America lost a music legend last week with the death of 1950s singer sensation Connie Francis at age 87.
Few Americans today appreciate how great Francis was in her era. She was one of the top female vocalists, rivaled only by the likes of Diana Ross, Patsy Cline, Peggy Lee. Her songs were hugely popular, such as “Who’s Sorry Now,” “My Happiness,” “Lipstick on Your Collar,” “Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool,” the fun and snappy “Stupid Cupid,” and (among many others) “Where the Boys Are,” the title track of the 1960 movie in which Francis had an acting role aside lead stars George Hamilton, Paula Prentiss, Yvette Mimieux, Jim Hutton, and the wonderful Dolores Hart (who later became a nun).
Though too few Americans today appreciate Francis, that number is actually much better than only a few years ago. That’s because of the fascinating resurgence of her song “Pretty Little Baby” with the younger generation. The tune suddenly exploded over the last year as a TikTok smash, with girls and young moms, and celebrities prettily lip-syncing the tune to everything from their newborn babies to a kitten or puppy. It has gone viral on TikTok with tens of billions of views, becoming a social-media phenomenon six decades after its original release.
Until “Pretty Little Baby,” Connie Francis had faded in recent decades. She shouldn’t have. Her music stands the test of time. I would especially recommend any of her Christmas albums. Her song “Baby’s First Christmas” is sweet and beautiful. So is her rendition of “Ave Maria.” An Italian American, she crooned a number of lovely melodies in her family’s native tongue, sort of a female version of Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, or Dean Martin. (Many of these Italian vocalists were pushed to Anglicize their names. For instance, Tony Bennett’s original name was Anthony Dominick Benedetto, and Dean Martin was Dino Paul Crocetti.)
As an Italian American myself, which, yes, you wouldn’t know from my last name, I can tell you that Italian Americans adored Connie Francis. My grandmother and aunts, and uncles loved her. She was embraced by the Italian American community.
Italians are intensely proud of their own. That mid-20th century period of millions of first- and second-generation Italian Americans could name every Italian American famous from music, movies, sports, politics, or wherever. And Connie Francis was their ragazza.
Francis’s real name was Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero. Her family hailed from Reggio Calabria in southern Italy, precisely the hometown of my great-grandfather Pietro Giovinazzo. Like many of that time, her family emigrated to America in the first decade of the 20th century (nearly the exact year as mine, prompting me to wonder if our relations had ever met way back when).
In the 1950s, Connie Francis was one among many popular Italian American pop stars who helped launch rock ‘n roll and “doo wop” and came from New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, particularly the corridor of New York City, Newark, and Philadelphia. They were individuals like Dion DiMucci, Fabian, Bobby Rydell, Perry Como (from my wife’s hometown of Canonsburg, Pa.), Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello, and Bobby Darin.
Yes, Bobby Darin, whose original family name was Cassotto.
Bobby and Connie
Bobby Darin brings me to one of my reasons for writing this tribute to Connie Francis. As family and friends and some of my students will attest (I do a series of lectures on Italy and, by extension, Italian Americans in my Major European Governments course at Grove City College), I have long had a fantasy about writing a musical on Bobby Darin and Connie Francis. I’ve never pursued such a thing because, well, I write columns and books and can’t write or read or play any music, even as my wife and kids can. However, I do really enjoy the genre, or maybe I should say that I like good musicals.
For the record, among my favorites are My Fair Lady, Guys and Dolls, Singing in the Rain, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and, of course, Les Misérables, a masterpiece and one of the most extraordinary works ever produced by mere mortals. I love Grease with Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta. As you might discern, I have a preference for musicals with pretty, feminine girls and real, masculine guys. The way the world ought to be. (READ: Paul Kengor, “Remembering Olivia Newton-John.”)
The best such stories are based on a guy-girl romance. This, of course, is a theme going way back to the epic Romeo and Juliet.
And that brings me back to Bobby and Connie.
If you know anything about the lives of Bobby Darin and Connie Francis, you know that they were two teens madly in love. (To borrow from Dion and the Belmonts: “Why must I be a teenager in love?”) They ached for one another. They wanted to spend their lives together, to marry and live happily ever after. But alas, like Romeo and Juliet, they were halted by an angry, disapproving parent. Connie’s father despised Bobby. He vetoed the romance, to put it mildly. When he found out the couple was considering eloping, he lost it.
“My father had such a dislike for him,” said Francis. “He even tried to shoot him. He came with a gun in his pocket …. I was really afraid of my father retaliating against Bobby. So I stayed from Bobby as far away as I could. So during that period of time, we kept in touch through letters.”
Love letters. Lots of them, spilling out their unrequited feelings. They parted, though their love never died, and remained the love of each other’s lives. Bobby and Connie never found true happiness. She said that not marrying him was the biggest mistake of her life. She ultimately went through four marriages. Worse, in 1974, she was brutally raped and beaten at knifepoint at a Howard Johnson motel in Westbury, New York, causing her years of psychological trauma.
Prevented from marrying by Connie’s father, Bobby Darin moved on. He wedded 1950s pop icon Sandra Dee, a marriage that wouldn’t last. When Connie Francis heard the news, she was crushed.
Could it be said that one of them died of a broken heart? Sure. Bobby Darin tragically died very young, at age 37, from heart failure, which started with a series of childhood illnesses that had weakened his heart.
All of which underscores my point: The love story of Bobby and Connie would make for a splendid movie, and an even better musical. Think of the storyline, the narrative, carried along, swept up, elevated by the phenomenal music of the two protagonists. I noted some of Connie’s songs above, but think of Bobby’s repertoire: “Dream Lover,” “Mack the Knife,” “Splish Splash,” and the amazing “Beyond the Sea.”
The recent musical Jersey Boys was a hit because of the fabulous sounds of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. A musical based on the work of both Bobby Darin and Connie Francis would be even bigger. It would be a riveting, emotional story, albeit with a sad ending. But hey, a sad ending didn’t stop Shakespeare.
There it is: Bobby and Connie, a modern-day, 1950s, rock ‘n roll, pop culture, Romeo and Juliet. A great story, albeit bittersweet. And with terrific music. What a wonderful musical it would make. Anyone want to join me? I’ll do the script if you do the score.
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