Connie Francis is still regarded as one of the most iconic performers in entertainment history. However, like many well-known singers, actors, and artists, Francis has been subjected to unimaginable trauma throughout her life and career.
A Closer Look
According to a 1974 Washington Post report, police found Connie Francis naked, gagged, and tied to an overturned chair in a Long Island hotel room. She was attacked at knifepoint for nearly three hours before being raped and robbed. The intense altercation led to a nervous breakdown, the end of her marriage, and the near-destruction of her professional life.
Francis, now 84 years old, made her acting debut on August 20, 1960, when she began filming the iconic feature film Where the Boys Are.
Francis was involuntarily committed to a mental institution 17 times between 1982 and 1991 after being misdiagnosed with manic depression.
In 1974, Francis was raped. Seven years later, her brother was shot, allegedly by a mob, in front of his New Jersey home. She has been married and divorced four times.
Francis told Fox News in 2018 that she “had a lot of help” coping with her life’s traumatic experiences, particularly being raped. He had “good friends, a family who supported me, and [a] sense of humor.”
However, Francis did not have the opportunity to attend support meetings for women who had been raped because “it would have been in the National Enquirer the following week.”
Consequently, Francis dealt with the crime’s after-effects “in the privacy of my own home” for seven years. She did not perform or speak with the press during that period. “It was a horrible experience,” Francis concluded.
