Connie Francis, the best-selling female vocalist of the 1950s and '60s, has died at 87. No official cause of death has been announced.

Her death was confirmed on July 17 by longtime friend and publicist Ron Roberts.

Francis, born Concetta Franconero, didn’t sound like anyone else at the time. She wasn’t rock and roll or classic swing. She fit somewhere in between: young, emotional, and completely her own. Songs like “Who’s Sorry Now,” “Stupid Cupid,” and “Lipstick on Your Collar” turned her into a household name. You couldn’t walk into a diner or switch on a jukebox in the late ’50s without hearing her voice.

A Career Built on One Big Break

Francis first rose to fame in 1958 following her cover of "Who's Sorry Now" on American Bandstand. She was about to quit music and attend college, but her father urged her to give it one more shot.

That one performance changed the entire course of her career.

She was unstoppable. She had 35 Top 40 hits, sold over 100 million records, and recorded in 15 languages. Her fan mail topped 5,000 letters a week.

At one point, Connie was just as culturally dominant as Elvis Presley or Bobby Darin. She actually dated Bobby Darin until her father reportedly ended it by threatening him with a gun.

And just when it seemed like the world had moved on, Connie came back.

A TikTok Rebirth at 87 Years Old

In 2025, her 1962 track "Pretty Little Baby" exploded on TikTok. Over 17 million users made videos using the song. The trend racked up 27 billion views. Francis even joined in, lip-syncing to her own recording and thanking younger artists like Ariana Grande and Timothée Chalamet for the support.

"To think that a song I recorded 63 years ago is touching the hearts of millions of people is truly awesome. It is an amazing feeling," she told People Magazine.

Beyond the Hits: Trauma, Loss, and Survival

Behind the scenes, Francis faced a lifetime of struggles. In 1974, she was raped at knifepoint in a hotel room after a show in New York. The attacker was never caught. She sued the hotel chain and won $2.5 million, but the trauma left her reeling.

She didn't perform live again for seven years.

Things got even darker in the 1980s. In 1981, her younger brother, George Franconero Jr., a New Jersey attorney, was shot and killed outside his home. According to reports at the time, he had shared information with federal investigators about organized crime in the banking industry. He was scraping ice off his windshield when two men approached and shot him multiple times. The murder was widely believed to be a mob-related hit, though no one was ever convicted.

Francis was devastated. The loss added another heavy weight to a decade already marred by trauma and instability.

Francis battled bipolar disorder, addiction, and long stretches of depression throughout her adult life. Her mental health struggles became more visible in the 1980s, when she experienced several public breakdowns. She was hospitalized multiple times, involuntarily committed on at least 11 occasions, including once by her own father. She later admitted to spending sprees, suicide attempts, and arrests for incidents ranging from striking a hairdresser to refusing to extinguish a cigarette on a commercial flight. At one point, she was legally declared incompetent to manage her own affairs.

She channeled her pain into her 1984 memoir, Who's Sorry Now?, where she laid everything bare. The book revisits her chart-topping years and details the trauma, isolation, and loss that followed.

"Every time there's a story about me, it reads like a Greek tragedy," she told Oprah during the book's release. "But I've also had a Cinderella life… with the exception of the last 10 years."

"I relax only when I'm in front of an audience."

Francis wasn't always proud of the Hollywood side of her career. She openly disliked most of the films she starred in, especially Where the Boys Are, which she once called "lame." Still, the movie's title track became one of her signature songs, reaching No. 4 on the Billboard charts and selling over a million copies. She performed it at nearly every concert for the rest of her life, whether she liked it or not.

Off-screen, she poured more of herself into live performances, especially when it came to supporting U.S. troops. During the Vietnam War, she was warned by a general not to sing "God Bless America", fearing the song might upset soldiers who were disillusioned with the war. She sang it anyway, without introduction or fanfare. One soldier stood up, then another, until the crowd was singing along, many in tears. Francis later called it the most powerful moment of her entire career.

In her later years, she continued to tour, primarily on nostalgia circuits and in intimate venues. But even then, she was cautious. She refused to sleep alone in hotel rooms and always traveled with a trusted female assistant.

Still, the stage remained her constant.

"I relax only when I'm in front of an audience," she once said. "It's the only time I really know who Connie Francis is."

Ignored by Institutions, Immortalized by Fans

Francis had four short marriages and is survived by her son, Joseph Garzilli Jr.

She was never inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, despite being one of the best-selling female vocalists of all time. Critics overlooked her, institutions passed her by, but her fans never did.

And in the end, it wasn't a trophy or a tribute that brought her back. It was a TikTok trend that revived "Pretty Little Baby" and gave a whole new generation a reason to fall in love with her voice. For a woman who once thought she'd been forgotten, it was a full-circle moment.

Connie Francis lived through the worst and still found her way back to the mic. And she will be remembered. Not just for the songs, but for the strength and resilience it took to keep singing them.

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