Connie Francis: Not Sorry Now

When Concetta Franconero sang on the Arthur Godfrey Talent Scout show in the mid-1950s, he thought her name would be a hindrance for her career. Godfrey shortened it to Connie Francis, thus beginning a career that continues to this day. To say the least, she is a survivor - overcoming not only changes in popular tastes, but a myriad of personal issues as well. In 1974 she was raped and beaten following a concert at a popular Long Island music venue (she sued the hotel chain where she was staying and won a three million dollar settlement). Three years later a nose operation would lead her to lose her voice (subsequent operations restored it). Then in 1981 her brother was murdered in a gangland hit. Later that year she returned to the stage - the Westbury Music Fair - where she had played on the night of her rape for a triumphant appearance. That proved short-lived: the next ten years were tumultuous: she attempted suicide, was involuntarily institutionalized (once at the assistance of her close friend Dick Clark) eleven times, and was diagnosed as bi-polar. At one point she even imagined herself as the Virgin Mary.

It's a story worthy of a dozen Lifetime movies (in fact, a biopic is in development supervised by Gloria Estefan,) and one that Francis has no qualms discussing. "I've always been very honest with the press. I just tell it like it is," she explained this past week. "I don't like to see something in print and see it years later and realize it's a lie. I don't skirt around any issues."

This may be part of the reason she has such a devoted fan base, especially with gay men of the Baby Boomer generation, who flock to see her public appearances. This past March she made a sold-out appearance at San Francisco's Castro Theatre with her current show concert entitled The Legend Continues. It was so successful she returns there next week. Reviewing the concert in the San Francisco Chronicle, critic Neva Chonin wrote: "Sauntering onstage in black trousers and a black sweater decorated with what looked like synthetic sea anemones, the diminutive Francis, 68, was a beguiling cross between a grande dame and a great broad with her tsunami of sprayed hair and a voice that seemed too big for such a tiny body ... She brought the crowd to its feet by closing with "God Bless America" and a reminder that you don't have to support a lousy government -- no names mentioned -- to love your country. It's not often that gay urbanites and conservative suburbanites find common ground, musically or politically. Francis is a rare exception. Have I mentioned they don't make pop stars like her anymore?"

Prior to her return to the Castro, Francis will be performing at Boston's Cutler/Majestic Theatre on Saturday, October 6 at 8pm.

Mentioning her name to younger gay men brings a blank expression, though putting on her recording of Where the Boys Are - one of numerous #1 hits she had during the 1960s - immediately brings recognition. They may not know the name of the singer, but they know the song and her intense performance of it. "I have a large gay following in San Francisco, and I have a large gay following in Boston. I have a large gay following everywhere. In my show I say, 'And now Ladies and Gentlemen, the Gay National Anthem.' And then I sing Where the Boys Are. And they love it."

Francis, who was born in Newark, NJ, started performing at a young age as part of kids' troupe on a television variety show called Startime in the early 1950s. Her appearance with Arthur Godfrey led to an M-G-M recording contract, but a string of failed singles almost led her to quit the label. What saved her was her recording of an old 1920s standard - Who's Sorry Now? Dick Clark, host of American Bandstand, picked up on it and it became her first gold record. It also started a friendship with Dick Clark whom she calls her closest friend in the business to this day. Throughout the 1960s she was a frequent visitor on the Ed Sullivan Show where she sang many of her 35-Top Ten hits. Mention of her appearances on the show only made her laugh. "I grew up on the Ed Sullivan Show. A company just gave me dubs of all my performances over the years and it's been really interesting to see myself back then and see how styles changed, how make-up and gowns changed, and how hairstyles changed - thank God!"

During those years she made a handful of movies, including the hugely successful Where The Boys Are, but never thought they were very good or that she was very good in them. "I would say I hated my movies. One critic called my second movie - Follow the Boys: 'the biggest naval disaster since Pearl Harbor.' But I didn't get mad. I got a kick out of that ... I really didn't like doing movies. It was all 'hurry up and wait.' I was caught in this frenetic life. I wanted to travel all over the world and make records for people in their native languages - that was my thrust. Not making movies."

Recording and travel did become her focus, and she made a point of recording her songs in twelve languages - from Italian (which she spoke fluently) to German and Japanese (which she learned phonetically.) Today she includes a number of Italian songs in her show, as well as a tribute to great French singer Edith Piaf, with whom she shares a similar, sobbing vocal style.

Asked if there was any show business personality she would like to spend time with again, her answer came without any hesitation: Bobby Darin. "He was the greatest entertainer of the century and he was my first real love," she explained. It was a romance, though, fraught with drama. Francis's father (with whom she says she had a love/hate relationship) came at Darin with a gun while the couple was sitting in the audience at the Jackie Gleason Show. It took four men to restrain him. "He came in with a gun intending on shooting Bobby," she recalled. "Usually guns are pulled after the fact - like in a shotgun wedding - this was before, and it wasn't to make him marry me. But Bobby was very sophisticated and sexy and my dad saw him as a threat. Anyone who came within a 400 yard radius of me was a threat to my father." Their relationship ended shortly after. In the ensuing years Francis married and divorce four times.

It will be those aspects of her personal life - her marriages and her issues with mental illness - that will be the focus of her second autobiography that she is currently working on. (Her first, Who's Sorry Now? was published in 1987). She is also contributing to the script for an upcoming biopic that she hopes will go before the cameras within a year. "My new book will include a lot of the things I didn't write about in my first. I skipped over my three marriages in that - not because I didn't want to write about it, but I didn't have the time to do it. I had spent a year on it, but was doing so many other things at that time, I only covered the early part of my career; but I didn't tell the really meaty stories I have to tell."

Like the 1980s?

"You know," she continued, "The 1980s - they were the roughest time for me. From 1983 to 1991 I was hospitalized 11 times. I attempted suicide. I was smoking grass at that time, and I think smoking grass and taking pills and the rape and the death of my brother led to that. As a young person growing up in the business I had never seen marijuana. Then I went to Vietnam to entertain the troops and saw it growing in the fields. I see these young kids - like Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohen - who are so confused and mixed-up, but I think it has a lot to do with the drug culture today. That wasn't true when I was growing up."

What has sustained her throughout her ups and downs is a sense of humor. "That's the one thing that kept me going, that and the thousands of inspirational letters I received. I remember I was in a mental institution in 1985 and I received a letter from Milan, Italy and it was addressed: to Miss Connie Francis, Somewhere in America. And it came directly to the hospital. It made me think, the post office did a better job than the FBI in keeping tabs on me!"

Asked if she is finding younger faces in her audiences today, Francis replied with an anecdote: "I remember early in my career I would have somebody say, 'Could you sign this autograph for my little sister?' That became 'Could you sign this autograph for me.' And then, 'Would you sign this autograph for my mother?' And now, 'Could you sign this autograph for my grandmother?'" She paused and laughed. "You know, I've been around a long, long time."

Connie Francis performs at the Cutler/Majestic Theatre, Saturday, October 6 October 6, 2007 at 8pm. Tickets: $55, $70, $82.50, $95, $115. For more information call Telecharge: 1-800/233-3123 or visit the Cutler/Majestic website.