Connie Francis

With a string of worldwide hits like “Stupid Cupid” (1958), “Who's Sorry Now” (1957), and “Heartaches” (1958), Connie Francis – born Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero on December 12, 1937, in Newark, New Jersey - was one of America's greatest early pop stars. Her yearning voice caught the imagination of pop fans as she sold huge amounts of records in the late 1950s and early 1960s, bridging the rock and roll and beat boom eras. From Italian parentage, she performed regularly at talent shows in Newark, winning a spot on the NBC variety show Startime Kids between 1953 and 1955. It led to a contract with MGM and her first single, 1955’s “Freddy.” It flopped - as did all her subsequent singles over the next two years - and she was about to abandon music in favor of a career in medicine. In 1957, her cover of “Who's Sorry Now” was played on Dick Clark's American Bandstand. It went on to sell a million, reaching number 1 in the UK and number 4 in the US and launched a run of success unparalleled at the time. She achieved her second UK number 1 in 1958 with Neil Sedaka's “Stupid Cupid,” with other major hits appealing to lovelorn teen audiences, including “Lipstick on Your Collar,” “My Happiness,” “Among My Souvenirs,” and “Where the Boys Are.” She had her own TV specials all over the world and while the hits dried up in the late 1960s, she continued to be a popular concert performer. Connie Francis struggled with illness and depression through much of the 1970s and 1980s but returned to re-record her old hits in 1989 and continued to perform in cabaret through the 1990s and 2000s. In May 2025, an obscure Connie Francis song from 1962, “Pretty Little Baby,” became a viral social media hit and brought her to the attention of a new audience. However, just two months after this surprise career resurgence, Connie Francis died on July 16, 2025, at the age of 87.