Latest news with #Everybody'sSomebody'sFool
Malaysian Reserve
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Malaysian Reserve
Italian American Legend Connie Francis Belongs in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
The Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations (COPOMIAO) launches advocacy campaign on behalf of Francis, whose chart-topping ballads once ruled the airwaves — and now trend across TikTok by the billions. CLEVELAND, July 19, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — As the nation remembers Connie Francis, one question, amplified by disbelief, grows louder: Where the girls are? Everywhere but the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, it seems. 'The Rock Hall has faced ongoing criticism for under-representing early female pop vocalists and girl groups — many of whom, like Connie Francis, laid the foundation for pop and rock in the 1950s and '60s,' said COPOMIAO President Basil Russo. 'There's a strong case to be made that she deserves induction for her cultural influence and pioneering success as one of the first female pop superstars. Madonna — a successor to Francis in both Italian American heritage and chart dominance — was inducted in 2008. Francis's exclusion today appears indefensible.' Consider her legacy: 200+ million records sold worldwide First woman to top the Billboard Hot 100 Top-selling female artist of the 1960s 27 billion TikTok views featuring her music (and counting) 53 Billboard Hot 100 chart hits The voice of a generation, Francis broke through at a time when women were expected to sing, not lead. Born Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero in Newark, N.J., to Italian immigrant parents, she grew up speaking Italian and performing at local events by age 4. After years of grinding out talent contests and TV appearances, she exploded onto the scene in 1958 with 'Who's Sorry Now?' COPOMIAO is rallying the public to contact the Rock Hall and advocate for the recognition Connie Francis deserves. From there, she became a trailblazer: the first woman to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with 'Everybody's Somebody's Fool,' and the first to headline major tours across Europe, Asia and the Middle East. She recorded in over a dozen languages, starred in Hollywood musicals, and even opened for the Queen of England. By the mid-1960s, Francis had become not only a household name but also a symbol of Italian American pride. ABOUT COPOMIAO Formed in NYC in 1975, the Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations (COPOMIAO) is a national coalition of 74 cultural, educational, fraternal and anti-defamation groups that advocate for the Italian American culture.
News18
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- News18
Connie Francis Dies At 87: 5 Classic Hits Beyond Pretty Little Baby
The singer gained fame after popular influencers and celebrities used her song "Pretty Little Baby" as the music for their social media posts. Heard the song Pretty Little Baby? Yes, that viral track which has been featured in millions of social media videos shared by popular influencers and celebrities. Sung by Connie Francis, the single was released as part of her 1962 studio album Connie Francis Sings 'Second Hand Love". Today, the world may recognise her for Pretty Little Baby, but back in the 1950s and 1960s, she was one of the top-charting female vocalists, estimated to have sold millions of records. If you loved Pretty Little Baby and want to listen to other hit songs of Connie Francis, check out the list. Everybody's Somebody's Fool Featured on her More Greatest Hits album, Everybody's Somebody's Fool was released in 1960. Written by Jack Keller and Howard Greenfield, the bluesy ballad was the first song by a female artist to top the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It remained at the peak for two consecutive weeks. My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own The song, which was also released in 1960, became the singer's second consecutive hit to reach the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and it held the position for two weeks. Who's Sorry Now This song is featured in her debut studio album, Who's Sorry Now, which was released in 1958. It reached No. 4 position on the Hot 100 chart and spent a total of 22 weeks on the Billboard chart. It was among her first songs to be certified gold in America. Stupid Cupid Written by Howard Greenfield and Neil Sedaka, Stupid Cupid was released in 1958. Featured on her compilation album Connie's Greatest Hits, the song was among the top 15 tracks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, peaking at No.14. Don't Break the Heart That Loves You Released in 1962, the song was written by Benny