Even when she wasn’t an adult, it seems Connie Francis was an adult.
In mid-1954, Francis was 16 and appearing on ABC’s Saturday night Star Time Kids. Producer George Scheck told the United Press she “could make her way as an adult entertainer right now, if she had to, but she’ll stay with us for another season.”
The Daily News reported on October 31 that year: “George’s biggest teaser is the problem of deciding which record offer to accept for his 16-year-old torch singer, Connie Francis. Seems Connie, a typical teen-ager despite her remarkable talent, can’t decide whether she’s rather be on the same label with Frank Sinatra, or Eddie Fisher or Tony Bennett. ‘Connie’s idea of being signed to a record contract,’ says Scheck, ‘is that it gives you an in to getting autographs from the company’s other stars’.”
Connie got her record contract while she was still in high school, and that led to her becoming one of the most popular female pop stars of the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, with a string of hits—Who’s Sorry Now?, Stupid Cupid, Among My Souvenirs, Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool, Where the Boys Are, well, the list goes on.
Her later life had more drama than a soap opera. She was raped. She lost her voice. She was put away in mental institutions. And she overcame. They loved her in the Castro in San Francisco and she performed to sold-out crowds who knew where the boys are.
But let’s go back to a more pleasant time in her life, when she was tried to pass courses while building a career. This is a front-page story from her hometown paper, The Belleville Times, of June 24, 1955.
No Business Like Show Business
Connie Francis Hits Top With Record; Will Continue School
By Regina Smaridge
Graduation from high school is the high point in a teenager's life, but for Connie Francis, of 182 Forest Street, it climaxed a week which saw her hit recording, "Freddy" second on the M G M list; marked an appearance Monday on the Norman Brokenshire TV show, followed by lunch at Sardi's and on Wednesday, the day of graduation, she was preparing to dash over to New York for a guest shot on the Sammy Kaye radio program.
"Don't mind the bare floors," she said that morning, "the rugs are rolled back for my graduation party tonight."
During her recital of the engagements lined up for the rest of this week, which include appearances on the Hal Tunis, Johnny Olsen and Barry Gray, disc jockey shows; a trip to Jamaica for a publicity campaign and a visit to Chicago, where she'll be seen with the Four Aces.
"It's really good, Georgie. Mostly 'A's'. Swell."'
The pretty teenager, who will probably win herself a "gold record" (signifying a 1,000,000 sale of recordings) has brains to match her talent. She has been on the honor list at the high school, and was offered scholarships to any college in the country. She chose one to New York University, where she will study television production and script writing.
A five year veteran of network TV, as star of George Scheck's "Star Time," featuring the most talented youngster professionals in showbusiness, she has just had her first MGM recording, "Freddy", placed on the market. Disc jockeys throughout the country who have heard it state that the record is a smash hit.
The dark-eyed girl, whose nick-name at Belleville High is "Freddy" in honor of her recording, is not a girl, to have her head turned by any new fame. She has been a minor celebrity since ten, when she auditioned for the "Starlets" program on WATV, Newark, as an accordian [sic] playing singer who was booked on the telecast for a solid year.
Though only seventeen now, she has since accumulated a scrapbook bigger than she was when she made her debut.
Although she won a flock of amateur contests in her early teens, culminating in Arthur Godfrey's "Talent Scouts", Connie's "professional career" began at thirteen, when she saw George Scheck's "Star Time Kids".
She informed her father, roofing contractor, George Franconero, "I am going to be on that show."
He tried to talk her out of it, on the ground that she was working too hard for a little girl. Connie continued pleading until her father agreed to take her for an audition. Producer George Scheck saw her do one number and she immediately became the program's star for four years.
A few months ago, Scheck had Connie record four sides, including "Freddy." MGM Records snapped the records up and released them on their own label.
Dick Kleiner of the Newspaper Enterprise Association noted in a column at the start of 1956:
Connie’s just turned 18, gets a $5 allowance and still pals around with her teen-age crowd in Belleville. And her MGM record of “My Treasure” [b/w “Are You Satisfied?”] is starting to make noise, she’s getting pretty exciting offers (most of which she turns down) and all in all is a thrilling business for her. ...
Two interesting facts about the brown-eyed gal: as a child, she was so bad in singing class in school that the teacher kept her in the front row (parents of listeners, take heart) and the song that may well put her in the front rank of girl singers is one she doesn’t particularly like.
The Daily Herald in London, England, commented on first record release in the U.K. in its issue of May 2, 1956.
Her records are selling in the hundreds of thousands in America. There are nearly 200 “Connie Francis Clubs.” Her fan mail is enormous. Thousands of boys write for her picture. Her father’s phone is jammed every night with ore youths pleading for dates.
But “I’ve given up dating,” says this 18-year-old contralto, a first-year student at New York University, who has only been out with boys four times in her life.
Love is something she sings about—“Make Him Jealous,” “Didn’t I Love You Enough?”, “My First Real Love,” “Believe in Me,” and now, “Forgetting.”
She herself composed “Forgetting”—in 15 minutes.
The local paper put her back on the front page on May 29, 1957. Her break-out single hadn’t come yet, but she had already appeared in the Alan Freed rocksploitation film Rock Rock Rock! (fourth billed on screen).
