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| By Ida Zeitlin |
• She came running in, her face lighting up as always when she sees her father. Frank scooped her into his arms. “Here’s Nancy with the laughing face—”“Hey, that’s a cute song title,” said Phil Silvers, who’d dropped in at Frank’s with Jimmy Van Heusen. Jimmy was doodling at the piano. “Lemme write a lyric and run the pros out of town—” He didn’t mean it. Phil’s that unique bird who doesn’t want to write a lyric. All he wants is to be an employed actor. This lyric he wrote in spite of himself. Because Jimmy grinned up at him and went on doodling, and out of the music little Nancy’s face laughed again, and words began forming inside Phil’s dome. When it was finished, he sang it for big Nancy, who got all choked up and made the boys send it to Frank in New York. He read it and gulped and introduced it on his next broadcast. Maybe he sang it three times altogether before leaving with Phil and the rest of the gang for the ETO. No one expected the song to be commercial. The boys had written it for their buddy, Frank had put it on the air for Nancy, and now it could be retired to private life. So they go overseas and the song’s forgotten and comes time for Frank to do his request numbers. “What’ll it be, fellas?” Twenty thousand guys yell: “Nancy with the Laughing Face—” Frank looks at Phil and Phil looks at Frank and they’re both thinking: “Wise guy! You put ’em up to this—” But it wasn’t a rib. The Armed Forces Radio Service had taken the song off the air and recorded it on V-discs. It was No. 1 in the Stars and Stripes Hit Parade. Those guys are America, Frank figured. If they like it, so will the folks back home. That’s why he took it out of retirement, plugged it, recorded it, had it published. Little Nancy doesn’t say much about the song. Ask her if she likes it, and the most you’ll get is a shy smile. Offer to play the record and she’ll shake her head— “No, let’s play the other side—” It’s Brahms’ Lullaby. She never sings it herself and rarely asks Frank to sing it. When he does it on the air, she listens gravely, her face quiet and withdrawn as if she’d pulled down a curtain and were hiding behind it. Only she can’t hide the shine in her brown eyes. Not quite six, Nancy’s a woman of delicate sensibilities. She knows that in some lovely way, the song’s just between herself and her daddy. doll baby... Frank adores her with the special tenderness men keep for their daughters. Let anything go wrong with her, and he’s lost. One day she had a severe nosebleed, and the doctor said to keep her on her back. He carried her to a couch in the living room, covered her up and spent the day with her. He read, he conversed, he sang, he played records, he colored pictures in her drawing book and would have turned him himself inside out with pleasure to keep her nose from bleeding again. Nancy’s sure Frank wanted their first child to be a boy. He didn’t say so and she never asked him, but you can feel those things. She remembers the day she lectured herself about it. Frank was working with Harry James in Los Angeles, but The Horn’s salary was being attached in some legal action, and for four weeks there hadn’t been any dough. The Sinatras had taken a small apartment with two boys in the band, and Nancy was trying 57 ways to make hamburger taste different. One morning she woke with a still, small sigh. “I’d give anything for a ham sandwich and a piece of apple pie—” That worried Frank. He’d heard about prospective mothers who got a yen for pickles and how their husbands ran miles to get just the kind of pickle they craved. What Nancy wanted was simple, except there wasn’t a dime in the house. He managed, though—found some empty coke bottles and turned them in for cash. On the dinette table, after the boys had left for rehearsal, she found a ham sandwich in wax paper, and a piece of apple pie under a paper napkin marked, “with love, for Nancy—” “The least you can do after that,” she told herself “is to give him a son—” proud poppa... Well, she gave him a daughter first and now he shudders to think that she could have been anything but exactly what she is. The day she was born, he came shouldering his way through the hospital door with a pail and shovel, a teddy bear and a huge doll. Nancy laughed out loud and Frank grinned back. Sure, he knew the kid couldn’t play with ’em yet, but you can’t come empty-handed to see your own daughter. Then they took him to the nursery, and when he came back, Nancy saw that look on his face for the first time. Pretty soon it was mutual. On the whole, little