Davis and Murray Mencher. Don't Break the Heart That Loves You was Connie's third and final chart-topper. It peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in March of that year and held the position for a week. Connie Franchis passed away at 87 Unfortunately, Connie Francis passed away on Wednesday, July 16. One of her friends confirmed the news of her passing at the age of 87. In a post shared on Facebook by her friend, Ron Roberts said, 'It is with a heavy heart and extreme sadness that I inform you of the passing of my dear friend Connie Francis last night." The news of her demise came just days after she was hospitalised to treat 'extreme pain". First Published: July 18, 2025, 14:24 IST Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Connie Francis, ‘Where the Boys Are' Singer and Actress, Dies at 87
Connie Francis, the actress and beloved pop vocalist who had hits with 'Who's Sorry Now?,' 'Everybody's Somebody's Fool,' 'Stupid Cupid' and 'Where the Boys Are' before her life took several turbulent turns, has died. She was 87. Ron Roberts, her friend and the president of her label, Concetta Records, shared the news Thursday on Facebook. More from The Hollywood Reporter Simon Cowell Will Look for a New Boy Band in Netflix Series Bruce Springsteen, Penélope Cruz, Bowen Yang and Walter Salles to be Honored at 2025 Academy Museum Gala Joanna Bacon, British Actress Known for 'Love Actually' and 'Breeders,' Dies at 72 'It is with a heavy heart and extreme sadness that i inform you of the passing of my dear friend Connie Francis last night,' he wrote in a note that was reposted by the official Francis account on Facebook. 'I know that Connie would approve that her fans are among the first to learn of this sad news.' The news comes after the star was hospitalized this month. 'I am back in the hospital where I have been undergoing tests and checks to determine the cause(s) of the extreme pain I have been experiencing,' she wrote July 2 on Facebook. Francis had recently seen an unexpected streaming surge as her 1962 tune 'Pretty Little Baby' had become one of the biggest songs on TikTok this year. As of July, it has been featured in more than 2 million TikTok videos and has nearly 85 million streams on Spotify. A New Jersey native, Francis set the tone for the likes of Madonna and Lady Gaga and 'had a powerful voice that could sound like a sob while staying on key,' San Francisco critic Neva Chonin once noted. One of the most commercially successful female singers of all time, she sold 42 million records by the time she was 26 and, according to her website, 200 million-plus records around the world during her career. On the heels of her newfound celebrity, famed MGM producer Joe Pasternak tapped Francis to portray the romantically challenged Angie, one of four co-eds on spring break in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and sing the title song for Where the Boys Are (1960). The coming-of-age film, also starring Paula Prentiss, Dolores Hart and Yvette Mimieux, was a box office hit, and her tune reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1961. Francis also sang it in Italian, Spanish, French, German and Japanese during the same New York City recording session in November 1960, and it would soar to No. 1 in 19 countries. As Francis churned out one top 10 hit after another, she starred in three more MGM movies, all musicals: Follow the Boys (1963), shot on location on the French and Italian Riviera and also featuring Prentiss; Looking for Love (1964), with Jim Hutton and Johnny Carson; and When the Boys Meet the Girls (1965), featuring Herman's Hermits. Francis never wanted to be an actress, she told Nick Thomas in 2017. 'I asked the studio why they couldn't come up with a title without the word 'boys' in it!' she said. 'People knew [When the Boys Meet the Girls] was another lame Connie Francis movie and they stayed home. I was so pleased it was my last one.' (In 1984, she declined an offer from producer Allan Carr to appear in his remake of Where the Boys Are.) In 1958, Francis shot to stardom with her rendition of 'Who's Sorry Now?,' a 1923 tune written by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby that had been recorded by Bing Crosby and performed in French by Lisette Verea in the Marx Brothers' A Night in Casablanca (1946). With 'Everybody's Somebody's Fool' in June 1960, Francis became the first woman to have a No. 1 song on the Hot 100 (the chart was almost two years old at the time). She reached the pinnacle again three months later with 'My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own' and had a third chart-topper with 'Don't Break the Heart That Loves You' in March 1962. Francis accumulated many other top 10 hits, including 'My Happiness,' 