Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero (Newark, New Jersey, December 12, 1937 – Pompano Beach, Florida, July 16, 2025), known professionally as Connie Francis, was an American singer and actress. One of the top-charting female vocalists of the late 1950s and early 1960s, she amassed over 100 million records sold, placing her among the best-selling music artists in history.
After a string of unsuccessful releases, Francis rose to fame in 1958 with her cover of the 1923 song "Who's Sorry Now?", which was followed by various other top-10 hits. She became the first woman to reach No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart when "Everybody's Somebody's Fool" topped the chart in 1960. She was also the first woman to achieve three No. 1 hits on the chart, among her 53 career entries. Before the advent of the British Invasion, Francis was the most popular female vocalist in the United States between 1958 and 1964.
Francis recorded music in multiple languages, including English, Italian, French, German, Greek, Yiddish, and Japanese, making her a best-selling artist in international markets as well as in American immigrant communities.
Between 1974 and 1988, a series of traumatic personal experiences, including a rape attack at knifepoint, led Francis to suffer years of psychological and physical difficulties that sidelined her career. She resumed performing from 1989 until her retirement in 2018. She regained prominence in 2025, shortly before her death, when her 1962 recording "Pretty Little Baby" went viral on social media platforms.
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Francis suffered a hip injury in early 2025 and subsequently required a wheelchair; she was undergoing stem cell therapy and had hopes of fully recovering as recently as May. In late June 2025, she stated she had been experiencing pelvic pain on her right side and was advised that it was due to a fracture. She said that she would need to rely on her wheelchair longer than anticipated while recovering. She was hospitalized in Florida on July 2 due to a recurrence of extreme pain. She underwent a series of tests and examinations while in intensive care and was later transferred to a private room. In a Facebook post, she speculated that her symptoms might be related to the fracture. On July 4, she reported feeling much better after a good night. She was later discharged from the hospital but soon began to deteriorate and lost consciousness for the final time on July 14.
Francis died in Pompano Beach, Florida, on July 16, 2025, at the age of 87. Her longtime friend and publicist Ron Roberts announced her death the following day and later confirmed that she had been diagnosed with pneumonia the day before she died. By the time of her death, Francis had become one of the best-selling music artists in history, exceeding 200 million records sold during her career. Her crypt is at The Garden of Boca Raton Cemetery in Boca Raton.
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