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Connie Francis, ‘Pretty Little Baby’ and ‘Who’s Sorry Now’ Singer, Dies at 87

Music|Connie Francis, Whose Ballads Dominated ’60s Pop Music, Dies at 87

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/17/arts/music/connie-francis-dead.html

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Connie Francis, who dominated the pop charts in the late 1950s and early ’60s with sobbing ballads like “Who’s Sorry Now” and “Don’t Break the Heart That Loves You,” as well as up-tempo soft-rock tunes like “Stupid Cupid,” “Lipstick on Your Collar,” and “Vacation,” died on Wednesday. She was 87.

Her publicist, Ron Roberts, announced her death in a post on Facebook. He did not say where she died or cite a cause.

Ms. Francis had an easy, fluid vocal style, a powerful set of lungs and a natural way with a wide variety of material: old standards, rock ‘n’ roll and country, as well as popular songs in Italian, Yiddish, Swedish and a dozen other languages.

Between 1958 and 1964, when her brand of pop music began to fall out of favor, Ms. Francis was the most popular female singer in the United States, selling 40 million records. Her 35 Top 40 hits during that period included 16 songs that made the Billboard Top 10, and three No. 1 hits: “Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool” and “My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own” in 1960 and “Don’t Break the Heart That Loves You” in 1962.

She sits on a couch, wearing jeans and a collared shirt, in a black and white image.

She was best known for the pulsing, emotional delivery that coaxed every last teardrop from slow ballads like “Who’s Sorry Now” — the first of her many records to sell a million copies — and made “Where the Boys Are” a potent anthem of teenage longing. Sighing youngsters thrilled to every throb in “My Happiness” and “Among My Souvenirs.”