'Lipstick on Your Collar,' 'Frankie' and 'Among My Souvenirs,' all released in 1959; 'Mama' — she said that was her personal favorite — and 'Many Tears Ago' from 1960; 'Together' and 'Breakin' in a Brand New Broken Heart' from 1961; and 'When the Boy in Your Arms (Is the Boy In Your Heart),' 'Second Hand Love' and 'Vacation' from 1962. Her personal life, however, was filled with tragedy. Her self-described one true love, singer Bobby Darin, was chased away by her strict father before they could elope, and she had four unhappy marriages, two miscarriages and a son that lived for only 10 days; was raped at knifepoint in a Long Island motel; her brother was murdered, gangland style; botched nasal surgery took away her singing voice for years; and she was diagnosed with manic depression and involuntarily institutionalized 17 times. 'I would like to be remembered, not so much for the heights I have reached, but for the depths from which I have come,' she often said. Concetta Maria Franconero was born on Dec. 12, 1937, in Newark, the daughter of Ida and George, a roofer who would become the dominating architect of her career. She began taking accordion lessons when she was 3, but her talents as a singer quickly became obvious. At 14, she was making demonstration records for publishers to pitch unreleased songs to popular singers — they'd say, 'C'mon Connie, give it a Rosemary Clooney sound. Give it that great Patti Page or Jo Stafford sound' — when she appeared on the CBS program Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts. During rehearsals, the host had trouble pronouncing her name and suggested she go by Connie Francis. While getting stellar grades at Arts High School and Belleville High School, she appeared from 1953-55 on NBC's Startime Kids. George Scheck, a producer on that variety show, became her manager and shopped her around to record companies; after being turned down by Mitch Miller at Columbia Records and many others, she got a 20-side, two-year deal from Harry Meyerson at MGM Records. She sang for Tuesday Weld in Rock, Rock, Rock (1956) and for Freda Holloway in Jamboree (1957), but her singles were not doing well, with 'The Majesty of Love,' at No. 93, her only one to chart. With her MGM contract about to expire, she was going to accept a scholarship to study medicine at NYU when, hounded by her father, she reluctantly recorded 'Who's Sorry Now?' with 16 minutes left on her final studio session. She thought the song was 'square.' Championed by American Bandstand's Dick Clark — 'without Dick Clark, there would be no Connie Francis,' she said — 'Who's Sorry Now?' sold more than 1 million copies and spent 22 weeks on the Hot 100 in 1958. Suddenly, she was headlining the Copacabana in New York City and the Sahara in Las Vegas, starring on her own ABC special and getting 5,000 fan letters a week. Francis had further success in 1958 with the rock 'n' roll hit 'Stupid Cupid,' written by Neil Sedaka and Howie Greenfield. And when Pasternak advised her that he had commissioned the Oscar-winning songwriting team of Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen to pen 'Where the Boys Are,' she pushed for Sedaka and Greenfield to be considered, and it was their song that she performed. In 1960, Francis was named Miss Coca-Cola and made four appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show. She would be showcased on the program more than two dozen times. Her 1963 song 'In the Summer of His Years,' written as a tribute to John F. Kennedy, was an early charity record, with proceeds going to dependents of the policemen injured during the assassination. In 1964, she was given a special Golden Globe for her 'international contribution to the recording world.' Later, she performed for the U.S. troops in Vietnam. For all her success, she said she passed on opportunities to record such songs as 'Strangers in the Night,' 'Somewhere My Love,' 'Danke Shoen,' 'Angel in the Morning' and tunes written by Hal David and Burt Bacharach. 'I think more songs I turned down than songs I recorded were hits,' she told Ira David Sternberg in a 2018 interview. Her father also rejected a lucrative offer from Frank Sinatra that would have had her record and make movies and TV specials for his Reprise Records. Her last song to chart came in 1969. After three years of inactivity that resulted in part from her miscarriage, Francis began a nationwide tour in November 1974 at the Westbury Music Fair on Long Island. On the fourth night of her engagement, she was raped in her room at a Howard Johnson Motel Lodge. She didn't appreciate that the news generated headlines around the world. 