Connie Francis Dies at 87, 1960s Pop Icon, Viral Hit Pretty Little Baby.
Connie Francis Dies at 87, 1960s Pop Icon, Viral Hit Pretty Little Baby
The musician, whose hits included Stupid Cupid and Who’s Sorry Now, had recently enjoyed a resurgence after her 1962 song Pretty Little Baby went viral on TikTok.
Francis had recently been treated for pelvic pain caused by a fracture. Her death was first reported by the president of her record label, Ron Roberts, and confirmed to the BBC by Universal Music.
“It is with a heavy heart and extreme sadness that I inform you of the passing of my dear friend Connie Francis last night,” Roberts wrote on Facebook.In June, weeks before her hospitalization, Francis was honored at her South Florida home by record label executives for the TikTok-fueled success of the perky “Pretty Little Baby” tune that captured the world’s attention via billions of streams on the social media platform.
“It’s astounding to me that a song I recorded 63 years ago would resonate with teenagers and younger,” Francis said from the foyer of her South Florida home. “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, whose honeyed mezzo-soprano inspired a generation of pop singers, including ABBA’s Agnetha Fältskog, whom Francis recently praised on social media, and Broadway’s Gracie Lawrence, who was Tony-nominated for playing Francis in the new Bobby Darin bio musical, “Just in Time,” introduced a generation of teenagers to pop music in her heyday years 1958 and 1964.
Francis was the most popular female pop singer through her signature tunes “Who’s Sorry Now” and “Where the Boys Are,” the Neil Sedaka-Howard Greenfield title song from the 1960 comedic movie she co-starred in that was set in, and filmed, in Fort Lauderdale.
Connie Francis and George Hamilton in a scene from the 1960 beach movie, “Where the Boys Are.” The comedy was filmed in Fort Lauderdale. Francis moved to Broward County in 1997, having fallen in love with South Florida while filming the movie. Miami Herald file
That frothy film and its title song, which rose to No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1961, put Fort Lauderdale on the spring break map — a rowdy reputation the city has distanced itself from for decades.
“What struck me was the purity of the voice, the emotion, the perfect pitch and intonation,” said Sedaka, 86, in her New York Times obituary. “It was clear, concise, beautiful. When she sang ballads, they just soared.”
Songwriter Neil Sedaka received the Connie Francis Lifetime Achievement Award from Francis during a luncheon in February 2015 at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino near Hollywood. Sedaka cowrote Francis’ hits “Where the Boys Are” and “Stupid Cupid.” Miami Herald file
The pair became friends and frequent collaborators when Francis and her manager father were looking for a follow up single after the dreamy “Who’s Sorry Now” also crested at No. 4 on the nation’s singles chart.
Francis chuckled on the couch of her Parkland home in June when she recounted the time in 1958 she met Sedaka and Greenfield, the two young New York songwriters for hire who also needed a hit song fast. They arrived before her with a piano and a parcel full of their compositions. They kept playing Francis ballads, one after the other, in hopes of pleasing the 19-year-old singer and her taskmaster father George Franconero.
A desperate Greenfield whispered in his musical partner’s ear. “Play her ‘Stupid Cupid,” he suggested. That one was bouncy. Different from the stately ballads that were flopping in front of her. Sedaka was aghast. A sweating Greenfield reminded a skeptical Sedaka that nothing else was working.
Francis overheard the exchange and repeated it in her June interview with the Miami Herald.
“ ‘She’s a classy singer. She’ll be insulted!’ So I said, no matter what it is, just play it, because you guys are putting me to sleep. So finally, Neil played it, and he played 12 bars for that song before I started jumping up and down, saying, ‘Wow! Now you’re talking hit title! Hit title! That’s my next record!” Francis said.
Francis was also initially lukewarm on the ballad that brought her to the world’s attention, “Who’s Sorry Now.”
“My father liked the song,” she said. “And I said it was written in 1923. ‘Did they have records 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.
Francis also 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.
In May, the music label Universal that marketed her classics, released seven international versions of “Pretty Little Baby” with recordings Francis originally sang in English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Japanese and Swedish.
Her most successful Top 10 albums on the U.S. Billboard chart were “Connie Francis Sings Italian Favorites” in 1959 and its 1960 sequel “More Italian Favorites.”
Just weeks before her death, Francis told the Herald she hoped TikTok users would discover another obscure song from the songbook of Sedaka and Greenfield called “Baby Roo” that she had recorded around the time of “Where the Boys Are.”
She figured it could potentially replicate the “Pretty Little Baby” success.
“It’s a cute kid’s song. It’s about an overweight guy. ‘Baby Roo draws the crowd when he steps on the scale.’ It’s a great lyric. I don’t even know if it was released,” she said.
“Baby Roo” was buried on a 1961 album that had held much bigger hits like her two No. 1 singles, “Everybody Somebody’s Fool” and “My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own.”
Profile Image of Howard C
Miami Herald consumer trends reporter Howard Cohen, a 2017 Media Excellence Awards winner, has covered pop music, theater, health and fitness, obituaries, municipal government, breaking news and general assignment. He started his career in the Features department at the Miami Herald in 1991. Cohen is an adjunct professor at the University of Miami School of Communication. Support my work with a digital subscription