Nancy’s not a demonstrative child, but you’d never guess it to see her hurl herself at her daddy and kiss wherever her face happens to reach—his ear, his eyelash or the back of his coat. Not long ago, Frank had to go to New York. He and little Nancy said their goodbyes in the morning because she’d be at school when the plane left and, in the Sinatra family, you don’t ditch school except for an emergency. But the plane was delayed. Frank kept looking at his watch. “I could have seen Nancy” You’d have thought he was going for five months instead of five days. “Maybe I can still see her. Maybe there’s time to run out and catch her at school—” Instead, they phoned the house and asked big Nancy’s sister, Tina, to pick her niece up at school and drive out to the airport. As the car pulled up, Frank grabbed little Nancy and ran for the plane. By the time the others caught up with them, father and daughter were under the belly of the big Constellation, engrossed in the landing gear— “See those wheels, honey? Well, you know when a bird takes flight, how he tucks his feet under him? Same way with this bird—the wheels are its feet—” First thing Frank packs for a trip are the family pictures. He has them in leather folders of all sizes—big ones for long trips and graduating on down. First thing to go up on his theater dressing table are young Frank and the two Nancys. The longer he’s been away, the more he talks about them—and to them— There’s another sign by which you can tell that Frank’s getting to be a pretty lonesome guy—”Let’s go get some spaghetti,” he says. You go get some spaghetti, he eats it, even seems to enjoy it, then pushes the plate away with an air of gloom. “Nancy still tops them all—” That means it’s high time for Frank to be going home. They’ve never had a nurse for the youngsters, and that’s deliberate. Both feel you lose half the joy of children unless you stay close to them. Big Nancy looks after them herself. Unless he’s broadcasting, or away on business, Frank never misses their bedtime. Little Nancy says her prayers and snuggles under the covers. with Gooch—a once respectable doll who’s now a disgrace, but Nancy loves her. Daddy sings her a lullaby. Then she asks for a story. Mother’s a little stricter than Daddy. She’s more likely to say no story, it’s time to sleep, you’ve got to be up early in the morning. Daddy’s more likely to read her a story. Once in a blue moon he’s got to discipline her and it kills him. The only trouble they ever have with Nancy is at meal times. She can’t sit still long enough to eat. Big Nancy doesn’t bother Frank much with behavior problems, that’s her department. But when he’s around and sees things for himself, he can’t ignore them— “All right,” he says, “you’ll have to stay home next time I go to town—” I won’t say it hurts one more than the other. They’re both crushed. But for good or bad, he’s never broken his word to her. happy birthday... She had a birthday while he was making “Anchors Aweigh,” and her gift was to be a lawn swing. On the morning of the great day, it still hadn’t come. Phone calls zipped back and forth. The shop finally came clean—the swing was still in the warehouse, they’d deliver it tomorrow. But the birthday was today. Sorry, tomorrow was the best they could do. Never tell Frank a thing can’t be done, it’s like giving him the hotfoot. He had to work till five. A pal met him at the studio gate in his station wagon. Luckily, they made the warehouse just before closing time, got the swing lashed to the roof of the car, hauled it home and. set it up on the lawn before Nancy went to bed. If it hadn’t come, they could have explained it to her. Of course she’d have been disappointed, but she’s a reasonable child, unspoiled and—according to several accounts—unspoilable. But for Frank, that wasn’t the point. The point was you don’t break faith with a kid who trusts you. When he’s not working and she’s home from school, the chances are you’ll find them in the tool shop. Frank’s a frustrated handyman. All the minor repair jobs round the house have to be saved for him. Nancy’s his assistant. “Hand me a screwdriver, honey—” “What size, daddy?” “Middle-size—” “Like the mamma bear? Does that mean it’s a mamma screwdriver?” They’ve been known to spend whole Saturday afternoons companionably cleaning fireside brass. They never seem to run out of conversation. With the present and past taken care of, they turn to the future— “When the little guy grows up, we’re going to get a lot of work done around here, the three of us—” “What’ll Brother do, Daddy?” “Oh, the heavy jobs, I guess. We’ll let