During the 60s and 70s, Connie Francis ruled the airwaves.
She was seen as the Italian goddess with the golden voice.
She achieved great success both on stage and on screen.
However, she has not had much success in romantic relationships.
After narrowly losing the love of her life to a different woman, Connie embarked on a
streak of failed marriages.
Join FactsVerse as we journey through the 70s to discover how Connie Francis let the
love of her life slip away.
Born Concetta Rosemarie Franconero, Connie enjoyed a stellar career and exemplified the
ideal of a successful female pop star.
Not only did she outsell her male contemporaries, but she also sang in a variety of languages.
Connie was born into an American-Italian household.
Her father, George, an Italian immigrant, believed that his daughter would become a
famous singer from the moment she was born.
So he started teaching her how to play at the young age of three and has been there
for her every step of the way in her professional life.
Nevertheless, Connie felt more smothered by what her father perceived as support.
Connie was not given much creative control over her career, including the songs she recorded
or the jobs she took.
George was so confident that he knew what was best for his daughter that he made all
of the major life choices for her, including who she could date.
When Connie first started out, she held a number of different jobs.
Connie recorded several "demonstration" albums, in which she performed songs for famous people
and received positive feedback.
She also appeared on a New York City-based kids' TV show.
After that, Connie recorded a few songs that bombed on the radio.
In her early career as a singer, Connie crossed paths with a young performer named Bobby Darin,
with whom she had nothing but disagreements about musical arrangements.
Connie and Darin worked together on a number of projects despite being kept at arm's length
by Connie's authoritarian father.
Both parties expressed their undying love for one another in letters, and they even
talked about eloping.
When her father found out, he threatened Darin with a gun and drove him out of the recording
studio, ending their budding relationship.
About a decade later, in 1960, she found out to her dismay that Darin had wed actress Sandra
Dee.
Connie was torn between competing feelings of envy and animosity.
Clearly, she was envious of Dee because she was keeping the man she desired.
Her resentment was directed at her father for denying her a chance at happiness with
Darin.
Despite not wanting the spotlight, Connie was a huge success on stage and in film.
Connie's father was enthusiastic about her getting her first film role, but once they
got the script, he decided she shouldn't be in it.
Connie decided to do the movie despite her father's wishes because she wanted to prove
him wrong.
She actually filmed "Where The Boys Are" and became an overnight sensation.
The result was a breakup that lasted several years and centered around this issue.
But before George's untimely death in 1981, he and his daughter, Connie, resolved their
differences.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Connie Francis captivated listeners with her enchanting voice.
Who's Crying Now, Stupid Cupid, My Happiness, and Frankie were just a few of her endearing
hits.
She had a golden voice and a golden reputation, and she became a symbol for many people.
However, the death of his beloved Bobby Darrin in 1973 was a stab in the heart for Connie.
Since Bobby's untimely death at age 37 due to heart failure, Connie has remained bittersweet
about the time they shared together, claiming that he was her one and only true love.
A few more brief encounters occurred between the two before Darin's untimely passing in
1973.
Connie repeatedly stated that her biggest regret was not marrying Darin, the man she
considers her soul mate.
With the loss of her one true love, she experienced a streak of failed marriages.
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In 1964, Connie wed actor Dick Kanellis.
The couple dated for an entire year before getting married.
Dick worked as a public relations representative for a number of Las Vegas hotels.
They were married for a total of three months before calling it quits.
Dick died of his battle with cancer in 1973.
In 1971, Connie married Izzy Marion, her second husband.
Her 10-month marriage to the salon owner was brief.
Like Connie, Izzy was a divorcee with two children from a previous marriage.
The famous singer wed her third husband, Joseph Garzilli, in 1973.
After five years of marriage, the couple divorced in 1978.
In the course of their marriage, they adopted a son, Joseph Garzilli Jr.
Her marriage with Joseph was the longest she enjoyed in all her marriages.
In 1985, the singer tied the knot for the fourth and last time.
Her final marriage was to a man named Bob Parkinson.
Bob was a TV producer in the early 1980s.
The marriage lasted only 81 days before the couple started making divorce plans.
In retrospect, it's easy to see why she never found long-lasting happiness in love in her
marriages after the loss of Bobby, the man she called "her one true love."
Connie has had a remarkable life, and while things have settled down and gotten simpler
recently, that wasn't always the case.
Connie Francis, a popular singer, went through unfathomable struggles that would have broken
weaker people.
In spite of this, she pushed on with unwavering determination through each dark personal tunnel,
eventually finding light at the end of the tunnel with the help of her humor.
She said that her sense of humor kept her going and helped her through tough times in
an interview held in Parkland, her Florida home.
She added that when she was ten years old, she used to hang out on the set with comedians
like Don Rickles and other people to get her sense of humor.
In the early 1960s, her father's interference in her affairs with Bobby impacted her negatively,
and it stunted the professional success she had attained in the late 1950s.
However, the decades of the 1970s and 1980s were particularly terrible.
In addition to being raped, being diagnosed with bipolar disorder, losing her voice, and
spending years trying to get it back, she also had her brother murdered by a mobster.
Aside from that, her only pregnancy ended in miscarriage.
She continued to live her days on the little humor she could find in her psychiatric hospital
confinement.
However, the support of the general public has been a major morale booster.
People from all over the world continued to send her letters of encouragement through
the good and the bad times.
Her ups and downs were chronicled in her autobiography, "Among My Souvenirs: The Real Story, Volume
1.
It was published at the end of 2017 and is said to reveal previously undisclosed information
about her life.
Such as her ties to the mafia and Frank Sinatra, as well as other stories that were glossed
over in her first biography from 1984.
Connie stated that she felt like a new person after completing the book.
She also added that it was very challenging and felt like riding a roller coaster.
After a string of unsuccessful singles in the '50s, Connie released "Who's Sorry Now?"
in the '60s.
It was the tune her father insisted she record.
Connie Francis was named the best female singer in America by Billboard and other publications
after the song's meteoric rise to the top of the charts in 1958.
Throughout the 1960s, she released hits like "Everybody's Somebody's Fool," "Lipstick on
Your Collar," and "Heartaches by the Number" Once word spread that she was a pop star,
producers from Hollywood began showing up at her door.
In the 1960 hit movie "Where the Boys Are," in which she also sang the title song, she
was one of the main female characters.
But Connie was never able to catch the acting bug.
She said it outright that she was uneasy and felt out of place.
Her last film, "When the Boys Meet the Girls," came out in 1965.
She expressed her relief at having completed her last one.
Connie's determination to overcome the hardships she's faced has made her a hero in the eyes
of her supporters.
She has since found the time to advocate for the rights of people with mental illness and
the survivors of violent crimes, among other causes.
Connie has remained close to the veterans she refers to as "the real heroes" ever since
she visited the troops in Vietnam in 1967.
Connie, who has now retired from performing, has been living in Florida for the past 20
years.
She stopped performing live because she felt she could no longer deliver a good performance.
She wishes she could give back to the people who have helped her along the way through
great music, but she's disappointed she can't.
Connie, who is now 84 years old, claims she hasn't given up on love yet, despite her roller
coaster of a romantic history.
In March of 2022, Connie gushed to Closer about her one true love, Bobby, saying that
he was brilliant, charismatic, and an all-around great guy with the best sense of irony in
the world.
She went on to say that she had never felt the same way about anyone else as she did
about Bobby.
Connie acknowledges that there are times when she misses the glamour of the entertainment
industry, but she is content with her current situation and the company of her friends.
However, she claims that this is the first time in her life that she has had the luxury
of doing whatever she pleases with her time.
That's something she's never had access to before.
There you have it.
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