Connie Francis (born Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero, December 12, 1938) is an American pop singer and the top-charting female vocalist of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Although her chart success waned in the second half of the 1960s, Francis remained a top concert draw. Despite several severe interruptions in her career, she is still active as a recording and performing artist.

Biography

Marriages
Francis has been married four times. The longest-lasting union was five years (1973-1978) with Joseph Garzilli, a restaurateur and travel-agency owner. She was also married for four months to Dick Kannellis, a press agent and entertainment director for the Aladdin Hotel (1964); 10 months to Izzy Marrion, a hair-salon owner (1971-1972); and eight months to TV producer Bob Parkinson (1985-1986).


Relationship with Bobby Darin
Early in her career, Francis was introduced to Bobby Darin, then an up-and-coming singer and songwriter. Darin's manager arranged for him to help write several songs for her. Despite some disagreement about material, after several weeks Darin and Francis developed a romantic relationship. Francis' strict Italian father would separate the couple whenever possible. When her father learned that Bobby Darin had suggested the two lovers elope after one of her shows, he ran Darin out of the building at gunpoint, telling him never to see his daughter again.

Francis saw Darin only two more times – once when the two were scheduled to sing together for a television show, and again when she was spotlighted on the TV series This Is Your Life. By the time of the latter's taping, Bobby Darin had married actress Sandra Dee. In her autobiography Francis stated she and her father were driving into the Lincoln Tunnel when the radio DJ announced Dee and Darin's marriage. Her father made a negative comment about Bobby finally being out of their lives. Angered, Francis wrote she hoped the Hudson River would fill the Lincoln Tunnel, killing both her and her father; she later wrote that not marrying Darin was the biggest mistake of her life.

Other sources dispute the nature of the relationship. Writer Sharon Rosenthal reported in Us Weekly that "many now believe Connie wildly exaggerated her relationship with the late singer." "Their 'great romance' is a myth she's perpetuated all her life," press agent Dick Gershe told Rosenthal. According to Frankie Avalon in the same article, "Connie was on the scene, but Bobby's girl at the time was another singer named Jo Ann Campbell."


Biopic
Francis and singer Gloria Estefan completed a screenplay for a movie based on Francis' life titled Who's Sorry Now?. Estefan has announced that she would produce and play the lead. She said, "[Connie Francis] isn't even in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and yet she was the first female pop star worldwide, and has recorded in nine languages. She has done a lot of things for victims' rights since her rape in the '70s .... There's a major story there."

In December 2009 the film project was dropped. According to Francis:


They chose to use amateur writers to write the screenplay. I wanted the writer Robert Freeman who wrote that miniseries Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows, which won I don’t know how many Emmy Awards, but Gloria and company were unwilling to hire that writer. I absolutely adored his screenplay of Judy’s life ... he was so eager to do my life story for film, but she [Gloria] wouldn’t agree to hire him and that was the end of that. And I’m sorry I wasted ten years with those people [i.e. the Estefans].

In the same article, Francis revealed that entertainer Dolly Parton had been contacting her for years trying to produce her life story, but due to her previous commitment to Estefan's organization, she was not able to accept Parton's offer. She noted in the article that both she and Parton had considered, independently of each other, actress Valerie Bertinelli to play Francis.


Politics and activism
Francis supported Richard Nixon's 1968 bid for the Presidency when she recorded a TV ad for him.
In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan appointed her as head of his task force on violent crime. She has also been the spokeswoman for Mental Health America's trauma campaign, as well as an involved worker for the USO and UNICEF.
Lawsuits
Francis brought a suit alleging that Universal Music Group (UMG) took advantage of her condition and stopped paying royalties. The lawsuit was dismissed.

On November 27, 2002, she filed a second suit against UMG alleging the label had inflicted severe emotional distress on her and violated her moral rights when, without her permission, it synchronized several of her songs into "sexually themed" movies: the 1994 film Post Cards from America, the 1996 film The Craft, and the 1999 film Jawbreaker. This suit was also dismissed.

Francis also sued the producers of Jawbreaker for using her song "Lollipop Lips," which is heard during a sex scene.