She was originally supposed to be born in Brooklyn, where her family lived at the time. However, her mother was visiting relatives in Newark, NJ, and attended an all-night dance when she went into labor.
Singer Gloria Estefan has been very vocal since the mid-1990s that she is interested in playing Connie in a movie about her life.
Singer/songwriter Neil Sedaka was originally hesitant to offer her the song "Stupid Cupid", as he thought it was much too juvenile for her.
Stated that the two highlights of her career, thus far, were her performance of the song "Never on Sunday" at the 1961 Academy Awards Ceremony, and her performance for troops in Vietnam in 1968 in which she ended with the song "God Bless America" and the entire army of soldiers present stood and sang along, most of whom were in tears.
Suffers from Bipolar disorder and has to cycle off her lithium whenever she makes a personal appearence.
The news of President John F. Kennedy's assassination reached her on the set of her third MGM film, Looking for Love (1964). She recorded the single "In The Summer of His Years" in honor of the fallen president and packaged it in a conservative gold sleeve with no photos. All proceeds from the song were donated to the family of Dallas police officer J.D. Tippitt, who had been shot and killed by alleged Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.
Was advertised in magazines to appear in an MGM movie titled "The Girl with a Definite Maybe" in 1965 but the film was never made.
Was the editor of her high school yearbook.
When her first hit, "Who's Sorry Now", first aired on "New American Bandstand 1965" (1952), host Dick Clark stated, "There's no doubt about it. This girl's headed straight for the #1 spot.".
When she first appeared on the scene she was written up in several magazines as being the new Judy Garland.
When she was first making demos, a New Jersey mobster approached her father and offered to place Connie's songs in every jukebox along the East Coast. Mr. Franconero protested, stating that if his daughter was going to make it he wanted to see her do it on her own.
When show host Perry Como wanted her to sing the Italian song "Mama" on "Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall" (1948), she was very hesitant as she didn't want to be labeled an ethnic singer. The performance gained such a positive response that she released several records in Italian, German, Spanish, Japanese and a number of other languages.