'I didn't want to be thought of as a 'professional victim,'' she said in 1984. Francis was depressed and couldn't get out of bed for months, and in July 1976, a jury awarded her $2.6 million, finding the Howard Johnson chain responsible for her unsafe room. Surgery to widen her nasal passages in 1977 left her unable to sing for four years, and it would take three subsequent operations to restore her singing ability. 'When I lost my voice, I lost myself. It's as simple as that,' she said on her website. 'My voice was the thing that had always defined me — it was who I was. Singing was the one and only thing I was born to do. I felt like a surgeon whose hands had been amputated.' In March 1981, her younger brother, Georgie, 40, who had pleaded guilty to bank fraud charges and had given law enforcement officials information concerning alleged organized-crime activities, was shot to death in front of his New Jersey home. Her eight-year run of stays in psychiatric hospitals ended in 1991 when she said she was properly diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. In 2018, the first of her planned three-part memoir, Among My Souvenirs (The Real Story), was published. After 'dating the swingers of the world but never doing the horizontal cha-cha-cha with any of them,' Francis married publicist Dick Kanellis in August 1964 but filed for divorce five months later, citing mental cruelty. She wed beauty salon owner Izzy Marion, owner of beauty salons in Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe, in January 1971; they divorced 10 months later. She also was married to restaurateur and travel agent Joseph Garzilli from 1973-77 and to TV producer Bob Parkinson in 1985. Both of those unions ended in divorce, too. (Her romance with Darin has been revisited on Broadway in the jukebox musical Just in Time, with Jonathan Groff and Gracie Lawrence portraying the singers.) On Thursday, Lawrence appeared with her Just in Time castmates in New York's Bryant Park and performed 'Who's Sorry Now.' 'I'm going to sing a Connie song now. I implore you to listen to the real thing after [this performance],' she said. 'You'll hear resilience, character, personality, humor, tenderness and strength. You can hear all of that in her voice … which she knew. I would also say that because we're not in a Broadway theater right now, we have the unique opportunity to all sing along, which I know also would've meant a lot to her because her relationship with her fans was everything to her. So, if you know this song, 'Who's Sorry Now,' please sing along. I believe it would mean a lot to her.' Survivors include her adopted son, Joey. 'There are a lot of people who have had my success in this business,' she told Gary James in an interview conducted in the late '90s. 'There were exhilarating highs and abysmal lows. But, it was fighting to get out of those lows that I feel most proud of. 'It was a struggle to reconcile all of the tragedies that had occurred in my life, and I'd like to be known for my music. I'm always honored and privileged when people remember, and it brings back happy memories for a lot of people, and that makes me happy.' Best of The Hollywood Reporter From 'Party in the U.S.A.' to 'Born in the U.S.A.': 20 of America's Most Patriotic (and Un-Patriotic) Musical Offerings Most Anticipated Concert Tours of 2025: Beyoncé, Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar & SZA, Sabrina Carpenter and More Hollywood's Most Notable Deaths of 2025 Solve the daily Crossword
The Sun
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Sun
‘Stupid Cupid' singer Connie Francis dies at 87
WASHINGTON: American singer Connie Francis, whose hits such as 'Everybody's Somebody's Fool' and 'Stupid Cupid' topped the charts in the late 1950s and 1960s, has died aged 87, her publicist announced Thursday. The top-selling artist, born Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero, had been hospitalized earlier in the month after experiencing severe pain and had recently undergone a hip treatment, according to a post on her official Facebook page. 'It is with a heavy heart and extreme sadness that I inform you of the passing of my dear friend Connie Francis last night,' her publicist Rob Roberts posted early Thursday on Facebook, without specifying a cause. Though Francis's heyday faded after the 1960s, she continued to record and perform for decades. When announcing her hospitalization on July 2, she expressed regret about having to miss a planned Independence Day show. 'Petite and pretty, Ms. Francis had an easy, fluid vocal style, a powerful set of lungs and a natural way with a wide variety of material,' wrote The New York Times after her death. In recent months, Francis saw renewed popularity with her 1962 song 'Pretty Little Baby' going viral on TikTok and other video-sharing platforms. Born in Newark, New Jersey to an Italian-American family, she shot to fame in 1958 with the release of 'Who's Sorry Now?' She went on in the next decade to sell millions of records worldwide, with albums in multiple languages. - AFP
