![]() A cross-over appearance on ABC's other hip crime show, "77 Sunset Strip" (1958-1963) led to a Top 10 single, "Kookie, Kookie, Lend Me Your Comb," which featured "Sunset" star Edd Byrnes in his series role as suave beatnik Kookie. The following year, she was signed to a contract with Warner Bros., who placed her in their new detective series, "Hawaiian Eye."Ĭast as Cricket Blake, a singer and amateur photographer who helped series' leads Anthony Eisley and Robert Conrad solve cases on the big island of Honolulu, Stevens quickly rose in popularity among the show's audience of young viewers. 1958 proved to be her breakout year, with the release of her debut album, Conchetta, as well as her first major role as Jerry Lewis' love interest in "Rock-A-Bye Baby," a loose remake of "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek" (1944). At 15, she relocated to Los Angeles with her father, where she adopted his surname and worked as an extra and bit player in various teen-oriented films. Blessed with a pleasant singing voice, she was performing professionally at an early age, first with three male vocalists in a group called the Foremost, and later, in an all-girl group called The Three Debs. After her parents' divorce, she was raised largely by grandparents or by the staff of various Catholic boarding schools. 8, 1938, Connie Stevens was the daughter of jazz drummer Peter Ingoglia, who performed under the stage name of Teddy Stevens, and singer Eleanor McGinley. Throughout the ups and downs of her life, Stevens maintained the same sparkle she showed as Cricket Blake, which endeared her to several generations of fans.īorn Concetta Rosalie Ann Ingoglia in Brooklyn, NY on Aug. A reversal of fortune came in the 1990s when she launched a successful line of cosmetics. After her divorce from singer Eddie Fisher in 1969, which gave her daughters Joely and Tricia Leigh Fisher, Stevens doggedly pursued her career as an actress and nightclub crooner throughout the 1970s and 1980s. The ultimately favorable responses that she garnered from Connie Stevens As Cricket in 'Hawaiian Eye' would secure her third and final long-player for Warner Bros., a lushly orchestrated affair recorded in Germany called From Me to You (1962).Actress and singer Connie Stevens was a vivacious presence on television and the pop charts in the early 1960s, thanks to her popularity as Cricket Blake on the hit detective show "Hawaiian Eye" (ABC, 1959-1963) and singles like "Sixteen Reasons." Stevens' perky turn as Cricket, a singer and sometime photographer who aided a pair of Honolulu hotel detectives in solving crimes, granted her a brief time as an idol for younger viewers, but after the show's cancellation, she struggled to maintain her presence in the entertainment business. So popular were Stevens' singing appearances on Hawaiian Eye that "Let's Do It" from this disc was included on the show's soundtrack album. These tunes are lightweight efforts when compared to the truly affective performances that Stevens gives on the remainder of the LP. On the other side of the pop music spectrum are the kitschy and somewhat dated "A Little Kiss Is a Kiss Is a Kiss" and "Apollo," which were among the five tracks on this LP to also be featured as subsequent 45 rpm singles. Stevens' facilities as an actress are most fully incorporated into the traditional pop tunes such as "Slow Boat to China" and "Too Young," giving her renditions an emotive and almost noir jazz edge. Another tale of teen romance is "Why Do I Cry for Joey?." Both tracks feature Stevens' vocals swaddled in heavy orchestration complete with chorus - somewhat typifying the Johnny Ray-esque balladry here. Opening the album is the typically languid '50s love ballad "Sixteen Reasons," which would become one of Stevens' biggest singles, ultimately selling millions as well as scoring her a Top Five hit. ![]() Another sign of the times is that the record company chose to borrow a quarter of the album - "The Trolley Song," "Why Try to Change Me Now," "Slow Boat to China," and "Too Young" - from her first LP, Conchetta (1958). Through an onslaught of cross promotion, she quickly became - as unabashedly proclaimed on the cover art - "the new singing sensation of television." Under the direction of noted Hollywood and Los Angeles arrangers/conductors Carl Brandt, Warren Barker, Don Ralkle, and Hal Hidey, Stevens' vocals are scored in a number of settings which reflect the moods and temperaments of the pop music-buying public in the late '50s and early '60s. This is Connie Stevens' second long-player and perhaps the one most directly associated with her tenure as nightclub singer Cricket Blake (1959-1963) on the television spy drama Hawaiian Eye.
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