jimmy assigned his royalties to Nancy after Frank recorded it for Columbia."
Here is a video clip from one of my shipboard lectures for Celebrity Cruises. It covers not only the writing of the song "Nancy," but, a frank discussion of Frank Sinatra and the "mob."