These Boots are Back

It should come as no surprise that Nancy Sinatra is back. We've known her since she was just a kid, when her father--you know, the most famous saloon singer in the universe--introduced her in a lilting lullaby called Nancy(With the Laughing Face). Twenty years later, she strutted into pop culture accompanied by an indelible quarter-tone bass line as she snarled the lyrics to the protofeminist anthem, number one hit and all-around cool song These Boots Are Made for Walkin'. Occasionally, she even lent daddy a hand; One of his biggest hits is Somethin' Stupid, his duet with Nancy.

She has been entertaining us her entire life, so why not now, too? Her return will soon become an assault on all fronts, including the concert circuit. She has a new album called One More Time and is at work on a four-hour documentary and CD-ROM on her father: Meanwhile, a bunch of her albums have been reissued on CD. Independent of this pictorial, Collectors' Choice Music--a Playboy subsidiary--decided Nancy's time was here again and put her on the cover of the spring catalog. The heat is on once again, and the temperature can only rise with these eight pages of photographs. They're Nancy's way of telling the world that she's proud to be in her prime at 54 and ready to rivet our attention one more time.

"I couldn't even say the word 50 when I reached that age, I hated it so much," says Nancy, sitting in her Beverly Hills living room wearing jeans and--gotcha--white Nikes. "But then I made friends with it." That's an understatement: Her schedule, and these photos, bear testament to the power of health, herbs and happiness. "Now a lot of us are changing the face of 50."

So with new projects and a new outlook, Nancy decided to approach playboy, run by her longtime pal, a fellow by the name of Hefner. "Having Hef for a friend," she says, "is a little bit like having Frank Sinatra for a father. You can always pick up that phone." But this time she went through regular channels. "I was nervous," she says, "but the pictures came out so well that I thought, Well, what's stopping me now?"

If Nancy is on a roll these days, her life hasn't been all hit singles and glamour photography. As a child, she learned about the double-edged sword of having a famous father. Her mother says that Nancy used to cry when she heard Frank's voice on the radio, because he often couldn't be with her in the flesh. "I have shared him with the world ever since I can remember," she says.

Her parents divorced when she was young. She grew up sheltered, naive, Catholic. She married early, to pop singer Tommy Sands; they divorced after a few years. She speaks of those days with candor: "I married way too young, because I wanted to have sex. And I gave up college to marry. That was a colossal blunder. The pain of a divorce is something you don't want to know about at the age of 23 or 24. And all because I wanted to have sex with him. Pretty silly, huh?"

Her first records didn't do very well; then came Boots. Just as Frank Sinatra had once embodied his era (what the hell--his century), his daughter became a Sixties icon, the sassy object of desire in Carnaby Street miniskirts and thigh-high boots. She co-starred with her old pal Elvis in Speedway, made hits of Sugar Town, You Only Live Twice and cut a series of overlooked country-rock records with Lee Hazelwood. And then she walked out of the spotlight. After marrying producer Hugh Lambert, she devoted time to raising their two daughters and researching a book on her father. The book finally came out in 1985, the same year that Lambert died of cancer. The children were nine and eleven.

"The fact that they were Sinatras and fatherless were two things working against them," Nancy says softly. "It was really important that I be there in the morning to make breakfast, pack the peanut butter sandwiches and send the girls off to school. And then to be there at three o'clock to hear their laughter or their anger or their frustration with what went on that day. I wouldn't trade money or hit records for a minute of that."

But she missed singing and, now that her children are grown, she has begun recording again after a 12-year hiatus. "It was scary as hell," she says of her return to the studio. Her new work is a classy pop-country hybrid that shows she knows what's hot. Naturally, she also included nods to the past: One highlight is One for My Baby, a signature tune of Frank's.

You could say that it takes guts to do a song that was defined by the Chairman--but then, you could say the same about sharing a makeup mirror with a young Playmate-to-be. "There was another girl shooting the day I was at the Playboy photo studio, and she was perfect," says Nancy with an easy laugh. "But it's funny, because I didn't hate her, I didn't feel jealous, I didn't feel old. I admired her, but I also felt pretty certain I was going to do a good job myself." She shrugs. "Besides, we bring different things to the pictures. She brings beautiful breasts, and I bring OK breasts and lots of personality." (For those who rate her better than just "OK," the line forms to the right.)

"For me," she adds, "this past year has been a whirlwind. Up to now, I've been moving, but not smoothly or gracefully. And now things are going to take off again, and I plan to take advantage of every second of it." She laughs again, thinking of the mileage she'll put on her new boots. "It'll be an abundance of Nancy," she says, grinning. "The roller-coaster ride is ready to begin."