him jack up the car—” She giggles, but just the same she wishes Brother’d hurry a little with his growing up, because look at all the fun he’s missing. Brother’s her darling, and she’s the light of his life. She superintends his bathing and feeding, and he paces the floor till she gets back from school. Last Christmas she asked Santa Claus for a sister “just as cute as Brother, only with blue eyes like Daddy’s.” There she takes after her mother. Big Nancy didn’t care whether they came up boys or girls, so long as they were blue-eyed. So she’s got two brown-eyed children. story book daughter... Frank’s the typical father. You can’t talk to him ten minutes before little Nancy pops into the conversation. The baby too, but there’s less to tell about a two-year-old. Nancy, with pigtails and dreaming eyes, looks like a story book child. The boy he roughs up, tumbles him, throws him around. No sissy stuff for his son, no baby talk, seldom even the diminutive Frankie. “Hey! Frank!” he yells, and the little fellow yells back: “Hi!” At a year old he was about to be taken to the barber’s for his first haircut— “Nothing doing!” said Frank. “My dad gave me my first haircut. I’m giving my kid his.” So he climbed into coveralls, stuck his son between his knees and, with big Nancy holding the small hands out of harm’s way, did a pretty good job. “But if you’d asked him to cut little Nancy’s hair,” says her mother, “he’d have turned white—” That’s different. Little girls should be handled gently, especially little girls like Miss Sinatra, who have nothing of the tomboy in their makeup. She’s the feminine type—very fastidious about her person and belongings, which is how Frank likes his women. He loves buying clothes for her—starchy little pinafores with hair ribbons and socks to match. But the giving’s far from one-sided. She presents him with her best horses and cows. “Here’s what I drew for you, Daddy—” On Valentine’s Day she made him a beautiful heart with I LOVE YOU, DADDY inside, and don’t think he’d take a couple of gold mines for that. Not long ago she heard talk about a party because Mother and Daddy’d been married seven years. So she took her bank to Aunt Tina. “I want to buy them a present for a surprise—” They decided that she and Brother should go halves. Nancy has her own charming way of presenting things. She’s a little shy and terribly happy and keeps the thing hidden behind her back till she’s close up to you. Then she says, “I have something for you,” and hands it over. That day she and Brother came down the stairs hand in hand. Her eyes blazed with excitement; he was unperturbed. Mother and Daddy waited at the foot of the stairs where Aunt Tina had planted them. On the bottom step, Nancy’s other hand came out from behind her back. “We have something for you,” and she gave Mother the package with the jeweled Juliet cap. “For you,” echoed Brother, smiling like a Della Robbia angel and hanging on to Daddy’s cuff links for dear life. Sister had to pry the box gently out of his fist. As she did so, she sent a swift upward glance toward her parents. “Don’t mind him,” she murmured. “He’s too little to understand.” Unless you’re both a fervent music lover and a parent, you won’t understand what it means to Frank that his children should care about music. He didn’t have to wait long to find out. At a year, little Nancy was almost too sensitive to melody. If he sang something sad like “I’ll Never Smile Again,” she’d start whimpering. If he stopped in the middle and changed to a happy song, she’d break into gurgles with the tears still wet on her cheeks. musical moppet . . . One day she told Mother she’d like to take piano lessons. On Daddy’s calendar that day is ringed in red. “How did it happen?” he asked. Big Nancy couldn’t help laughing. He sounded as if he were treading on holy ground. “The way it generally happens. One of her little friend’s is taking lessons, so she wants them, too—” She was five then. Now she plays well enough to accompany Brother, who has quite a repertoire, including the Brahms “Lullaby.” The lyrics don’t fall too trippingly from his tongue, since he’s only now beginning to put sentences together, but he hums in perfect pitch. Meantime, Frank sees visions. He’s crazy about the harp as an instrument. He thinks that for poetry and grace, few things are lovelier than a girl at a harp. He hopes maybe Nancy will study the harp next. But that’s as may be. What really matters to Frank is that her ears and heart should be open to music. Once he went down to Palm Springs for a few days. Other men, off to Palm Springs for a few