Connie Francis fixes her hair throughout a 1959 press reception on the Dorchester Resort in London
Keystone/ Getty Pictures
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Keystone/ Getty Pictures
Connie Francis fixes her hair throughout a 1959 press reception on the Dorchester Resort in London
Keystone/ Getty Pictures
Pop singer Connie Francis has died at 87. The primary feminine singer to achieve primary on the Billboard Sizzling 100, she was recognized for her hit single “Who’s Sorry Now?” and for singing the theme music and showing within the 1961 movie, The place the Boys Are.
Her publicist, Ron Roberts, introduced her dying in a Fb put up.
Born Concetta Franconero in Newark, New Jersey, she modified her identify at age 13 when tv host Arthur Godfrey instructed that “Connie Francis” can be simpler to pronounce. Her massive breakthrough got here in 1957, when she lined an outdated 1923 tune referred to as “Who’s Sorry Now?”
Francis hated the music, but it surely was a giant hit — finally reaching quantity 4 on the Billboard Sizzling 100. It stayed on the charts for months. “Who’s Sorry Now?” would turn out to be one in all her signature songs, and the eventual title of her autobiography.
Connie Francis bought over 40 million data earlier than she was 25. Sixteen of them went gold. Her primary hit, “Everyone’s Someone’s Idiot,” got here out in 1960. Her performing profession was transient — she appeared in a brief string of undistinguished romantic comedies, and inside a couple of years, her life grew to become touched extra by tragedy than success.
In 1967, one in all her closest mates was strangled to dying in her house. That very same yr, Francis underwent a beauty process meant to slender her nostril. However it broken her capacity to sing.
“I could not sing in air conditioned rooms,” she instructed NPR in 1982. “Which offered nice issues in Las Vegas. They needed to shut the air con off, and the folks would wilt. And I’d, and the band would.”
In 1974, Francis was raped at knifepoint and crushed at a Howard Johnson motel after singing at a music pageant in Westbury, New York. She efficiently sued the corporate for failing to supply sufficient safety. At $2.5 million, it was then one of many largest awards ever in a rape case. Enduring the 1976 trial was not straightforward. However she was quoted within the courtroom by the New York Occasions saying, “If what we did right here may save one woman, it was value it.”
The botched nasal surgical procedure made it tough for Francis to work.
“There was a health care provider in New York who mentioned that he may appropriate this,” she instructed NPR. “So I went for surgical procedure, and two weeks earlier than I went in for that surgical procedure, I used to be recording an Italian album, and two weeks after the surgical procedure, I went again to complete the overdub of the album, and that was one of the vital terrifying moments of my life, as a result of my voice was gone. So, it wasn’t the rape that affected my voice. It was undoubtedly the surgical procedure. And I had a variety of about seven notes. There was not one music I may sing from starting to finish. Oh, by the way, two months after I would misplaced my voice, my husband received up and left, and he simply left. And that was the top of that.”
It took three extra surgical procedures earlier than Francis may sing once more. She was hospitalized for bipolar dysfunction on a number of events. Her brother, a lawyer who had lately testified as a part of an investigation into Mafia dealings, was shot to dying by a pair of gunmen in his driveway in 1981.
Shortly after his homicide, she instructed NPR, she turned on the radio and heard an outdated normal.
“And I very quietly, I began to sing it,” she mentioned. “After which once I was completed, I noticed that I had sung the entire music. I did not have that form of vary earlier than then. I went out into the road to go to an appointment, and I began singing songs. Each music I may consider, I finished in the course of the road and I yelled, I can sing. I imply, like, you realize, it was like a scene from a film. I went to the primary telephone sales space and I referred to as my supervisor, who was my supervisor for the reason that age of 12. And I mentioned, George, e book me at Westbury proper again at Westbury simply as quickly as you’ll be able to. And he was in a state of shock. You already know, he after seven years, he he mentioned, Connie, are you all proper? And I mentioned, I am high-quality. Look me at Westbury as quickly as you’ll be able to. “
Francis went again to performing. She shaped her personal file firm and labored for years. Even after retiring to Boca Raton, she nonetheless made occasional appearances into her 80s. Lately, Francis gained social media fame earlier this yr due to the resurgence of her music “Fairly Little Child,” which went viral on TikTok.