Connie Francis, the pop singer identified for hit singles like “Fairly Little Child” and “Everyone’s Any person’s Idiot,” died on Wednesday, July 16. Francis’ publicist, Ron Roberts, introduced the musician’s dying on Fb, sharing that she died in a hospital in Pompano Seaside, Florida. A reason behind dying was not supplied. Francis was 87 years previous.
Francis was born Concetta Rosemarie Franconero in Newark, New Jersey, in 1937. Inspired by her father, George Franconero, she started taking part in music as a toddler, and, as a toddler, she appeared on tv packages like Arthur Godfrey’s Expertise Scouts.
Francis signed a cope with MGM Information in 1955, however it took a couple of years earlier than she gained recognition. Her cowl of “Who’s Sorry Now?” proved to be her first hit music, because it reached No. 4 on the Billboard Prime 100 within the spring of 1958. From there, the hits saved coming, with songs like “Silly Cupid,” “My Happiness,” “If I Didn’t Care,” “Lipstick on Your Collar,” and “Frankie” all performing properly on the charts.
In June 1960, Francis made historical past as the primary feminine artist to summit the Billboard Scorching 100, because of “Everyone’s Any person’s Idiot.” Francis went on to attain two extra No. 1 songs, “My Coronary heart Has a Thoughts of Its Personal” and “Don’t Break the Coronary heart That Loves You.” Constructing on her success in music, Francis ventured into the world of cinema, starring in motion pictures like 1960’s The place the Boys Are and 1963’s Comply with the Boys.
Francis’ model of pop music grew much less common because the Nineteen Sixties went on and youngsters flocked to British invasion bands just like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. And, as her recording profession suffered, Francis skilled private tragedy in 1974 when she was raped at knifepoint in her lodge room after performing on the Westbury Music Truthful. She was ultimately awarded $2.5 million in damages, however went into seclusion.
Francis returned to the general public eye within the late Eighties, and she or he carried out reside with some regularity. She printed a memoir, Amongst My Souvenirs, in 2017, and, earlier this yr, “Fairly Little Child” grew to become newly common amongst a brand new era of youngsters after going viral on TikTok. “My because of TikTok and its members for the fantastic, and oh so sudden, reception given to my 1961 recording ‘Fairly Little Child,’” Francis shared on-line. “The primary I discovered of it was when Ron referred to as to advise me that I had ‘a viral hit’. Clearly out of contact with current day music statistics terminology, my preliminary response was to ask: ‘What’s that?’ Thanks everybody!”