She was born Concetta Rosalie Ann Ingolia on August 8, 1935, but has been known as Connie Stevens in her long career as a singer and actor. You may remember her hits “16 Reasons” and “Kookie, Kookie (Lend Me Your Comb).” Connie is shown here with co-star Robert Conrad in the series “Hawaiian Eye.”
Stevens achieved meteoric national fame as the bubbly, fast-talking photographer Cricket Blake on the hit detective television series Hawaiian Eye, becoming the ultimate archetype of the sunny, multi-talented American teen idol of the late 1950s and early 60s. Her performance on the show was heavily integrated with her real-life musical career, allowing her to release hit pop records that were broadcast directly into millions of living rooms every single week. Her duet track “Kookie, Kookie,” which capitalized on the massive contemporary greaser slang craze, propelled her to the top of the charts, establishing Stevens as a defining voice of early, television-driven pop music culture.
Image via Wikimedia Commons, no known copyright, public domain in the US.
