WASHINGTON: American singer Connie Francis, whose hits such as Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool and Stupid Cupid topped the charts in the late 1950s and 1960s, has died aged 87, her publicist announced on Thursday (Jul 17).
The top-selling artist, born Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero, had been hospitalised earlier in the month after experiencing severe pain and had recently undergone hip treatment, according to a post on her official Facebook page.
“It is with a heavy heart and extreme sadness that I inform you of the passing of my dear friend Connie Francis last night,” her publicist, Ron Roberts, posted on early Thursday on Facebook, without specifying a cause.
Though Francis’ heyday faded after the 1960s, she continued to record and perform for decades.
When announcing her hospitalisation on Jul 2, she expressed regret about having to miss a planned Independence Day show.
“Petite and pretty, Ms Francis had an easy, fluid vocal style, a powerful set of lungs and a natural way with a wide variety of material,” wrote The New York Times after her death.
In recent months, Francis saw renewed popularity with her 1962 song Pretty Little Baby going viral on TikTok and other video-sharing platforms.
Born in Newark, New Jersey, to an Italian-American family, she shot to fame in 1958 with the release of Who’s Sorry Now?
She went on in the next decade to sell millions of records worldwide, with albums in multiple languages.
