LOS ANGELES (AP) — Connie Francis, the healthful pop star of the Nineteen Fifties and ’60s whose hits embody “Pretty Little Baby” and “Who’s Sorry Now?” — the latter that might later function an ironic title for a private life stuffed with heartbreak and tragedy — has died at age 87.
Her demise was introduced Thursday by her buddy and publicist, Ron Roberts, who didn’t instantly present extra particulars.
Francis was a prime performer of the pre-Beatles period, not often off the charts from 1957-64. In a position to attraction to each younger folks and adults, she had greater than a dozen Prime 20 hits, beginning with “Who’s Sorry Now?” and together with the No. 1 songs “Don’t Break the Heart That Loves You” and “The Heart Has a Mind of Its Own.” Like different teen favorites of her time, she additionally starred in a number of movies, together with “Where the Boys Are” and “Follow the Boys.”
The dark-haired singer was simply 17 when she signed a contract with MGM Data following appearances on a number of TV selection exhibits. Her earliest recordings attracted little consideration, however then she launched her model of “Who’s Sorry Now?” an outdated ballad by Ted Snyder, Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby.
It, too, had little success initially till Dick Clark performed it on his “American Bandstand” present in 1958. Clark featured her repeatedly on “American Bandstand,” and he or she stated in later years that with out his assist, she would have deserted her music profession.
Francis adopted with such teen hits as “Stupid Cupid,” “Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool” and “Lipstick on Your Collar.” Her data grew to become hits worldwide as she re-recorded variations of her authentic songs in Italian and Spanish, amongst different languages. Her concert events across the nation shortly bought out.
In the meantime, a romance bloomed with fellow teen idol Bobby Darin, who had volunteered to put in writing songs for her. However when her father heard rumors that the pair was planning a marriage, he stormed right into a rehearsal and pulled a gun on Darin, ending their relationship and seeming to set Francis on a pained and traumatic path.
She chronicled a few of it in her autobiography, “Who’s Sorry Now?”
“My personal life is a regret from A to Z,” she instructed The Related Press in 1984, the yr the guide got here out. “I realized I had allowed my father to exert too much influence over me.”
Her father, George Franconero, was a roofing contractor from New Jersey who performed the accordion. She was simply 3 when her father offered her with a child-size accordion, as quickly as she started to point out an inherent ability for music. When she was 4, he started reserving singing dates for her, happening to turn out to be her supervisor.
Though her performing profession had light by the mid-Nineteen Sixties, Francis was nonetheless fashionable on the live performance circuit when she appeared on the Westbury Music Middle in Westbury, New York, in 1974. She had returned to her resort room and was asleep when a person broke in and raped her at knifepoint. He was by no means captured.
Francis sued the resort, alleging its safety was defective, and a jury awarded her $2.5 million in 1976. The 2 sides then settled out of courtroom for $1,475,000 as an attraction was pending. She stated the assault destroyed her marriage and put her by years of emotional turmoil.
She suffered tragedy in 1981 when her brother George was shot to demise as he was leaving his New Jersey residence. Later that decade, her father had her dedicated to a psychiatric hospital, the place she was recognized as manic-depressive. At one level she tried suicide by swallowing dozens of sleeping tablets. After three days in a coma, she recovered.
She was married 4 instances and would say that solely her third husband, Joseph Garzilli, was definitely worth the hassle. The opposite marriages every lasted lower than a yr.
Concetta Rosemarie Franconero was born on Dec. 12, 1937, in Newark, New Jersey. At age 9 she started showing on tv packages, together with “Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts” and “The Perry Como Show.” It was Godfrey who urged she shorten her final title.
Francis skilled a resurgence this yr, when “Pretty Little Baby” grew to become a well-liked track on TikTok, one thing that left her “flabbergasted and excited” and impressed her to affix TikTok herself.
“To think that a song I recorded 63 years ago is captivating new generations and audiences is truly overwhelming for me,” she stated in her personal put up in early June.
Nationwide Author Hillel Italie contributed reporting from New York. Bob Thomas, a longtime Hollywood reporter for The Related Press, was the principal author of this obituary and died in 2014.
