1963: By royal command – Connie Francis flies to Scotland

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THE American singer Connie Francis’s website says that, globally, she was the top-selling female vocalist in the Sixties; and that, despite such names as Madonna, Diana Ross and others, “she remains the most commercially successful female singer of all time with an estimated worldwide sales figure well in excess of two hundred million”.

In 1963 she flew from New York to Prestwick in order to take part in a Royal Performance at Glasgow’s Alhambra Theatre. At the airport she showed reporters a badlybruised right forearm. “I had to have a blood test the day before I was supposed to leave and my arm was so bruised I couldn’t bend it,” she said. “I take diet pills and have to have a blood check every now and then to see if my blood is still clear.” Would that mean, then, no Scottish food for her during her three-day visit? “Oh no,” came the reply. “I shall cheat and not take any diet pills.”

Francis, who was making her first trip to Scotland in three years, was presented with a small doll dressed in Highland costume. “I was really anxious to come back here,” she added. “And I am very anxious about the Royal Performance. It is the first one I have ever been invited to.” She had already made albums for the Irishamerican, Italian-american and Jewish-american communities back home, and she now hoped to make one for Scottish-americans. “I love Scottish songs, they are beautiful,” she said.

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