Connie Francis, the angelic-voiced singer who was one of many greatest recording stars of the late Fifties and early Sixties, has died. She was 87.
Her pal and publicist, Ron Roberts, introduced the singer’s dying Thursday, in keeping with the Related Press.
A month previous to her dying, Francis was hospitalized for “extreme pain” following a fracture in her pelvic space. The singer, who shared particulars about her well being with followers on social media, used a wheelchair in her later years and mentioned she lived with a “troublesome painful hip.”
Francis emerged when rock ’n’ roll first captivated America. Her earliest hits — a dreamy association of the previous customary “Who’s Sorry Now?,” the cheerfully foolish “Stupid Cupid” and the galloping “Lipstick on Your Collar” — match neatly into the rising style’s lighter facet. Though she focused teen listeners with such songs because the spring break anthem “Where the Boys Are,” Francis in the end gravitated towards the center of the highway, singing softly lit, tasteful pop for grownup audiences.
Francis’ business peak roughly spanned from Elvis Presley’s induction into the U.S. Military to the Beatles first setting foot on American soil. Over that five-year interval, Francis was one of many greatest stars in music, incomes three No. 1 hits: “Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool,” “My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own” and “Don’t Break the Heart That Loves You.” As her singles supplied acquainted adolescent fare, her albums had been constructed for particular demographics. Throughout the early ’60s, she minimize information devoted to “Italian Favorites,” “Rock ’n’ Roll Million Sellers,” “Country & Western,” “Fun Songs for Children,” “Jewish Favorites” and “Spanish and Latin American Favorites,” even recording variations of her hits in Italian, German, Spanish and Japanese.
This adaptability turned a substantial asset as soon as her pop hits dried up within the mid-’60s. Francis continued to be a well-liked live performance attraction by means of the Sixties, her stay success sustaining her as she eased into grownup modern fare. Quite a lot of private tragedies stalled her profession within the Seventies, however by the ’90s, her life stabilized sufficient for her to return to the stage, enjoying venues in Las Vegas, Atlantic Metropolis and elsewhere till her retirement within the 2010s.
Connie Francis circa 1960.
(Archive Images/Getty Photos)
Connie Francis was born Concetta Maria Franconero on Dec. 12, 1938, in Newark, N.J. When she was 3, her father purchased her an accordion and she or he spent her childhood studying Italian people songs. By age 10, her mother and father enrolled her in native expertise contests. When her father tried to ebook her on the New York-based tv present “Startime,” producer George Scheck solely agreed as a result of Francis performed the accordion and he was “up to here in singers.” Francis remained a fixture on “Startime” by means of her early teenagers — Scheck served as her supervisor throughout these youth — throughout which period she additionally appeared on Arthur Grodfrey’s “Talent Scouts.” Godfrey stumbled over her Italian identify, suggesting she shorten it to one thing “easy and Irish,” thereby giving start to her stage identify.
Scheck managed to safe Francis a file contract with MGM in 1955. As she obtained work dubbing her singing voice for movie actresses — she subbed for Tuesday Weld in 1956’s “Rock, Rock, Rock” and Freda Holloway in 1957’s “Jamboree” — MGM steadily tried to maneuver her from pop to rock. Nothing clicked till Francis recorded “Who’s Sorry Now?” as a favor to her father, giving the 1923 tune a romantic sway.
“Who’s Sorry Now?” caught the ear of Dick Clark, who usually performed the file on his “American Bandstand,” which had simply expanded into the nationwide market. Clark’s endorsement helped break “Who’s Sorry Now?” and despatched it into the Billboard Prime 10. MGM tried to copy its success by having Francis spruce up previous chestnuts, however to no avail. The singer didn’t have one other hit till she minimize “Stupid Cupid,” a tune co-written by Neil Sedaka and Howie Greenfield, a pair of younger songwriters on the Brill Constructing who had been navigating the space separating Broadway-bound pop and rock ’n’ roll.
“Stupid Cupid” was the primary of many hits she’d have with the songwriters, together with the slinky ‘Fallin’” and the ballad “Frankie.” She later mentioned, “Neil and Howie never failed to come up with a hit for me. It was a great marriage. We thought the same way.” Sedaka and Greenfield weren’t the one Brill Constructing songwriters to command Francis’ consideration: She developed a romance with a pre-fame Bobby Darin, who was chased away by her father.