days, chuck a toothbrush, shaving kit, slacks into a suitcase and that’s it. Frank lugs an automatic record-player along. In his room one night he listened to a Mozart Concerto, while a friend read a book. Presently the other guy looked up. Frank’s eyes were fixed on little Nancy’s picture, and his pal could have sworn that they weren’t dry. He dropped his own hastily. Quite a while after the concert ended, Frank broke the silence. “Music like that,” he said. “If you don’t love it, it’s like being shut out of a whole beautiful world—it’s like fairyland, and you can’t go in—” He brushed his hand across his forehead. “I’m sure glad little Nancy’s going to love it—” The fact that her father’s in the limelight means nothing to her. This is something that Frank and big Nancy haven’t left to chance. Children easily get a distorted sense of values— “If they do, it’ll be our fault, not theirs,” the Sinatras agreed. So they’ve tried to provide the normal healthy American background. There’s been no radical change for little Nancy. She’s moved to another house, but Mother still buttons her, sees that she eats, puts her to bed, lends a hand in the kitchen as she always did. Frank spends as much time with his kids as any man who has to work for a living—probably more than most, not because he has more time, but because he makes it. Their home is gay and friendly. You’ll get no formal invitations to dinner, but theirs is probably the openest door in Hollywood, and Nancy the readiest hostess. It’s a cliché in Hollywood that, if you make five thousand a week and I make a measly grand, we don’t get invited to the same parties. That may sound like a joke to you, but in filmdom’s statelier circles, it’s an ironclad law. The Sinatras don’t move in stately circles, they just walk around plain like you and me. The people who come to their house are people they like—song pluggers, relatives, movie stars, buddies from back in Jersey, or a garage mechanic Frank made friends with—as he made friends with Simon in New York. Simon’s a taxi driver in his middle fifties with a grown son. Whenever the Voice comes to town, Simon drops his regular route and totes Frank around. There’s a bond between them. There’s something in Simon’s mental and spiritual makeup that appeals to Frank, and the other way round. Frank doesn’t write letters, he’s too restless for that, but when he gets a letter from Simon, he sits himself down and answers his friend’s letter. that’s my pop!... Children absorb their atmosphere. In little Nancy’s home, there’s no atmosphere of hero worship. Ask, “What’s your name?” and she’ll say: “Nancy.” The Sinatra’s not important. She knows her daddy sings and makes records, she knows he makes movies and at first she didn’t like it at all— “Oh, my poor daddy!” she wept when they tried to stuff the medicine down his throat in “Higher and Higher.” “Honey,” whispered Mother. “If you carry on like this, I’ll have to take you home—” “Yes, I want to go home, but I want my daddy to come with me—” Now she’s grown up and knows it’s all make-believe. So she goes to see “Anchors Aweigh,” and never stops talking about how Gene Kelly danced with the mouse. Daddy? Uh-huh. Daddy was in it, too— Frank and Nancy worry less than they used to. Their daughter’s own good sense seems to keep her on an even keel. Once an admirer swooped down with: “Gee, is Frank Sinatra really your father? Boy, I wish he were, mine—” “Why? don’t you have your own daddy?” “Oh sure—” “Well, aren’t you glad you’ve got your own daddy? I’m glad I’ve got mine—” There’s one story which seems to me to hold the essence of the feeling between Frank and his little girl— It happened later in the evening of that same wedding anniversary. Friends had come in to help celebrate, and of course, there was music. As a rule, little Nancy sleeps soundly in her quiet room. But she’d probably been overstimulated by the presentation ceremonies and what not. In any case, she suddenly appeared on the landing in robe and pajamas, her eyes very bright and her cheeks very pink... “I want to hear the music—” Nancy let Frank handle it. Maybe the child training books wouldn’t have approved. Maybe he should have taken her straight to bed, covered her up, turned out the light and said goodnight, darling, go to sleep. Well, he didn’t. He carried her off to a side room where you could hear the music faintly, wrapped her up warm, found one of her favorite stories, and read till the tense little body relaxed and the head drooped contentedly against his shoulder... When I hear him sing “Nancy with the Laughing Face,” that’s the picture I see. |