Connie and Bobby were dating early on in her career, which her father didn`t like. When Bobby suggested they elope, Connie`s father chased him down with a shot gun. To this day, Connie believes that not marrying Bobby was the biggest mistake of her life.
Relationship with Bobby Darin
Early in her career, Francis was introduced to Bobby Darin, then an up-and-coming singer and songwriter. Darin's manager arranged for him to help write several songs for her. Despite some disagreement about material, after several weeks Darin and Francis developed a romantic relationship. Francis' strict Italian father would separate the couple whenever possible. When her father learned that Darin had suggested the two elope after one of her shows, he ran Darin out of the building at gunpoint, telling him never to see his daughter again.
Francis saw Darin only two more times: once when the two were scheduled to sing together for a television show, and again when she was spotlighted on the TV series This Is Your Life. By the time of the latter's taping, Darin had married actress Sandra Dee. In her autobiography, Francis stated she and her father were driving into the Lincoln Tunnel when the radio DJ announced Dee and Darin's marriage. Her father made a negative comment about Darin finally being out of their lives. Angered, Francis wrote she hoped the Hudson River would fill the Lincoln Tunnel, killing both her and her father; she later wrote that not marrying Darin was the biggest mistake of her life.
Other sources dispute the nature of the relationship. Writer Sharon Rosenthal reported in Us Weekly that "many now believe Connie wildly exaggerated her relationship with the late singer." "Their 'great romance' is a myth she's perpetuated all her life," press agent Dick Gershe told Rosenthal. According to Frankie Avalon in the same article, "Connie was on the scene, but Bobby's girl at the time was another singer named Jo Ann Campbell."