This week, Ira Sternberg spoke with Connie Francis.
In 1958, Cashbox, Billboard and the Jukebox Operators of America named Connie Francis (whose new book is “Among My Souvenirs-The Real Story”) as the #1 Female Vocalist. She was named Top Female Vocalist by all the trades for six consecutive years – a record never surpassed.
As well, England’s prestigious New Musical Express also named her the World’s #1 Female Vocalist. She earned two gold records for “Who’s Sorry Now? and “Stupid Cupid.”
In this 30-minute episode of Talk About Las Vegas, Francis talks about her long career and hit records, her growing up with the mob, setting records as the youngest singer in Las Vegas, her relationships with Bobby Darin and Frank Sinatra, and the two people she considers responsible for her decade-long success: her father and Dick Clark.
Francis has lived one of the greatest American Dream lives of the 20th century. In the 21st century, she continues to live that dream with conviction and purpose.
At one time, when asked what she would like her legacy to be, she said, “I would like to be remembered, not so much for the heights I have reached, but for the depths from which I have come.” Today, she puts it more simply, by merely saying, “I hope I did O.K.”