Over the subsequent few years, Francis recorded each requirements and new songs from Sedaka and Greenfield, together with materials from different rising songwriters, akin to George Goehring and Edna Lewis, who wrote the vigorous “Lipstick on Your Collar.” Inside lower than two years, her reputation was such that MGM launched 5 totally different Connie Francis LPs for Christmas 1959: a set of vacation tunes, a greatest-hits file, an LP devoted to nation, one devoted to rock ’n’ roll and a set of Italian music, carried out partially within the unique language.
Connie Francis and Neil Sedaka in 2007.
(George Napolitano / FilmMagic / Getty Photos)
Together with her reputation at an apex, Connie Francis made her cinematic debut within the 1960 teen comedy “Where the Boys Are,” which additionally featured a Sedaka and Greenfield tune as its theme. Francis appeared in three quasi-sequels culminating in 1965’s “When the Boys Meet the Girls,” however she by no means felt fully snug onscreen, preferring stay efficiency. “Vacation” turned her final Prime 10 single in 1962 — the identical yr she printed the ebook “For Every Young Heart: Connie Francis Talks to Teenagers.” Too younger to be an oldies act, Francis spent the rest of the Sixties chasing just a few developments — in 1968, she launched “Connie & Clyde — Hit Songs of the ’30s,” a rushed try to money in on the recognition of Arthur Penn’s controversial hit movie “Bonnie and Clyde” — whereas busying herself on a showbiz circuit that encompassed Vegas, tv selection reveals and singing for troops in Vietnam.
A comeback try within the early Seventies was swiftly derailed by tragedy. After showing at Lengthy Island’s Westbury Music Honest on Nov. 8, 1974, she was sexually assaulted in her Howard Johnson’s lodge room; the wrongdoer was by no means caught. Francis sued the lodge chain; she’d later win a $2.5-million settlement that helped reshape safety practices within the hospitality business. As she was recovering from her assault, she underwent a nasal surgical procedure that went astray, main her to lose her voice for years; it took three subsequent surgical procedures earlier than she regained her capability to sing. Francis spent a lot of the rest of the ’70s battling extreme despair, however as soon as her voice returned, recordings occurred from time to time, together with a disco model of “Where the Boys Are” in 1978.
Connie Francis.
(ullstein bild through Getty Photos)
Francis returned to the general public eye within the early Nineteen Eighties, first as a victims rights activist, then as a stay performer. Her comeback was marred by additional tragedy — the homicide of her brother George, a lawyer who turned a authorities witness after pleading responsible to financial institution fraud; the police indicated the killing was associated to organized crime.
Francis continued to work within the wake of his dying, enjoying reveals and writing her 1984 autobiography, “Who’s Sorry Now?,” however she continued to be plagued with private issues. She informed the Village Voice’s Michael Musto, “In the ’80s I was involuntarily committed to mental institutions 17 times in nine years in five different states. I was misdiagnosed as bipolar, ADD, ADHD, and a few other letters the scientific community had never heard of.” After receiving a prognosis for post-traumatic stress dysfunction, Francis returned to stay performances within the Nineteen Nineties; one in all her reveals was documented on “The Return Concert Live at Trump’s Castle,” a 1996 album that was her final major-label launch. When requested by the Las Vegas Solar in 2004 if life was nonetheless a wrestle, she responded, “Not for the past 12 years.”
Francis usually performed casinos and theaters within the 2000s as she developed a biopic of her life with Gloria Estefan, who deliberate to play the previous teen idol. The movie by no means materialized. In 2010, Francis turned the nationwide spokesperson for Psychological Well being America’s trauma marketing campaign. By the top of the 2010s, she retired to Parkland, Fla., and printed her second memoir, “Among My Souvenirs: The Real Story, Vol. 1,” in 2017.
Connie Francis married 4 occasions. Her first marriage, to Dick Kanellis in 1964, ended after three months; her second, to Izzy Marion, lasted from 1971 to 1972. She adopted a toddler together with her third husband, Joseph Garzilli, to whom she was wed from 1973 to 1978. Her fourth marriage, to Bob Parkinson, led to 1986 after one yr.
