Obituary Connie Francis sang Stupid Cupid and Pretty Little Baby

American singer Connie Francis, who dominated the pop charts in the late 1950s and early 1960s with sobbing ballads like Who's Sorry Now (1957) and Don't Break The Heart That Loves You (1962), died on July 16. She was 87.

- William Grimes

NEW YORK - American singer Connie Francis, who dominated the pop charts in the late 1950s and early 1960s with sobbing ballads like Who's Sorry Now (1957) and Don't Break The Heart That Loves You (1962), died on July 16. She was 87.

She was also known for up-tempo, soft-rock tunes such as Stupid Cupid (1958), Lipstick On Your Collar (1959) and Vacation (1962).

Her publicist Ron Roberts announced her death in a post on Facebook. He did not say where she died or cite a cause. Two weeks ago, she used Facebook to tell fans she had been hospitalized for extreme pain after suffering a pelvic fracture.

Francis had an easy, fluid vocal style, a powerful set of lungs and a natural way with a wide variety of material: old standards, rock 'n' roll and country, as well as popular songs in Italian, Yiddish, Swedish and a dozen other languages.

Between 1958 and 1964, before her brand of pop music began to fall out of favor, she was the most popular female singer in the United States, selling 40 million records.

Her 35 Top 40 hits during that period included 16 songs that made the Billboard Top 10, including Lipstick On Your Collar (No. 5 in 1959) and Vacation (No. 9 in 1962), and three No. 1 hits: Everybody's Somebody's Fool and My Heart Has A Mind Of Its Own in 1960, and Don't Break The Heart That Loves You in 1962.