NZ Herald
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- NZ Herald
Connie Francis, a top-selling singer of the 1950s and '60s, dies at 87
Francis came of age when popular music was changing from jazz-flavoured swing music to the teen-driven energy of rock-and-roll. She was a reliable hitmaker during that interlude, reportedly selling more than 100 million records. Starting with her revival of the 1920s Tin Pan Alley hit Who's Sorry Now in 1958, Francis charted 35 Billboard Top 40 hits over the next six years, including 15 in the Top 10. She became a pop star at a level rivalling Elvis Presley and her onetime boyfriend, Bobby Darin. Managed by her father, George Franconero, a former New Jersey dockworker, Francis released more than 30 albums between 1958 and 1964, and her songs were constantly on the radio. She received 5000 letters a week, appeared on countless TV variety shows and earned more than US$1 million a year ($1.6m). She sold more records than any other female performer in the 1950s and had the third-highest sales in the 1960s, after the Supremes and Brenda Lee. Music critics often cited Francis as one of the most deserving performers not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. On-screen, Francis starred with Paula Prentiss, Dolores Hart and George Hamilton in Where the Boys Are (1960), a film depicting college students on spring break in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Francis' recording of the buoyant title song reached No 4 on the Billboard pop chart and sold more than 1 million copies. 'I hated 'Where the Boys Are,'' she told People magazine in 1992. 'I didn't like the way I looked. I didn't like the way I acted.' She skipped the film's premiere but, to please her fans, she performed the song at nearly all of her concerts for decades to come. Not quite a rock or R&B belter and not widely regarded as a song stylist, the 1.5m tall Francis had a big voice with a clear tone and could inject a quavery, almost tearful touch at the end of a note for emotional emphasis. She sometimes ventured into country music, including all three of her No 1 singles: Everybody's Somebody's Fool, My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own (both from 1960) and Don't Break the Heart That Loves You (1961). In a few of her albums, such as Songs to a Swinging Band (1960) and A New Kind of Connie (1964), she demonstrated a flair for jazzy standards by the Gershwin brothers, Irving Berlin and Rodgers and Hammerstein and showed a dimension of her talent that she never fully explored. But those weren't the albums that sold. She updated older songs such as Who's Sorry Now with guitars and a rock-and-roll beat to appeal to younger listeners, and recorded many tunes about teen angst, such as Stupid Cupid (1958), Lipstick on Your Collar and Frankie (both 1959). 'They were the least artistic endeavour of my career,' Francis said of her early hits in a 2006 interview with the Arizona Republic. 'They were bubblegum songs. They were teenybopper songs. But I enjoy seeing the reaction of people when I do them.' Francis, who spoke Italian and some Spanish, began recording in other languages early in her career. Using phonetically spelled lyrics, she released albums in 15 languages, including German, Hebrew, Japanese and Romanian, adding to her worldwide popularity as she toured internationally. She was a mainstay at nightclubs and hotels in New York, Hollywood, Las Vegas and Miami Beach, usually accompanied by her parents, with whom she lived until she married for the first time at 25. She appeared in three more films, all knockoffs of Where the Boys Are. But with the arrival of the British Invasion bands of the mid-1960s, including the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, the relatively innocent songs and public persona of Francis seemed out of step during an era of a rising counterculture. Nevertheless, she maintained a devoted following and performed for US service members during the Vietnam War. During one stop, she recalled to CNN host Larry King, a general warned her not to sing her closing tune, God Bless America, because the embittered soldiers 'hated their country'. 'And without a single word, no introduction of any kind, no music of any kind,' Francis said, 'I just walked up to the microphone. I sang the first four lines of 'God Bless America' before one lone soldier stood up, put his hand over his heart and with tears streaming down his face began singing along with me. Then there was 100, then 1000. 