Our esteemed colleague Michael J. Mooney has posted the initial results of his conversation with Connie Francis, an actress, singer and all-around symbol of what has become the Spring Break beach culture in South Florida. Over at the Juice, Mooney identifies what effect Francis' film Where the Boys Are had on the area exactly 50 years ago.

The next year, more than 50,000 young people crashed Fort

Lauderdale--and the

modern Spring Break was born. I-95 was a parking lot. Thousands of

kids slept on the beach (many in the nude). City officials called in the

National Guard. More than 7,000 young people were arrested. By the

mid-'80s, more than 350,000 college kids (along with plenty of MTV

camera crews) were making the annual trek to "Fort Liquordale."

Read the rest of his posting right here, and we'll drop the minor spoiler that some additional Connie coverage with an even more appropriate iconic song embedded in the post could very well creep onto Crossfade in the near future. She'll be performing Saturday, March 20, at the Coral Springs Center for the Arts.

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