Big-band singer Connie Haines dies

Connie Haines
Connie Haines
Big-band singer Connie Haines, who performed with Frank Sinatra and the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra in the 1940s, has died. She was 87.

Haines died of a neuromuscular disease, according to Unity Church of Clearwater.

Haines was born Yvonne Marie Antoinette JaMais in Savannah, Georgia. She started singing when she was 5.

As a teenager, she teamed with Sinatra on Oh, Look at Me Now, Snootie Little Cutie and You Might Have Belonged to Another with the Dorsey band.

Haines also made movies, appearing in The Duchess of Idaho  in 1950.

In the mid-1940s, she toured with comedians Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. She also performed for presidents Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.