Connie Stevens (USA ) - Mr. Songwriter (1962 )
BackShe was born Concetta Rosalie Anna Ingoglia in Brooklyn, New York, a daughter of Peter Ingoglia (known as musician Teddy Stevens) and singer Eleanor McGinley. Connie adopted her father's stage name of Stevens as her own. Her parents were divorced and she lived with grandparents. At age eight, she started attending Catholic boarding schools. Actor John Megna is her half-brother. Coming from a musical family, she formed a singing group called The Foremost, the other three vocalists went on to fame as The Lettermen. In 1953, Stevens moved to Los Angeles with her father. When she was sixteen, she replaced the alto in a singing group, The Three Debs. She enrolled at a professional school (Georgia Massey's School of Song and Dance in Leona Valley), sang professionally and appeared in local repertory theater. She was dismissed from The Three Debs for "unprofessional behavior" while on a job in Las Vegas. Ironically, she continued with a great professional career while the two original Debs dropped into obscurity. Stevens then started working as a movie extra. After appearing in four B movies, Jerry Lewis saw her in Dragstrip Riot and cast her in Rock-A-Bye Baby. Soon after that, she signed a contract with Warner Brothers. She played 'Cricket Blake' in the popular television detective series Hawaiian Eye from 1959 to 1962, a role that made her famous. Her principal costar was Robert Conrad. In a televised interview on August 26, 2003, on CNN's Larry King Live, Stevens recounted that while on the set of Hawaiian Eye she was told she had a telephone call from Elvis Presley. She didn't believe it, but in fact it was Elvis, who invited her to a party and said that he would come to her house and pick her up personally. They dated for a time and she says they remained lifelong friends. Her first album was titled Concetta (1958). She had minor single hits with the standards "Blame It On My Youth" (music by Oscar Levant and lyrics by Edward Heyman), "Looking For A Boy" (music by George Gershwin and lyrics by Ira Gershwin), and "Spring Is Here" (music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Lorenz Hart). She appeared opposite James Garner in a comedy episode of the TV Western series Maverick entitled "Two Tickets to Ten Strike," and after making several appearances on the Warner Bros. hit TV series 77 Sunset Strip, she recorded the hit novelty song "Kookie, Kookie, Lend Me Your Comb"(1959), a duet with one of the stars of the program, Edward Byrnes that reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 100. She also had hit singles as a solo artist with "Sixteen Reasons" (1961), her biggest hit, reaching #3 on the Billboard Hot 100, and the minor hit "Too Young to Go Steady" (#71) (music by Jimmy McHugh and lyrics by Harold Adamson) (1960). Other single releases were "Why'd You Wanna Make Me Cry?", "Mr. Songwriter", and "Now That You've Gone". Stevens felt she should be given a raise in 1962, and during the dispute with the studio she was placed on suspension. She was also angered over being denied a chance to audition for the lead in the upcoming Warner Bros. musical My Fair Lady. The differences between her and Warner Bros. were patched up long enough, however, for her to star as Wendy Conway in the television sitcom Wendy and Me (1964- 1965) with George Burns, who also produced the show and played an older man who watched Wendy's exploits upstairs on the TV in his apartment, periodically commenting to the viewers about what he saw. Her other Wendy and Me costars were Ron Harper, James Callahan, and character actor J. Pat O'Malley. She also worked in summer stock, and she starred in the Broadway production of Neil Simon's Star Spangled Girl with Anthony Perkins.
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Uploaded: October 6th, 2008 @ 1:24 pm
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