Nordstrom Sisters

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The Nordstrom Sisters were an American sister act from 1931 – 1976. Originally from Chicago, they were billed as society performers. These international cabaret singers were often styled as "The Misses Nordstrom" or introduced as "those Park Avenue darlings, the Nordstrom Sisters".

Their songs were full of sexual innuendo and double entendre. They were of Swedish and Norwegian extraction.^[1]

Dagmar Nordstrom (1903 – 1976) the younger of the two sisters was a composer, arranger and the pianist of the duo. She wrote the music of a fox trot Remembering You popular in the 1940s and released on records.

Sigfred Nordstrom (1893 – 1980) the elder sister sang the lead and was the widow of Samuel Ferebee Williams, a candy executive who was the originator of the Tootsie Roll. They were married in 1919.^[2]

The pair lived in London for a year in 1939 when they were the resident performers at The Ritz. They were often featured on board transatlantic ocean liners favoring the Norwegian-America Line and the Cunard Line. They were always booked in first class state rooms and took their automobile on board ship as part of their compensation package. They would celebrate as the cars were first out of the hold of the ship. Everything they needed on the continent was packed in the car and they were on their way as others waited for trunks. They sailed on the Sagafjord for her maiden around the world voyage. They always spent the month of October in Bad Gastein for the baths.^{[citation needed]}

Their social circle in New York City was always growing from the private parties they worked and included: Hildegarde, Baron Nicolas de Gunzburg, Irene Hayes, Erik and Emmala Rhodes, the Duke of Windsor, Montgomery Clift, Edgar de Evia, Greta Keller, Cecil Rhodes the Gabor Sisters and many others.^{[citation needed]}

Their guestbooks are a virtual Who's Who and included drawings of them by James Montgomery Flagg, Al Hirschfeld, and others. Jerome Zerbe would bring his latest photograph of them, and that too would go in the guest book. Perle Mesta had them entertain at parties in Washington, D.C., and launched them in Luxembourg.^{[citation needed]}

When they were not entertaining or at a private party they could always be found at the Stork Club, the 21 Club, El Morocco or Gallagher's Steak House. Their mirror topped bar at home was covered with memorabilia from other bars around the globe.^{[citation needed]}

They entertained groups of 50-100 guests for cocktails several nights to celebrate each of their birthdays and during the December and New Year holidays. Initially they had an apartment floor through in Manhattan on 53rd Street, just east of Park Avenue. When that building was demolished for a new Chemical Bank building they, as Siggie used to say, moved to 'Albany' as the new apartment was on the north west corner of 79th Street at Third Avenue.^{[citation needed]}

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