Connie Francis Sings Contemporary Pop In 1967 ‘Ed Sullivan’ Appearance

A video of revered entertainer Connie Francis performing on The Ed Sullivan Show is a new arrival on the show’s official YouTube channel – and shows an interesting side to the much-loved artist as she moved into a new era of pop music.

The clip features Francis on the edition broadcast on November 26, 1967, by which time she had already been a star for a decade, with trademark hits such as “Who’s Sorry Now,” “Stupid Cupid,” and “Lipstick On Your Collar.” Here, she shows her trademark vocal control to perform a medley of “Goin’ Out Of My Head,” the Teddy Randazzo and Bobby Weinstein song first recorded by Little Anthony and the Imperials in 1964, and Bobby Hebb’s similarly widely-covered 1966 hit “Sunny.” She then returns to the first song for a reprise.

Francis’ run of US Top 10 hits was at end by 1967, her last such success being with “Vacation” in the summer of 1962. But she performed on The Ed Sullivan Show all the way from the late 1950s and through the 1960s. She also continued to be a chart regular, with an extraordinary aggregate of 56 appearances on the Billboard singles survey to her name by the time of her last appearance with “The Wedding Cake” in 1969, all of them on MGM Records.

She also amassed 22 chart albums in America between 1961 and 1966, of which ten were English language studio albums, five for the lucrative foreign language market (notably in Italian), four compilations, and three soundtracks.

This edition of the Sullivan show also featured trumpet virtuoso Al Hirt and, in a filmed contribution, The Beatles, in the first of three promotional clips filmed earlier in the month for the single “Hello, Goodbye.” This was the well-known film, directed by Paul McCartney, in which they wore their “Sgt. Pepper” outfits, with a brief cutaway in which they wear the matching collarless suits of their early days.

Watch all the latest archival videos from The Ed Sullivan Show on the program’s official YouTube channel.