Sheeley wrote "Poor Little Fool" while still in high school in Newport Beach, California.
Ricky Nelson recorded it in 1958 and it soared in the charts. She was the girlfriend of
Eddie Cochran, riding with him in
the taxi that crashed April 16, 1960, near Bath, England. The crash injured her (breaking her pelvis). It killed Cochran. She helped start the mid-1960s ABC network musical show
Shindig! (1964) with her then-husband
Jimmy O'Neill, the series host.