Thomas Adrian Sands (born August 27, 1937)
is an American pop music singer and actor. Working in show business as a child, Sands became an overnight sensation and instant teen idol when he appeared on Kraft Television Theater in January 1957 as "The Singin' Idol". The song from the show, "Teen-Age Crush", reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 on Cashbox.
Sands was born into a musical family in Chicago, Illinois;]
his father Ben, born in Russia, was Jewish and was a pianist, and his mother, Grace Dickson, a big-band singer.
He moved with the family to Shreveport, Louisiana. He began playing the guitar at eight and within a year had a job performing twice weekly on a local radio station. At the beginning of his teen years, he moved to Houston, Texas, where he attended Lamar High School and joined a band with "Jimmie Lee Durden and the Junior Cowboys", consisting of Sands, Durden, and Billy Reno.
They performed on radio, at county fairs, and did personal appearances.
He was 15 when Colonel Tom Parker heard about him and signed him to RCA Records.
Tommy Sands and singer Nancy Sinatra married in 1960 and divorced in 1965.
His career had declined significantly by 1965, triggering speculation that Frank Sinatra had him "blacklisted" in the entertainment industry after their divorce.
Such reports were denied by both Sands and Sinatra.
In 1974, Sands married Sheila Wallace, a secretary, in Honolulu, where he had relocated in an attempt to revive his career.
