“Connie Francis said to know her voice is to know her,” Gracie Lawrence told the crowd at Bryant Park this afternoon, the day after the popular singer died at the age of 87. Lawrence, who portrays Francis in the new Broadway musical “Just In Time,” coincidentally had been invited to sing Francis’ first big hit, “Who’s Sorry Now” at the Broadway in Bryant Park lunchtime concert today. She sings it in the video below, after a heartfelt introduction: ” I would implore all of you to go and listen to the real thing after and you’ll hear resilience and character and personality and humor and tenderness and strength.”

Connie Francis is a character in “Just in Time,” a biomusical about the singer Bobby Darin, because he was her first love; they were planning to be married, “until her father chased him off with a gun when she was in her late teens”