Connie Francis and CR Service Station Owner

Back in 1964, at 5:30 a.m., Don Orris walked into his Sinclair service station at the corner of First Avenue and 14th Street NE, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to find a young woman wandering around.

"She was the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen," says Don, now 80. (See my Ramblin' column in the May 3 Gazette and my blog post the same day.)

So, naturally, Don struck up a conversation with her. Not only did she seem nervous, she was full of questions about Cedar Rapids. Because, you see, this young woman was in town to make preparations to marry a Cedar Rapids man.

As they talked, Don knew he'd seen this woman somewhere before. But he couldn't place her -- a customer, the daughter of a customer, the daughter of a friend?

Finally, Don said, "You look familiar. Have I met you before?"

"I'm Connie Francis," she said.

Yes, "The" Connie Francis.

"Then, I was nervous," Don laughs. "She was No. 1"

Yes, Connie Francis had sung such hits as "Who's Sorry Now?" (1958), "Lipstick On Your Collar" (1959), "Where the Boys Are" (1961) and "Don't Break the Heart that Loves You" (1962) .

And Connie Francis was to marry Dick Kanellis, (left)formerly of Cedar Rapids, who was then handling publicity for the Sahara in Las Vegas. The announcement appeared in the July 20, 1964, Gazette.

The marriage took place Aug. 15, 1964, in Essex Fells, N.J. According to one source, it was against her father's wishes. It lasted only three months when she divorced him.

The Gazette story mentioned that Dick had told Gus Schrader, then sports editor of The Gazette, that he became a writer so he could give his Golden Gloves boxing career the proper coverage.

In 1999, the late Schrader, in one of his Gazette columns, said that Dick graduated from McKinley High School and the University of Iowa. And that he had died about 10 years earlier of cancer after a career as a prominent Las Vegas news and publicity man.

Connie Francis, born in 1938, is still alive, although I'm not sure where she is living. She has been married and divorced four times.

You can find plenty of information about her on the Internet. For some interesting trivia about Connie Francis, click here.