Connie Francis, the healthy pop star of the 1950s and 60s, whose hits are included Pretty little babydied at 87.
Her death was announced on Thursday by her girlfriend and publicist Ron Roberts, who did not immediately provide additional details.
Francis was a top performer of the preliminary era, rarely in front of the charts from 1957 to 1964. Who is sorry now? and including the No. 1 songs Don’t break the heart she loves And The heart has its own spirit. Like other young favorites of her time, she also played in several films, including Where the boys are And Follow the boys.
Francis picked up the song Pretty little baby More than 60 years ago.
Although it was not classified as a hit at the time, it started in May 2025 as a trendy sound in millions of TikTok posts, with various influencers and prominent videos publishing the lip-synchronous.
This also contributed to the fact that the song ended up in the top songs from Spotifys Viral 50 Global and US lists.
Haupt stars of the era in front of the Beatles
The Concetta Rosemarie Franconero was born on December 12, 1937 in Newark, New Jersey. She was only three years old when her father presented her a childlike accordion. Next year she started singing at various public events and playing the instrument.
At the age of nine, she appeared in television programs, including Arthur Godfreys Talent Scouts And The Perry as a show. It was Godfrey who suggested to shorten her last name.
The dark-haired singer was only 17 when she signed a contract with MGM Records for several TV varieties. Her earliest recordings attracted little attention, but then she published her version of Who is sorry now?An old ballad by Ted Snyder, Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby.
At first it was little success for Dick Clark to play it on his American bandstand Show in 1958. Francis followed with such teen hits like Stupid amorPresent Everyone is a fool And Lipstick on your collar. Her records became hits worldwide when, among other things, she recorded versions of her original songs in Italian and Spanish.
Clark repeatedly showed her American bandstandAnd she said in later years that she had given up her music career without his support.
Your concerts across the country were quickly sold out.
“My personal life is regret”
In the meantime, a romance flourished with a teen -idol -mitmen bobby in it, who had volunteered to write songs for them. But when her father heard rumors that the couple planned a wedding, he stormed into a rehearsal and pulled a gun in it, ended her relationship and seemed to put Francis on a traumatic path.
She recorded some of it in her autobiography Who is sorry now?
“My personal life is a regret from A to Z,” she told The Associated Press in 1984, the year in which the book came out. “It became clear to me that I had allowed my father to have too much influence on me.”
Her father, George Franconero, was a roofer from New Jersey. When she was four years old, he started booking singing data for her and becoming her manager.
Although her acting career was faded until the mid -1960s, Francis was still popular on the concert circle when she appeared at the Westbury Music Center in Westbury, NY in 1974. She had returned to her hotel room and fell asleep when a man broke and raped her at Knifepoint. He was never captured.
Francis sued the hotel because its security was incorrect and a jury awarded its 2.5 million US dollars in 1976. The two sides then let themselves be as an appeal for 1,475,000 US dollars as a legal remedy. She said the attack destroyed her marriage and put her through the years of emotional turmoil.
In 1981 she suffered another tragedy when her brother George was shot when he left his house in New Jersey. Later in the decade, she had a psychiatric hospital in which she was diagnosed as manic-depressive. At some point she tried suicide by swallowing dozens of sleeping pills. After three days in a coma, she recovered.
She was married four times and said that her third husband, Joseph Garzilli, was worth the effort. The other marriages each lasted less than a year.
