Connie Francis

St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture by Pat H. Broeske

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, singer Connie Francis reigned as America's top-selling female vocalist and the female counterpart to teen idols such as Frankie Avalon and Fabian. Cute, as opposed to glamorous, the diminutive brunette with the perky demeanor typified the girl next door. Teenage girls wanted to be her best friend; teenage boys dreamed of dating her. The media called her "America's sweetheart."

Born Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero in Newark, New Jersey, Francis was just three years old when her roofing-contractor father presented her with an accordion. A year later she was performing at family events, churches, and hospitals. She was eleven when her father took her to Manhattan to meet the producer of the TV show Startime, which featured child performers; she appeared on the program for the next four years. She was later showcased on TV variety shows, including Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts. It was Godfrey who suggested that she change her name. He also suggested that she put away her accordion to concentrate on singing.

Francis began her recording career cutting demo records for various music publishing companies. Then came a 1957 recording contract with MGM and ten failed singles. It was at her father's suggestion that she did an up-tempo version of the 1923 standard "Who's Sorry Now?" for what she anticipated would be her final recording session for the label. To her surprise, the record found favor with Dick Clark, congenial host of the popular American Bandstand. Touting the new "girl singer," Clark played her record on a 1958 New Year's Day telecast. Over the next five weeks, the record sold a million copies to become Francis's first gold record. Francis, who became a frequent guest on Bandstand, later admitted that were it not for Clark and his support, she would have given up on her musical career.

She instead became a perennial on the charts. Along with outselling all other female artists from 1958 to 1964, she became the first female singer to have consecutive number-one hits with the 1960 songs "Everybody's Somebody's Fool" and "My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own." A household name, her likeness appeared on paper dolls, diaries, and other merchandise aimed at teenage girls. Then came a quartet of MGM films. First and most memorable was Where the Boys Are (1960), about college girls looking for love during spring break in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Though the film is today best known for its heartfelt title song, performed by Francis, its plot and setting were mimicked myriad times in succeeding decades, especially during the 1980s when youth-oriented movies were the rage.

As her fame grew, Francis began recording songs with adult appeal; the Italian-American also recorded albums in numerous foreign languages. As a result, the mature Francis was able to establish herself as a strong nightclub draw. In the late 1960s, during the cultural revolution which saw American audiences clamoring for performers with British accents, Francis took her act overseas.

But there were personal trials, including failed marriages and disagreements with her domineering father-manager. Then came an emotionally shattering rape and beating, which she suffered hours after performing at Long Island's Westbury Music Fair in late 1974. The headline-making experience left Francis psychologically unable to perform. Three years later she suffered another setback, when cosmetic surgery on her nose affected her voice. It was a 1978 television concert show, hosted by longtime friend Dick Clark, that marked Francis's return, but unbeknownst to audiences, the still-fragile Francis had to lip-sync to a prerecorded medley of her hits. Three years later, she suffered yet another crisis, the 1981 gangland-style murder of her younger brother, but she went on to face a live audience later that year. In fact, she bravely played the same venue where she had performed the night of her rape and beating. Explained Francis, "I had to put my fears to sleep."

Sadly, Francis's various fears continued to resurface. The recipient of sixteen gold records suffered nervous breakdowns, involuntary confinements in mental facilities, and was diagnosed as a manic-depressive. In interviews and in her 1984 autobiography, she attributed some of her woes to her relationship with her overprotective father: "Thanks to my father, I [grew up] the typical horribly repressed Italian girl. I was this nice little girl that no man was supposed to touch. ... Probably the biggest regret of my life is that I allowed him to exercise all that control. It was a form of emotional abuse. ..."

Still, through the 1990s, Francis has made intermittent comebacks. In performance, the woman who led the way for today's female superstars, including Madonna, Janet Jackson, and Celine Dion, continues to project the engaging demeanor of the girl next door, albeit one who is sadder but wiser.