Singer Connie Francis is having a moment at 87. What she says about her ‘Baby'

Miami Herald

2 days ago

Connie Francis is pop music's latest 'It Girl.' At age 87. And she's loving every second of an unexpected resurgence spurred by the social media success of a song she recorded in 1962 and had forgotten about for decades.
Some hits take their own sweet time to go viral. But even by pop music's peculiarities, today's 'Pretty Little Baby' phenomenon is pretty unusual, she acknowledges from her bright and airy home in Broward County's Parkland.
'It's astounding to me that a song I recorded 63 years ago would resonate with teenagers and younger,' Francis said. 'I've seen videos with children 2 years of age singing the song. Adorable. And it's just astounding to me. But it's real.'
Francis is enjoying one of the biggest hits of 2025 thanks to the TikTok-driven all-ages adoration for her perky 'Pretty Little Baby.'
A generation that grew up in the late-1950s and pre-Beatles '60s remembers the singer-actress for her signature tunes 'Who's Sorry Now' and 'Where the Boys Are,' the Neil Sedaka-Howard Greenfield title song from a 1960 comedic movie she co-starred in with perpetually suntanned George Hamilton. That frothy film put Fort Lauderdale on the spring break map — a rowdy reputation the city has distanced itself from for decades.
Living in the Sunshine State
Francis is retired from the stage and lives about 27 miles northwest from where she shot her scenes for 'Where the Boys Are' on Fort Lauderdale's beach, along A1A and the Elbo Room.
Francis wanted to live nearby right after 'Where the Boys Are' wrapped filming in 1960, but her parents didn't want to move from New Jersey at the time. After her father died in 1996, Francis and her mom, Ida, moved to the Parkland home she lives in now. She said her mom died in that home in 2000 surrounded by people she loved.
'My mother was the most giving soul. We had a great relationship. I don't think we ever had a serious argument,' Francis said. She credits her parents' sense of humor, a lesson that served Francis well during the tougher years in the 1980s when she battled mental illness.
Francis loves living where the boys were — and are.
'Well, first of all, in the morning, when you go outside, you don't have to have a scarf on or mittens,' she said. 'The weather is a pleasure. We have hurricane season coming up now, and we're expecting a lively hurricane season, but nevertheless, it's still a place for the weather. It's called the Sunshine State, not for nothing. And I think there are a lot of retired people down here, so I can communicate with them.'
Singing success
On the first Friday in June, music executive Bruce Resnikoff, the chief of the global catalog division of Universal Music Group that markets Francis' recordings, flew in to present Francis with a plaque in honor of her TikTok and streaming successes with 'Pretty Little Baby.'
That plaque, now placed just beyond her front door, joins a happy home in a gated South Florida community she shares with her Imperial Shih Tzu, Lexi. The house, with a sparkling rectangular pool out back and a black piano adorned with at least two dozen framed photos atop it in the living room, is filled with gold records and mementos from a career that took off in 1957 when Francis was still a teenager born Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero to a New Jersey Italian-American family.
At 19 that year, Francis recorded 'Who's Sorry Now' at her father George Franconero's insistence. TV host Dick Clark turned it into a smash when he aired it on 'American Bandstand.'
'Without Dick Clark there would have been no Connie Francis,' she said.
Francis has been publicly singing since she was about 4 or 5, as World War II raged, when her parents discovered there was just something special about her honeyed mezzo-soprano. Perhaps it was its distinctive catch, an emotional cry in her voice, that later inspired a generation of pop singers including ABBA's Agnetha Fältskog, Linda Ronstadt and Broadway's Gracie Lawrence, who was Tony-nominated for playing Francis in the new Bobby Darin bio musical, 'Just in Time.'
A new audience for Connie Francis
Now, fans as young as toddlers discover Francis through 'Pretty Little Baby,' she says, in awe, during an interview with the Miami Herald at her home.
'The song may be older, but the audience is new,' Resnikoff said, as he sat next to Francis in her TV room. 'So it's a new song to this audience, and if it's fun it doesn't matter whether it's created in 1960 or in 2020. You're selling it to your fans you've always had, which is nice. But you're bringing in the next generation of people who get to discover you. That is probably the most satisfying part.'
''Pretty Little Baby' has opened the door for people to rediscover 'Who's Sorry Now' and 'Where the Boys Are,' said Resnikoff, president and CEO of music company UMe. 'I grew up on those beach movies. Those movies have a life now on the streaming services and I think people will see the interconnection between your music, your film acting and it was a big part of the generation that grew up on the original pop music.'
A pretty big little baby
'Pretty Little Baby' has been used in more than 17 million videos on TikTok where it's been the soundtrack for people to show off their new outfits, their pets and their kids. The song has had more than 27 billion views globally, according to UMe.
At its peak in May, 'Pretty Little Baby' was averaging more than 600,000 daily posts on TikTok, including clips from celebrities and influencers Kim Kardashian and daughter North West, and Kylie Jenner, Brook Monk, Jarred Jermaine and Abbie Herbert.
Boca Raton singer Peter Lemongello Jr., who appeared on 'American Idol' in 2019, posted a TikTok clip of himself on May 25 crooning the ditty to Francis while handing her a bouquet of flowers in her house. His video has been seen by more than 13 million users.
On her living room couch after the plaque's presentation, Francis got into the spirit by lip syncing to 'Pretty Little Baby' while cuddling Lexi on her lap to inspire even more TikToks and Instagram Reels.
Joining TikTok
Francis just joined the TikTok platform as an octogenarian when her old tune ranked on Apple Music's iTunes Top Songs chart, a notch above contemporary country star Morgan Wallen's latest, 'I'm the Problem,' as recently as June 6.
