When she was young she almost accepted a scholarship to New York University, but pursued music full-time instead. Her love affair with fellow singer Bobby Darin was cut short when her strict father learned they planned to elope and threatened Darin with a shotgun. Francis only saw Darin twice more before his untimely death in 1973. In her 1984 autobiography, “Who's Sorry Now”, she wrote that not marrying him was the biggest mistake of her life.