Forever No. 1: Shelley Fabares, ‘Johnny Angel’

Forever No.

1 is a Billboard series that pays special tribute to the recently deceased artists who achieved the highest honor our charts have to offer — a Billboard Hot 100 No.

1 single — by taking an extended look back at the chart-topping songs that made them part of this exclusive club.

Here, we honor the late TV star Shelley Fabares, whose “Johnny Angel” reached No.

1 in April 1962.

“Johnny Angel” is so innocent, so chaste, that it immediately conjures a simpler time.

It has that in common with such other defining hits of the era as The Chordettes’ “Mr.

Sandman” (1954) and The Teddy Bears’ “To Know Him, Is To Love Him” (1958).

“Johnny Angel” is a classic “crush” song, in which the singer pines about a boy who is utterly oblivious:”Johnny Angel, how I love him/ He’s got something that I can’t resist/ But he doesn’t even know that I exist.” Related Gone But Not Forgotten: Musicians We Lost in 2026 Forever No.

1: Connie Francis, ‘My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own’ Forever No.

1: Connie Francis’ ‘Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool’ Singer and actress Shelley Fabares , who died on Sunday (Aug.

23) in Los Angeles at age 82, recorded the song in September 1961 when she was just 17.

She performed it in her role as daughter Mary Stone on The Donna Reed Show in the episode (“Donna’s Prima Donna”) that aired on Feb.

1, 1962 (by which time she had turned 18).