57:33 She was the first woman in history to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100. The next story about her is a touch long, but I want to quote the whole thing. It is from an archived version of her official website. In the beginning of 1960, Connie had the good fortune of meeting legendary movie producer Joe Pasternak. Pasternak was responsible for discovering Deanna Durbin, Elizabeth Taylor, Jane Powell, Judy Garland, and Katherine Grayson. He asked Connie to be in his forthcoming movie, where the boys are based on a then considered risque novel by Glendon Swarthout. Her father was opposed to it. He thought it was a dirty movie. But Connie defied him and indeed appeared in the movie and sang the title song. At first, Connie was skeptical about Fort Lauderdale. This place is a morgue, she told Pasterneck. I thought there'd be boys growing on palm trees.
58:27 That little movie opened on January 21, 1960, at the Gateway Theater in Fort Lauderdale and simultaneously at Radio City Music hall in New York City, and was the biggest grossing MGM picture to that date at Radio City and the most successful low budget film in MGM history. Within a few months of the films release, it was Bedlam as thousands of kids headed to Fort Lauderdale and the city became the spring break capital of the world. Side note to this day, Fort Lauderdale.
59:04 So popular was the tidal song that Connie ultimately recorded it in five other Italian, Spanish, French, German and Japanese. The song climbed to number one in 15 countries before the movie was ever released. This also marked the first time an american singer had ever sung a title song in Japanese in an american film. In fact, Frances was one of the first american artists to record regularly in other languages, including Italian, German, Yiddish, Hebrew, Romanian, and by the end of her career had recorded in 15 languages. Most of these she didn't speak. She hired translators and language coaches and learned the songs phonetically. She recorded her 1978 album, who's happy now? In its entirety in multiple different languages, including Japanese. In fact, if you search Connie Frances Japanese, you'll get plenty of links to japanese versions of her songs sung by her. And her greatest hits in japanese album, released in 1990, is available on Spotify in the US. Finally, we get to Junko Jenko. We couldnt find any person by that name, and it seems to follow a different tomino naming convention, rhyming names like Anahanna complicating things still further, the given name Junko is quite popular and even limiting my search to vocalists active at the time leaves me with multiple possible inspirations. These include, for instance, ohashijunko, a japanese pop, folk and soul singer active from 1974 until her death from cancer in 2023. She was known for her overwhelming singing ability and her popularity peaked in the late seventies and early eighties. Another option is Sakurada Junko, a japanese pop idol and actress who made her professional debut in 1973. She was a mega star and one of the most popular idols of the seventies. She ended her singing career fairly early in 1983 and moved on to acting. Interesting anecdote about her. She became a member of the Unification church in 1977 and in 1992 was part of that famous mass wedding ceremony held in Seoul which involved 10,000 couples from 131 countries. Whether she chose to step back from public life after her marriage, or whether opportunities dried up because of her involvement in the unification church, she basically disappeared.