CONNIE FRANCIS SUES UNIVERSAL MUSIC OVER MOVIE LICENSES
Fifties pop star Connie Francis on Monday filed a $40-million lawsuit against Universal Music Corp., which licensed some of her recordings for use in allegedly pornographic and sexually explicit movies. She particularly objected to the use of four of her songs in the unrated film Postcards From America. (The film was described by Los Angeles Times critic Kevin Thomas as "tough, truthful yet compassionate" and by Andrew Guthman in the San Francisco Chronicle as "an angry, impressionistic cry -- a film about growing up gay in a hostile society." Francis describe it as a "vile, pornographic" movie in her lawsuit.) Francis's attorney said that when she learned of the use of her songs in such films, she became particularly distressed given her fragile mental health resulting from a 1974 incident in which she was raped and tortured in a hotel room.