Ann Moses, New Musical Express, 1 June 1968
NANCY SINATRA is a flag, waver and you know it the minute you walk into her brand new Boots Enterprises office above the Sunset Strip. The big sofas are in red and white print, the carpeting is deep white pile, there’s a huge American flag behind the bar and American-flag glasses to match, a blue table, and if all this isn’t enough to get the idea across, behind her little round spectacles sits little Nancy in a terry-cloth red, white and blue mini-dress!
I walked in and spent the first few minutes eyeing the room while Nancy finished signing contracts. When she finished she greeted me warmly and explained that she’d just done a photo session and that this was the dress she always wore on her tours in Vietnam.
“I’m a flag waver,” she admitted. “I like everything in red, white and blue. I get tired of this anti-American stuff. I decided anyone who walks in here is going to know where I stand!”
After her secretary served us diet-colas from the bar, we began talking about her forthcoming film, Speedway, in which she stars with Elvis Presley.
Said no
“It’s funny,” she laughed, “but I’ve done seven pictures and each one my agent has told me I shouldn’t do it. Actually, Elvis and I knew nothing about doing this film together until MGM called my agent and asked if I would do the next Elvis picture. As usual, my agent advised me against it, because he says I should be doing movies like Darling. But I really wanted to do it because I knew the chemistry would be great between Elvis and me!
“I’ve known Elvis for over ten years now. We did my dad’s Welcome Elvis Back TV show together and after that it was like running into him here and there, phone calls, notes, wires — continual contact over the years. It was a friendship that built to the point that when we worked together it was such a great thing for both of us.”
It seemed odd to me, since everything in Elvis’ life has always been blown up, that at some time the movie magazines hadn’t linked Nancy and Elvis romantically.
I found that was hardly the case when she told me: “You must remember our friendship started when my ex-husband (Tommy Sands) and Elvis were both managed by Colonel Tom Parker. They were very dear friends. It was sort of a family situation and it’s grown that way over the years.”
Their obvious closeness was not always appreciated by the director of Speedway. Nancy recalled to me: “We’d got so hysterical over things that we couldn’t get through a scene for laughing so hard. One day the director got furious and threw everybody out and made us go home. We were unprofessional, I admit, but we couldn’t help it! “
The hysterical moments didn’t stop when the cameras stopped rolling, either. “Sometimes there would be hysterical scenes off the set when my stand-in and I would wrestle Elvis and his eight buddies! We’d be killing each other, romping all over the sound stage, laughing and screaming!
“And the practical jokes they’d play on me! Once they locked me in my dressing room and I’d hear the director calling for me for a shot and I couldn’t get out. Very funny things like that. Marvellous!
Into the hole
“Another time Elvis and his buddies picked me up and threw me inside the hole under the makeup table. Then they took the cushions from the studio couches and stuffed them in front of me. I couldn’t move and I could hardly breathe! I was screaming and yelling… funny practical jokes like that!” She couldn’t help but laugh recalling it.
“The other way I met with Elvis was we’d have very serious talks about religion, meditation and things like that. He’s more aware than any person I know. No, I take that back, because my father is really more aware than any person I know, but Elvis is very much like my father. I don’t mean aware of facts so much as I mean aware of people and feelings and thoughts.”
I had assumed that because Elvis had been doing films for so many years that film-making would be pretty routine to him. Nancy was quick to correct me.
“He loves his work,” she emphasised. “He’s one of the few people I know who really enjoys life. When he’s sad, he’s the saddest person in the world and when he’s happy, he’s the happiest person in the world. He experiences everything with great highs and lows.
“I just know that he’s a very complex, deep-thinking man. He’s got great ESP. He’s really on a very high plane. But people don’t understand this, they don’t realise it because they don’t know him. He’s never really allowed people to get to know him.”
Nancy mentioned that she specially enjoyed meeting Elvis’ wife, Priscilla, who visited the set often. She remembers the day Elvis announced that he was a father-to-be and they all celebrated with champagne.
Gave party
It was Nancy, in fact, who gave Priscilla her baby shower, a private party to which close friends and relatives were invited. There was even a hired policeman at Nancy’s front gate to keep out the Press and the fans who inevitably show up.
Even though El had dated Priscilla on and off for several years, Nancy had never met her, probably because Priscilla lived in Nashville. Now she says: “Priscilla is a groove! They are so great those two… they look like something off the top of a wedding cake. She’s so tiny, just five feet one and he’s like six feet three, but they’re so marvellous together.”
In Speedway Nancy and Elvis hate each other and fight throughout the flick. In the end they do get together in a love scene, a scene that almost wasn’t put on film! The reason?
“We could hardly stop laughing! It was like doing a love scene with your brother. Trying to keep a straight face was impossible.”
The scene was eventually shot and Nancy admitted she was pleased with the end result. “It’s a fun film. It’s an entertainment movie and if audiences will take it for what it is, they’ll enjoy it. I think I’m all right in it except for my speaking voice. I got very tense in trying to keep a straight face and trying to get through the scenes, so my voice, as it does with most performers, went up. Apart from that, I think the performance is good, the chemistry between Elvis and I is good and the film is good.”
Kept busy
With the great success of Nancy’s first television special Movin’ With Nancy, Boots Enterprises, her production company, has really kept her busy. Boots began when Nancy got tired of having business meetings in her home nearly 24 hours a day. Today they are conducted in plush offices, where a fast growing business is developing.
“Eventually I hope to be a figurehead, to be out of it and have someone else run the business for me. Right now I’m very involved in it because I’m the only thing in Boots that’s saleable right now. I want to sign other artists, to develop new talent, and that way eventually get out of the business end.
“I’m working so hard at it right now because I don’t want to dissipate what I’ve done. It would be a crime to waste it all. So many people, girls in particular, attain a certain amount of success and then they get married, get pregnant and they let it all kind of fizzle out.
“I don’t want to continue the actual physical work of it when I’m married and pregnant, except on very special occasions. But if I establish it and give it a good foundation now, when I do get out it will run on and keep building. That’s what I want. I don’t know if it can be done, but I’m going to try.”
© Ann Moses, 1968
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