Connie Francis, a famous female pop singer of the mid-century, passed away at the age of 87. She had been experiencing extreme pain around her hips, which had fractured previously. Her record label (Concetta Records) president, Ron Robert, posted the update on July 17th. He had reported that she had caught pneumonia, and those complications had led to her passing.
With music trends coming and going, younger generations aren’t always aware of those artists before the boom of the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and the Rolling Stones. Connie Francis, born Concetta Rosemarie Franconero in 1937, made it onto the music scene, going to variety and music shows. Landing a contract with MGM Records wasn’t a slam-dunk success, with her first eighteen contracted recordings flopping. With the successive failures to find an audience, Francis geared herself to academics and planned on studying medicine at New York University. It was only her last recording, a cover of a 1923 song, “Who’s Sorry Now,” that she got the ears of many as she performed it on American Bandstand. It became the first of many successes.
Working with Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield, Francis recorded a slew of original pieces and rearranged covers like “Stupid Cupid,” “My Happiness,” “Lipstick on Your Collar,” “Among My Souvenirs,” and “Frankie.” She’s probably most famous for the song “Where the Boys Are,” written by Sedaka and Greenfield as a part of Francis’s silver screen debut in a summer beach romance film.
While she simplified her Italian name to appeal to a broader audience, she didn’t ignore her heritage and recorded an album fully in Italian. She also recorded songs in Spanish, German, Irish, and Yiddish, with many of her non-English recordings becoming popular abroad in Europe and in the Soviet Union.
By the 1960s, her fame had waned, like many American artists by “British Invasion,” but she still drew in crowds at live performances. After her contract with MGM expired in 1969, she didn’t face an easy transition. A rape in a motel room sent Francis into depression, with her only releasing one album in the 1970s. Nasal surgery led to her losing her voice for a while, and the death of her younger brother for testifying against the mafia further drove Francis into a dark place. She was forcibly admitted several times by her father to a mental institution, and she had tried to take her own life.
Her marriages throughout her life were short-lived. Her third marriage to a restaurateur named Joseph Garzilli, was the longest. During that seven year marriage, they adopted a son named Joey. Francis said their sone was the motivation for her to not self-destruct. The only short-lived relationship she regretted was the one with Bobby Darin, which was broken up by her father. “Bobby Darin was the only thing my father was wrong about,” Francis commented in an interview with a local Florida paper.
When filming had finished for “Where the Boys Are” in Fort Lauderdale, she had wanted to move there right away, but Francis said her father refused for her to move away from her hometown. After her father’s passing in the late 90s, she moved down to Parkland, Florida, with her mother, who passed away in the 2000s. Francis had a great network of friends in Florida, alongside the help of a caregiver and the companionship of her shih tzu, Lexi.
In June, Universal Music Group’s CEO and president, Bruce Resnikoff, a company in charge of Francis’s music distribution, flew down to Florida and presented the singer with a plaque. In recent months, her 1962 B-side song “Pretty Little Baby” went viral thanks to TikTok. The song was used for more than seventeen million reels, and it had twenty-seven billion views globally. The song’s popularity led to people looking into more of Francis’s songs and her summer beach movies. She made a TikTok account in late June to thank artists, celebrities, and TikTok users for appreciating her song. When she was interviewed, she said she didn’t even remember the song and had to listen to it again. Francis said she was shocked that a B-side song would gain such popularity sixty years later but was extremely grateful for the resurgence and appreciation for her music.