Connie Stevens
Pop | 2012Actress and singer Connie Stevens was born in Brooklyn in 1938. She joined a singing group called The Fourmost early in her career; the other three vocalists of the group—all males—went on to fame as The Lettermen. At 16, she replaced the alto in The Three Debs. In 1953, Stevens moved to Los Angeles with her father and enrolled at Georgia Massey’s School of Song and Dance in the San Fernando Valley, where she sang professionally and appeared in local repertory theater. Stevens’ first solo album was 1958’s Concetta. She had hits with the standards “Blame It on My Youth,” “Looking For A Boy” (music by George Gershwin), and “Spring Is Here.” She recorded the novelty song “Kookie, Kookie, Lend Me Your Comb” in 1959 as a duet with Edward Byrnes that reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100. Stevens also had hit singles as a solo artist with “Sixteen Reasons” and “Too Young to Go Steady” in 1960. She was the star of more than 40 feature films and TV shows—her role as Cricket Blake in the hit TV series Hawaiian Eye made her a household name—and starred in the Broadway production of Neil Simon’s The Star-Spangled Girl with Anthony Perkins in 1966. Stevens continues to headline in Vegas and perform in concerts worldwide.