Connie Stevens (born Concetta Rosalie Ann Ingoglia; August 8, 1938) is an American actress and traditional pop singer. Born in Brooklyn to musician parents, Stevens was raised there until the age of 12, when she was sent to live with family friends in rural Missouri. In 1953, when she was 15 years old, Stevens relocated with her father to Los Angeles.
She began her career in 1957, making her feature film debut in Young and Dangerous, before releasing her debut album, Concetta, the following year. She had a supporting role in the musical comedy Rock-A-Bye Baby (1958) opposite Jerry Lewis, followed by the drama film The Party Crashers (also 1958) opposite Frances Farmer.
Stevens gained widespread recognition for her portrayal of "Cricket" Blake on the ABC TV Warner Brothers series Hawaiian Eye, beginning in 1959 opposite Robert Conrad and Anthony Eisley. She garnered concurrent musical success when her single "Sixteen Reasons" became a national radio hit, peaking at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and at #9 on the UK Singles Chart in 1960. Stevens continued to appear in film and television throughout the 1970s and 1980s, as well as performing as a musical nightclub act.
Stevens' later film roles include in the comedies Tapeheads (1988) and Love Is All There Is (1996). In 2009, Stevens made her directorial debut with the feature film Saving Grace B. Jones, which she also wrote and produced, based partly on elements of her own childhood.
Stevens was born Concetta Rosalie Ann Ingoglia in Brooklyn, New York City, on August 8, 1938, the daughter of musician Peter Ingoglia (known as Teddy Stevens) and singer Eleanor McGinley. Stevens is of Jewish, Italian and Irish descent. She adopted her father's stage name of Stevens as her own. Her parents divorced and she lived with her grandparents and attended Catholic boarding schools. Actor John Megna was her maternal half-brother.
At the age of 12, she witnessed a murder while waiting at a bus stop in Brooklyn in 1950–51. The event traumatized Stevens, and she was sent to live with family friends in Boonville, Missouri.
Coming from a musical family, Stevens joined the singing group called The Fourmost with Tony Butala, who went on to fame as founder of The Lettermen. Stevens moved to Los Angeles with her father in 1953.
Her first notable film role was in Young and Dangerous (1957) with Mark Damon, a low-budget teen movie. She also was in Eighteen and Anxious (1957); and an episode of The Bob Cummings Show ("Bob Goes Hillbilly"). In December 1957 Stevens signed a seven-year contract with Paramount starting at $600 a week going up to $1,500 a week.
Jerry Lewis saw her in Dragstrip Riot (1958), and cast her as his love interest in his 1958 production of Rock-A-Bye Baby, giving Stevens her first big break.
Stevens made another film with Damon, The Party Crashers (1958), before Paramount dropped her.
In May 1959, she signed a seven-year contract with Warner Bros. starting at $300 per week. Like many Warners contract players, Stevens was kept busy guest-starring on their regular TV shows such as The Ann Sothern Show, Maverick, Tenderfoot, 77 Sunset Strip and Cheyenne.
She appeared opposite James Garner in an episode of the TV Western series Maverick titled "Two Tickets to Ten Strike," which also featured Adam West. Stardom came when she was cast as Cricket Blake in the popular television detective series Hawaiian Eye from 1959 to 1963, a role that made her famous; her principal costar was Robert Conrad.
First televised on December 23, 1960, she appeared (uncredited) in "The Dresden Doll", Episode 15 of Season 3 of 77 Sunset Strip as her character from Hawaiian Eye, Cricket Blake.
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 subsequently dated.
Stevens' 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).
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, Edd Byrnes, that reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 100. She and Byrnes also appeared together on ABC's The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom.
She had hit singles as a solo artist with "Sixteen Reasons" (1960), her biggest hit, reaching #3 on the Billboard Hot 100, (#9 in the UK) and a minor #71 hit "Too Young to Go Steady" (1960) (music by Jimmy McHugh and lyrics by Harold Adamson). Other single releases were "Apollo","Why'd You Wanna Make Me Cry?", "Something Beautiful," "Mr. Songwriter," "Now That You've Gone," "La-La (Means I Love You)" (originally performed by The Delfonics), and "Keep Growing Strong" (which was remade by the Stylistics under the title "Betcha by Golly, Wow").
Stevens' popularity on the small screen and as a recording star encouraged Warner Bros. to try her in films. She starred in three films for the studio, all opposite Troy Donahue: Parrish (1961), as a rural girl; Susan Slade (1962), playing the title role, an unwed mother; and Palm Springs Weekend (1963), a teen romantic comedy. In 1962 Warner Bros. suspended her briefly for refusing to go on a publicity tour. She performed in Wizard of Oz on stage in Kansas.