Who Wrote Nancy With The Laughing Face

We met someone recently called Nancy, and afterwards we remarked Nancy was no longer a very common name, which is surprising for several reasons – older names are becoming really fashionable and Nancy is such a pretty name.

Thinking back, I can’t actually remember anyone I was at school with called Nancy, nor worked with, nor taught… Someone my dad worked with had a wife called Nancy, and my husband had a great-aunt with that name. In some figures I came across for, 2015, Nancy came 71/100, so maybe it will creep back in.

Nancy originated from Ann, or Anne,, and thinking back, sometimes my dad called my sister Anne, Nancy/Nance/Nan. There are quite a few famous Nancies (but in the list I looked at there were quite a few I didn’t know!

  • Nanci Griffith -singer
  • Nancy, Lady Astor, (née Witcher Langhorne)
  • Nancy Dell’Olio, Italian lawyer
  • Nancy Mitford, English novelist and biographer
  • Nancy O’Dell, American journalist
  • Nancy Pelosi, 60th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
  • Nancy Reagan, former First Lady of the United States
  • Nancy Sinatra, American singer and actress
  • Nancy Wilson the singer

The name crops up in fiction too, including a character in Swallows and Amazons, and in Oliver Twist. Nancy, Nance, or nancy-boy is also slang for someone who is gay – I’m not sure how current it is though!

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Then of course there is the city of Nancy in France, and its surrounding arrondissement de Nancy.

And songs, apparently, although I don’t know it, Ed Sheeran has a song he wrote about his grandmother, and the famous Frank Sinatra song, Nancy with the laughing face. I have just found out while looking up things about Nancy, that there is a funny story attached to the song… Here is what Wikipedia says:

Nancy (with the Laughing Face)” is a song composed in 1942 by Jimmy Van Heusen, with lyrics by Phil Silvers. It is commonly believed that the song was written for the birthday of Nancy Sinatra. This was a misunderstanding that eventually led to the song being recorded by Frank Sinatra. Former broadcast executive and music historian Rick Busciglio tells the story of the song’s inception as related to him by Van Heusen:

In 1979, I was working with songwriter Jimmy Van Heusen 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 in 1944.

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Here is Nancy’s song, from Oliver Twist, the musical by Lionel Bart, sung here by Judy Garland:

By the way, my featured image is of anonymous fashion model, i just thought she had a Nancy-like face.

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