![\"Connie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/69964d822fca7d77bbe1cde7b740342f.jpeg\"\/)
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Connie Francis – Credit: PoPsie Randolph\/Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Connie Francis, the pop singer who released a string of hit singles across the late Fifties and early Sixties including \u201cWhere the Boys Are\u201d and \u201cWho\u2019s Sorry Now?,\u201d died on Wednesday at the age of 87.<\/p>\n
Francis\u2019 death was confirmed on Thursday by Ron Roberts, her friend and president of her Concetta Records (Francis\u2019 birth name was Concetta Franconero). \u201cIt is with a heavy heart and extreme sadness that i inform you of the passing of my dear friend Connie Francis last night,\u201d Roberts wrote on social media<\/a> in a statement that was reposted on Francis\u2019 own frequently updated Facebook account. \u201cI know that Connie would approve that her fans are among the first to learn of this sad news.\u201d<\/p>\n More from Rolling Stone<\/p>\n While no cause of death was provided, Francis revealed earlier this month that she had been hospitalized due to \u201cextreme pain<\/a>,\u201d which forced her to miss a Fourth of July radio broadcast with host Cousin Brucie.<\/p>\n Francis\u2019 music career began in the mid-Fifties with a series of unsuccessful singles for MGM Records; however, she was enlisted to provide the singing voices for actresses Tuesday Weld and Jayne Mansfield in 1956\u2019s Rock, Rock, Rock and 1958\u2019s The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw, respectively.<\/p>\n After MGM Records dropped her, Francis was encouraged to re-record Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby\u2019s 1920s song \u201cWho\u2019s Sorry Now?,\u201d which in 1958 would become the singer\u2019s first big hit, peaking at Number Four on the Billboard Hot 100. The single would launch both Francis\u2019 music and movie career, as she became the best-selling female singer of the era and the first female artist to top the Billboard 200, with her 1960 Number Ones \u201cEverybody\u2019s Somebody\u2019s Fool\u201d and \u201cMy Heart Has a Mind of Its Own.\u201d<\/p>\n The following year, Francis recorded her hit \u201cWhere the Boys Are,\u201d which peaked at Number Four and leant its title to a 1960 film also starring Francis. In 1962, Francis scored her third and final Number One single, \u201cDon\u2019t Break the Heart That Loves You.\u201d The singer also frequently re-recorded her own hits in foreign languages, making her an international music star throughout the turn of the Fifties and Sixties.<\/p>\n However, by 1963, Francis\u2019 popularity began to wane as music shifted toward the British Invasion and rock & roll, though she continued to record throughout the Sixties. The following decade was marred by a series of tragedies for Francis: She was sexually assaulted in a hotel room at the start of a planned comeback tour \u2014 an incident that left her battling PTSD for decades \u2014 and a nasal surgery in 1974 left her unable to sing until the early Eighties. Her brother was also killed in a mob shooting in 1981, and Francis spent much of that decade in psychiatric hospitals.<\/p>\n By the Nineties and the decades that followed, however, Francis resumed her career, returning to touring and occasionally recording before her retirement in 2018. Earlier this year, Francis was surprisingly back in the spotlight when her 1962 single \u201cPretty Little Baby\u201d became a viral hit on TikTok<\/a>, where it topped that service\u2019s music charts at Number One with more than 1.3 million posts using it as a sound in May alone. A video for the song also has over 32 million views on YouTube, by far Francis\u2019 most popular video:<\/p>\n \u201cI am thrilled and overwhelmed at the success of \u2018Pretty Little Baby,\u2019\u201d Francis said in a statement in May. \u201cI recorded that song 63 years ago and to know that an entire new generation now knows who I am, and my music is thrilling to me. Thank you so much everybody, thank you TikTok.\u201d<\/p>\n Best of Rolling Stone<\/p>\n Sign up for RollingStone’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Connie Francis – Credit: PoPsie Randolph\/Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images Connie Francis, the pop singer who released a string…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":884,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,1436,1434,134,1435,136,1437],"class_list":["post-883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-concetta-franconero","tag-connie-francis","tag-entertainment","tag-mgm-records","tag-music","tag-ron-roberts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}