'People through the years have always asked me, what was the greatest, ultimate - the greatest moment of your life in show business?' she added. 'And I never fail to mention it, because it was.' Father's control Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero, the older of two children, was born December 12, 1937, in Newark, and grew up in a heavily Italian section of the city. 'There was music in the streets,' Francis recalled to the Newark Star-Ledger in 1997, 'and vendors selling sweet potatoes and chestnuts, and people would sit on their porches at night, singing, and my father would play the concertina.' Young Concetta absorbed her father's love of music, played the accordion for years and made her singing debut at 4, belting out Anchors Aweigh at an amusement park. In 1950, after she won first place on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts, the host suggested she change her name to Connie Francis. She spent four years on a weekly children's variety show, Startime, while attending high school in Belleville, New Jersey. Francis began making records at 14 but found little success at first. She was a student at New York University in 1957, when she recorded Who's Sorry Now? On January 1, 1958, Dick Clark played the song on his American Bandstand show, and it immediately caught on. She left college to focus on music. 'If there wasn't a Dick Clark,' Francis said, 'there would be no career.' In later years, Francis spoke about her father's controlling manner – over her career and personal life – as a form of 'emotional abuse'. She had one date in high school, and her father wouldn't let her go to her senior prom. When she and Darin became close in her late teens, her father entered the studio where a rehearsal of The Jackie Gleason Show was taking place. 'Bobby and I were sitting in the audience holding hands at rehearsal,' Francis said on Larry King Live in 2002, 'and he came in brandishing a gun, intent on shooting Bobby. It took four men to restrain him.' Darin later married and divorced actress Sandra Dee before dying of a heart condition in 1973 at age 37. 'It was the most significant relationship of my life,' Francis later told the Toronto Star, 'and I still regret that it didn't work out.' All four of her marriages, to publicist Dick Kanellis, businessman Izzy Marion, restaurant owner Joseph Garzilli and TV producer Bob Parkinson, ended in divorce. Survivors include a son, Joseph Garzilli jnr. Tragedy and struggle On November 8, 1974, after Francis appeared at the Westbury Music Fair on New York's Long Island, she went to her room in a nearby Howard Johnson motel. In the overnight hours, a man broke into her room, held a knife to her throat and raped and beat her for two hours. She was tied to a chair and pushed to the floor, with two mattresses piled on top of her. Her assailant was never caught. 'You don't ever really get over a thing like that,' she told an interviewer in 2005, 'no matter how hard you try.' Francis filed a negligence suit against the Howard Johnson chain, a jury ruled in her favour and she was awarded US$2.5 million ($4.2m). Francis went into seclusion and did not sing before a live audience for seven years, in part because of a botched plastic surgery procedure on her nose that affected her voice. In 1981, Francis was left shaken by the gangland-style fatal shooting of her younger brother, George A. Franconero jnr, at his New Jersey home. A lawyer, he had reportedly given information to federal authorities investigating mob-related involvement in banking. Francis' fragile emotional state worsened. In interviews and in two autobiographies, she revealed that she became addicted to prescription medicines and attempted suicide by swallowing sleeping pills. She was arrested for striking her hairdresser, for refusing to put out a cigarette on a commercial flight and for threatening a police officer with broken glass. She went on spending sprees, once buying three stretch limousines in a single day. The next day, she spent US$178,000 ($300,472.90) on clothing. Courts twice declared her incompetent to handle her own affairs. Her father once had her involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility – one of 11 times she was institutionalised for mental illness. She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and treated with shock therapy and lithium. After her father's death in 1996, Francis moved to Florida and said she slowly began to put her life and career back together. When she was on the road, she always had a female assistant stay with her and refused to sleep alone in a hotel room. She continued to appear in occasional concerts until shortly before her death. 'I relax only when I'm in front of an audience,' she once told Ladies' Home Journal. 'It's the only time I really know who Connie Francis is.'
