ADVERTISEMENT Connie Francis, the hugely successful pop star of the 1950s and 1960s whose hits include ‘Pretty Little Baby’, has died aged 87.
Her death was announced today by her friend and publicist, Ron Roberts, who did not immediately provide additional details.
Francis – born Concetta Rosemarie Franconero on 12 December 1937 – was a top performer of the pre-Beatles era, rarely off the charts from 1957-64.
Able to appeal to both young people and adults, she had more than a dozen top 20 hits, starting with ‘Who’s Sorry Now?’ and including the No. 1 songs ‘Don’t Break the Heart That Loves You’ and ‘The Heart Has a Mind of Its Own’.
Her version of ‘Who’s Sorry Now?’, an old ballad by Ted Snyder, Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby, gained huge popularity when American TV and radio legend Dick Clark played it on his American Bandstand show in 1958.
Francis followed with such teen hits as ‘Stupid Cupid’ and ‘Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool’.
Her records became hits worldwide as she re-recorded versions of her original songs in Italian and Spanish – among other languages.
Like other teen favorites of her time, she also starred in several films, including Where the Boys Are and Follow the Boys.
She also dated fellow teen idol Bobby Darin, who had volunteered to write songs for her. However, when her father, George Franconero, heard rumors that the pair were planning a wedding, he stormed into a rehearsal and pulled a gun on Darin, ending their relationship and seeming to set Francis on a traumatic path.
She chronicled some of it in her autobiography, “Who’s Sorry Now?”.
“My personal life is a regret from A to Z,” she told The Associated Press in 1984, the year the book came out. “I realized I had allowed my father to exert too much influence over me.”
Although her acting career had faded by the mid-1960s, Francis was still popular on the concert circuit when she appeared at the Westbury Music Center in Westbury, New York, in 1974. She had returned to her hotel room and was asleep when a man broke in and raped her at knifepoint. He was never captured.
Francis sued the hotel, alleging its security was faulty, and a jury awarded her $2.5 million in 1976. The two sides then settled out of court for $1,475,000 as an appeal was pending.
She said the attack destroyed her marriage and put her through years of emotional turmoil.
She suffered further tragedy in 1981 when her brother George was shot dead as he was leaving his New Jersey home.
Later in the decade, her father had her committed to a psychiatric hospital, where she was diagnosed as manic-depressive. At one point she attempted suicide by swallowing dozens of sleeping tablets. After three days in a coma, she recovered.
Her 1961 hit song ‘Pretty Little Baby’ gained new admirers this year, with the track going viral on TikTok.
Thousands of videos have been created with the song on the app, and it has been featured in videos from popular influencers and celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner.
Francis recently posted about her viral hit on Facebook: “My thanks to TikTok and its members for the wonderful, and oh so unexpected, reception…”
She wrote that she was “clearly out of touch,” because when she found out the song was trending on TikTok, her initial response was to ask: “What’s that?”
RIP Connie Francis: 1937 – 2025
