Connie Francis was born Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero in the Italian Down Neck, or Ironbound, neighborhood of Newark, New Jersey. There she attended Newark Arts High School in 1951 and 1952. After an appearance on Ford Startime, Francis was advised to change her name from Franconero to something more easily pronounceable, as well as to quit the accordion and focus on singing.

Francis' first single, "Freddy", (1955) met with little success. Her next nine singles were also failures. During this time Connie was introduced to then up and coming singer/songwriter Bobby Darin. Bobby's manager arranged for Darin to help write several songs for Connie in order to help jump-start her singing career.

Initially the two artists couldn't see eye to eye on potential material but after several weeks Bobby and Connie developed a romantic interest in one another. Unfortunately Connie had a very strict Italian father who would separate the couple whenever possible.

When Connie's father learned that Bobby had suggested the two lovers elope after one of Connie's shows, he ran Darin out of the building while waving a gun telling Bobby to never see his daughter again. Bobby saw Connie only two more times after this happened, once when the two were scheduled to sing together for a television show and again later when Connie was spotlighted on the tv series This Is Your Life. To date Connie has said that not marrying Bobby was the biggest mistake of her life.

After considering a career in medicine due to the failure of her first few demos, a cover version of the song "Who's Sorry Now?" (1923) by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby launched Francis into super-stardom worldwide. She recorded the song at what was to have been her final recording session for MGM; the label was about to drop her owing to her previous singles' poor sales.

Francis has said that she recorded it at the suggestion of her father, who convinced her it stood a chance of becoming a hit because it was a song adults already knew and that teenagers would dance to if it were released with a more contemporary arrangement.

The gamble paid off. On January 1, 1958, the song debuted on Dick Clark's American Bandstand television show, and by mid-year over a million copies were sold. In April 1958, "Who's Sorry Now" reached number one on the UK Singles Chart and number four in the USA. This was followed by many other hits over the next decade, as Connie Francis became one of the most popular vocalists in the world.

As Francis explains at each of her concerts, she began searching for a new hit immediately after her 1958 single Who's Sorry Now? became a success. She was then introduced to Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield, who played every ballad they had written to date, for Connie. After a few hours, Francis began writing in her diary while the two songwriters played the last of their ballads.

After they finished their last song of the session, Francis told them that they wrote very beautiful ballads but that she considered them too intellectual for the young generation of the time. Greenfield then suggested to Sedaka a song they had written that morning for another girl group. Sedaka protested, believing that Francis would be insulted. Greenfield said that she hated all the other songs they had performed and that they had nothing more to lose.

Sedaka reluctantly agreed to play Stupid Cupid with Greenfield for Francis. As soon as they finished playing the song, Francis told them that they had just played her new hit record. Francis' song reached #14 on the Billboard charts. While Francis was writing in her diary, Sedaka asked her if he could read what she had written. After she refused, Sedaka was inspired to write The Diary, which was his first hit single. Through the rest of her early career Sedaka and Greenfield wrote many of Connie Francis' hits such as Fallin (#30) and Where the Boys Are (#4).

Connie specialised in downbeat ballads (often remakes of old standards) delivered in her trademark "sobbing" style, such as "Who's Sorry Now?" (#4), "My Happiness" (#2), "I'm Sorry I Made You Cry", "Second Hand Love" (#7), "Among My Souvenirs" (#7), "Together" (#6), "Breakin' In a Brand New Heart" (#7), "Many Tears Ago" (#7), "Frankie" (#9), "When the Boy in Your Arms (Is the Boy in Your Heart)" (#10), and the Italian song "Mama" (#8). However, she also had success with a handful of more upbeat, rock-and-roll-oriented compositions, such as "Stupid Cupid", "Lipstick On Your Collar" (#5), "Robot Man" and "Vacation" (#9).

Among Francis' other notable performances were "In the Summer of His Years" (a tribute to slain U.S. President John F. Kennedy) and Bert Kaempfert's "Strangers in the Night" (although the latter song is more often identified with Frank Sinatra). Both "Everybody's Somebody's Fool" and "My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own" went to number one on the Billboard music charts in 1960. In 1962, Francis had another number one hit with "Don't Break the Heart That Loves You".

Francis remade many of her hits in foreign languages, including "Everybody's Somebody's Fool" and her signature song, "Where the Boys Are". Francis recorded in thirteen languages throughout her career: English, Greek, German, Swedish, Dutch, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian (and its dialect Neapolitan), Hebrew, Yiddish, Japanese, Latin and Hawaiian.

During a concert at the Golden Stag Festival in Braşov, Romania in March 1970, Francis performed live in Romanian. Francis' biggest hit album in the U.S. was 1959's Italian Favorites; she followed it with several more albums of Italian songs over the years, as well as collections of Spanish-language and Jewish songs, among others.