The Face Is Familiar
Town Can Be Proud Of Product, Connie Francis
By Myrna Lamb
Show business is one business like which there no business, Ask Connie Francis, of Belleville, U.S.A. and Showbiz, Everywhere. She'll tell you. She'll tell anyone.
"You get up there in front of an audience, and you're somebody else. You're really alive, really happy". That, ladies and gentlemen is a genuine 24 karat solid gold plated performer talking. "I don't like to hear just compliments. I want to know why. How can I improve? What did I do wrong?" Again, the real article.
This looks like a little girl talking. A sparkle-eyed little girl of extraordinary and easily apparent vitality; but a little girl of the famed just-next-door variety. What makes the difference? Maybe partly the intensity, the single-minded devotion, the absolute concentration on dead center mark the girl who's going to make it in a big way.
Then, of course, there's the talent. It never comes alone. Always drags several dozen of its kin along with it. That's the tricky part. Now Connie can do several things well, and she likes to do them too. In the music area, she can play the accordian [sic] and piano, and does some rather facile composing. In the writing area, she does a whiz-bang job of letter-writing, doing from fifty to an amazing 170 letters a week, all individual, all longhand. She has been an editor on Spotlight, the B.H.S. newspaper, and she has plans for a column of her own in the near future.
Drama? She has an interest in all sides of the floodlights, and some actual experience in T.V. acting and directing. All this doesn't mean there couldn't be more. But isn't this a problem? A what-to-do dilemma that could lead to a stranglehold of indecision? Well here's where the real performer comes in with a very valuable lesson. Honest self-evaluation.
"I had six months of voice. Felt it would be more of a hindrance than a help. No popular songs demand range or a great voice. I want to be a great performer. Not a great singer." This from Connie, and this, on her incessant push toward self-improvement. "I write six pages in my diary every night Every act I see gets in, especially my favorites, Judy Garland, Edith Piaf. I try to learn from their types of introductions, their ways of speaking, the hand motions, the little tricks that endear them to the audience. I mean, this is the only business where the people who buy, pay, before they get their merchandise. They deserve the best you can give them."
As for individuality, also a plus-side commodity in the entertainment field, thin, too is Connie Francis speaking. "I never hesitate to refuse a drink, or a cocktail party, or anything I don’t like. I don't want to fall into pattern. I don't want my friends to have to give me the star treatment.
Strict attention to duty and a hard streak of practicality, as evidenced by the following "I never go out after work in New York, and I only go out in other towns as long as Mother's with me. It may sound corney [sic], but don't believe in mixing business with pleasure; and I don't want to be the cause for stories that can't do men [me] any good." She added, "Hal Allen, an R. C. A. promotion man said he'd never, heard anyone say anything derogatory about me, and, in this, business, that’s quite a compliment."
Romance, Miss Francis? "Well, I went what I'd call steady for about six months. We were very close and our ideas coincided perfectly. We both hated prejudice in any form, any kind of bigotry. I just can't think ‘groups’ I have to think people. Well, this boy is a singer, two and two people in this business have to face a lot of unadmitted jealousy and friction. So was that". Connie added, "Any man I eventually marry has to be intellectually superior to me. Truth and realness in people, and certainly in a man I cared for, is something I'm always looking for."
On religion. "To me, God is supreme. Everything else is secondary. I love an empty church in the middle of the week. Sunday is more of a ritual. Wednesday or Thursday is spontaneous religion."
This, then, is a personality. Knowledgeable, verbal, confident, competent. Has she done it all by herself? Connie is the first one to deny it. Her mother, her press agent, her manager[,] all come in for their due credit in her conversation. And in one little illuminating aside, she divulged this[.] "When I first began to record, I used to dress up pretty, come into the studio, and be terribly aware of everyone around me, what I was doing with my diction, how I held my note. I tried to listen and remember everything." Here Connie’s face held a wry remembrance. "I didn't feel I had recorded a worthwhile thing. I used to cringe when I heard my voice."
"That", Connie continued, "was until Ray Ellis, who was doing the arranging on the 'Rock, Rock, Rock' soundtrack. I sang the lead song on that track, [‘]I Never Had A Sweetheart', and I came on with this big voice, watching my b’s and p's.
Connie disclosed that Ray Ellis had said to her, "You just keep singing that way, Honey, and you'll be lucky if you sell 1,000 records. People have to feel you're singing strictly to them. Warmth and sincerity you have. Now you have to communicate it."
The big thing here is that Connie followed what proved to be some very valuable advice. She worked that side for two hours, really got what the words meant to her personally, and went home to put it on the tape recorder for dictation. The result?
"I went into the studio that night, and I sang." Her voice in telling it held wonder and gratification. "As far as I knew was all alone in that room. People didn't matter. Notes didn't matter. I stood there, in my stockinged feet, completely comfortable, at that magic time around 1 or 2 a.m., and meant every last word of that sang."
That, in brief, is the story of a really good record by Connie Francis. The story of Connie Francis herself certainly can't be put into black and white, alone. It's going to be written in lights, on the hearts of thousands of people, and definitely, inevitably, right up there in the stars.
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