Francis was born to an Italian-American family in the Italian Down Neck, or Ironbound, neighborhood of Newark, New Jersey, the first child of George Franconero, Sr., and Ida Franconero (née Ferrari-di Vito), spending her first years in a Brooklyn neighborhood on Utica Avenue/St. Marks Avenue before the family moved to New Jersey.\n', '

Growing up in an Italian-Jewish neighborhood, Francis became fluent in Yiddish, which would lead her later to record songs in Yiddish and Hebrew.\n', "

In her autobiography Who's Sorry Now?, published in 1984, Francis recalls that she was encouraged by her father to appear regularly at talent contests, pageants, and other neighborhood festivities from the age of four as a singer and accordion player.\n", '

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