'I didn't even know what TikTok was,' Francis said. 'I heard that they were fighting over who was going to have to buy it and who was going to sell it, and that it was in Congress. But I never really saw Tiktok. Now, I'm extremely grateful to them for giving me a new lease on life. It's a happy song during chaotic times. So now I have to say, thank you, TikTok.'
A re-inspired Francis, who singles out Carrie Underwood as the contemporary country-pop singer she likes these days, already has an idea for a follow-up.
She'd love for TikTokkers to revive interest in an obscure novelty tune written by Sedaka and Greenfield that she recalls recording in 1959 called 'Baby Roo.' The bouncy ditty is about an obese lovable guy with lyrics such as 'He's my roly-poly little ton of fun.' You can just see that one soundtracking posts featuring chubby newborns, fat cats and bodacious boyfriends.
'It's a cute kids' song,' Francis says.
Francis' chart success
But the one that got Francis here, 'Pretty Little Baby,' also crossed over to streaming platforms where it has amassed more than 25 million plays in just over a month and a half on Spotify alone, music executive Resnikoff said.
And in a pop music landscape where the stagnant Billboard Hot 100 Top 10 is laden with non-budging songs by Shaboozey, Teddy Swims and a Lady Gaga-Bruno Mars duet that are all more than a year old, Francis' chart newcomer is old enough to start collecting Social Security.
Francis, by the way, knows from the Billboard Hot 100. She was the first female pop singer to place a song at No. 1 on that pop chart on June 27, 1960, when her single, 'Everybody's Somebody's Fool,' hit the top spot. On Sept. 26, 1960, Francis scored her second and last Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper, 'My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own.'
Versions in many languages
In May, Universal released seven international versions of 'Pretty Little Baby' with recordings Francis originally sang in English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Japanese and Swedish.
Francis pioneered the recording of her material in languages other than English for the world market.
'I was 14 years old. My father said, 'Now that the war's over we have to make friends with our enemies, especially Japan and Germany. If you ever do make it — and that's a long shot — but if you ever do make it, you have to sing in those languages.' So I did, and I had tremendous success with foreign language recordings, especially in Germany,' Francis said.
Aside from English, singing in Italian came more or less naturally to Francis. Her most successful albums on the U.S. Billboard chart — her only Top 10s, in fact — came in 1960 via 'Connie Francis Sings Italian Favorites' and its sequel later that year, 'More Italian Favorites.' The albums peaked at Nos. 4 and 9, respectively.
Singing in Japanese was also easy for the U.S. pop star.
'What you see is what you get. It's not like French where there's no rhyme or reason for it. French was my Waterloo. I had a very hard time singing in French,' Francis said.
In June, Universal released a new remix of 'Pretty Little Baby' by German dance duo LIZOT. Her label publicist, Tim Plumley, holds a phone streaming the remix's swishing electronic pulse to Francis' ear while she's on the couch with her dog. 'Plays at pool parties,' he teases about its appeal. Francis smiles and nods. Gotta keep up with the kids.
Not bad for a song Francis good-naturedly razzes now that she's rediscovered it.
'The lyrics make no sense,' she says of the song. 'They don't make any sense at all. 'You can ask the flowers. I sit for hours telling all the bluebirds, the bill and coo birds.' The bill and coo? I mean, what kind of lyric is that?'
Recording a classic
As for 'Who's Sorry Now,' the song her father insisted she record and that cemented her singing career, that single peaked at No. 4 on the pop chart in early 1958. 'Tequila' by The Champs, kept her away from the top spot, Francis said as she recounted the history of her melodramatic ballad that some aspiring young singers are still showcasing on stage at talent competitions.
'My father liked the song. And I said it was written in 1923. 'Was there even records sold in 1923, Daddy?' So he said, 'The adults have already made it a hit. If you put rock and roll triplets behind it, the kids can dance to it, and you should record it.' So with only 16 minutes left in the session, because I did three sides first, hoping we wouldn't get to 'Who's Sorry Now,' I said, 'There's no time, fellas. There's no time for 'Who's Sorry Now.' And my father said, 'You've got 16 minutes if I have to nail you to that microphone.' So I did it. And of course, he was right, and he was with everything except Bobby Darin,' Francis said.
The Bobby Darin drama
The strict George Franconero did not approve of his young daughter dating fellow rock 'n' roll star Bobby Darin, with whom she'd developed a romance after they had met in 1956. When her dad heard Darin had suggested the two elope after rehearsing together for an appearance on 'The Jackie Gleason Show' he ran Darin out of the room with a gun he had in his pocket, she said.
Darin was the love of her life. Francis was devastated when he wed actress Sandra Dee in 1960. Darin died at 37 in 1973 from a lifelong heart defect. That story is recounted in the new Broadway show, 'Just in Time.' Francis married four times and adopted her son Joseph Garzilli Jr. during her third marriage in the mid-1970s.
Francis says she is 'disappointed' that producers did not consult her before 'Just in Time' was written and staged. 'I don't know how authentic it is.' She plans to fly to New York this summer to see the production and find out, she says.
Overwhelming success
But at this moment, just in time, in a house filled with memorabilia from a career that started begun some 70 years ago, a new award joins the gold records on her walls. The 'Pretty Little Baby' plaque.
'It's a tribute to you, your music and the way music can travel around the world and around generations,' Universal's Resnikoff says to Francis before he jets back to California.
'I really am overwhelmed,' Francis responds. 'To think a song I recorded 63 years ago is on the charts and is introducing me to a brand new group of people, a generation of people that didn't know me or my music, is simply thrilling.'