Connie Francis Quotes
(When speaking about Hollywood trying to get her thin) "I didn't know anything about speed or diet pills, but they gave me these little red pills, like Benzadrine, that you can only buy in Mexico now."
[on her MGM record contract] I never paid for anything. There was never any recoupment for all the sessions I did. Not one penny. I had four people I hired to work for me on letters and on foreign releases. They paid for every photograph and I kept the photos. Travel, everything, was paid for. Even if it wasn't on MGM business, it was paid for. Gowns-bills were sent to MGM because I needed them for album covers. I bought them, and wore them. I could record where I wanted, however many songs I wanted, in whatever country, in whatever language, with whatever arranger, and then the bottom line was, if I didn't like any of it, I didn't have to release it. I didn't abuse it. I tried to release even the garbage so that I wouldn't just be recording and not releasing stuff.
Overseas, especially in England, I was an adult star before I was an adult star in America. But here, they didn't take me seriously until that night on the Perry Como Show. I remember it was a Wednesday night, and I had a concert at Carnegie Hall the following Sunday and only two hundred seats had been sold. Within 24 hours after doing the Perry Como Show they were scalping tickets to get into my show at Carnegie Hall.
[regarding her version of "God Bless America"] Irving Berlin had a fit when he found out I was doing it. He called my manager, and said, "if that teenybopper louses up my beautiful God Bless America the way she did poor Harry Ruby's Who's Sorry Now, I'm going to have a stroke". My manager said, "Please Irving, relax. You'll be the first to hear it." "I just don't want it loused up with any of that Stupid Cupid crap!", said Irving. Then when the record came out, my manager sent it directly to Irving Berlin and he said, "She did it just the way I thought she'd do it. It stinks! It's worse than that." I can't even tell you what he said. So, when it made the Top 10 in Variety, Irving called my manager and says, "George, do you think she can do God Bless America on The Perry Como Show?"
One day in 1960 I was going through my collection of
Al Jolson and
Judy Garland records, and I played Al's "Are You Lonesome Tonight". I said, Daddy, come listen to this. I could make it a No. 1 song. He agreed and I called Don Costa in to do the arrangement. I said, "I'm more excited about recording this song than anything I've ever cut." We were in the car on our way to New York when the radio played Elvis' "new single" Are You Lonesome Tonight. Can you believe that? I was literally on my way to the studio to record it. How do you like that? Elvis even did the recitation part just like
Al Jolson did.
[on her late brother George] He had the greatest sense of humor in the world. When he heard that I was getting married for the third time, he said let me ask you a question, he said, don't you think it would be a good idea if you bought a drip dry wedding dress? I said don't get cute Georgie. Then he said is Anita going to be my best friend? Is Anita going to be your Matron of Honor again? I said, yes. He said it is a nice thing you keep doing for Anita, everybody needs a steady job.
[thoughts on Elvis' inner-circle crew] Well, they were yes men. They overlooked his excesses and the chemicals he was taking. For a Cadillac, they would say the right thing. I said, "God forbid that day comes that you die Elvis.
Red West is gonna write a bad book about you," and I was absolutely right.
[regarding Dick Clark playing "Who's Sorry Now" on American Bandstand] He continued playing it until it sold a million. Without Dick Clark I wouldn't have stayed in show business. I was ready to go back to school to study medicine.
