Hey there! Hi there! Ho there!
You're as welcome as can be,
M - I - C - K - E - Y
M - O - U - S - E
Mickey Mouse, Mickey Mouse,
forever let us hold our banner high!
Now it's time,
to say goodbye,
to all our company
M - I - C - K - E - Y
M - O - U - S - E
Annette Funicello
I used to run home after school to see the Mickey Mouse Club and my favorite little star, Annette. She was so cute, she was an actress, she could sing and she was a brunette like me. And I secretly thought, I looked so much like Annette. And then I heard my mama say it, on more than 1 occasion: "You look on the same order as Annette." It was confirmed. I felt like 'gee and wow', because Annette had everything. Of course she had that wholesome quality that kids strived for. That was back in the day.
She not only could sing but she could dance and she did skits that almost seemed like a little reality show about her life with her school-aged friends, The Mouseketeers, that appeared with her on the show. I was just in elementary school and she was a teen; so I looked up to her.
She was so popular it's been reported that she received 10 times the fan mail as her counterparts. There were 23 other little actors, but her mailbag came in at a whopping eight thousand per month.
I remember I had to read the book, "Johnny Tremain" for a book report in school and Annette was in the film version. How lucky was I.
Movies:
Disney movies
Johnny Tremain
The Shaggy Dog
The Horsemasters
'Babes in Toyland
'The Misadventures of Merlin Jones
The Monkey's Uncle."
Albums:
She was a recording star. She sang on 15 albums. Her hit singles included: "Tall Paul" and "Pineapple Princess."
The Films:
Then she grew up and was little curvier. So in the early '60s, she moved on from the Mickey Mouse Club to films. Disney teamed Annette up with fine, fine, fine Frankie Avalon. Can you imagine the pretty girl and the heart throb? These films were called, Teen Movies and Beach Party Movies.
Those films were so good! The times were so innocent that the mere onscreen shot of a boy and girl together, who liked each other, was risqué in and of itself. That's all. They did not need to do anything. They could smile into the camera with any nonsensical dialogue. The chemistry of the opposite sex permeated the entire big screen in the movie theatre.
Those films were fun with songs. The films had a plot with several sub-plots that had older famous actors popping up like Don Rickles, and Buster Keaton making cameos. To me, it was 1965, I was 12 and omg, when Annette's first beach movie came out, I begged my mom to let me go. So, I and some of my church friends went. The movie was called, Beach Blanket Bingo, and I was in awe.
I recall 3 years later I begged my mom to let me buy a bikini. My mom reminded me that Annette never wore a bikini. And then I remembered, Annette was different. Even when all the other girls had on bikinis and that was the talk of the town, she wore a 1-piece swimsuit. (Little did I know that was at the behest of Mr. Walt Disney, who did not want Annette to spoil her image). Anyway, I was allowed a 2-piece that might as well had been a 1-piece. In the meantime, Annette was continuing in beach movies and in her 1-piece. The movies were: Muscle Beach Party, Bikini Beach, Beach Blanket Bingo, How to Stuff a Wild Bikini", "Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine."
Around this time the Beatles were on the scene. There was one assassination after the other, (JFK, Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers, and Bobby Kennedy). Innocence was waning. And then Annette got married. Somehow that killed off her image. Although she was never forgotten, but she was out of the public eye for many years.
In 1987, she and Frankie Avalon staged a reunion in the film "Back to the Beach."
I think I'll invite my girlfriends over and have a
Beach Party on my living room floor and watch:
Beach Blanket Bingo". Better check the AMC TV guide.
Illness strikes:
It was during the 1987 filming that she noticed she had trouble walking. This was the first insidious sign of Multiple Sclerosis.
AP wire states: "When it was finally diagnosed", she later recalled, "I knew nothing about (MS), and you are always afraid of the unknown. I plowed into books." Her symptoms were relatively mild at first, but gradually she lost control of her legs, and she feared people might think she was drunk. So she went public with her ordeal in 1992.
She wrote of her triumphs and struggles in her 1994 autobiography, "A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes" — the title taken from a Disney song. In 1995, she appeared briefly in a television docudrama based on her book. And she spoke openly about the degenerative effects of MS.
Quotes by Annette talking about MS:
"My equilibrium is no more; it's just progressively getting worse"
"But I thank God I just didn't wake up one morning and not be able to walk. You
learn to live with it. You learn to live with anything, you really do."
"I've always been religious. This just makes me appreciate the Lord even more
because things could always be worse. I know he will see me through this."
Annette Funicello was born Oct. 22, 1942, in Utica, N.Y., and her family moved to Los Angeles when she was 4. She began taking dance lessons the following year and won a beauty contest at 9. Then came the discovery by Disney in 1955. In 1965, Annette married her agent, Jack Gilardi, and they had three children, Gina, Jack and Jason. The couple divorced 18 years later, and in 1986 she married Glen Holt, a harness racehorse trainer. After her film career ended, she devoted herself to her family. Her children sometimes appeared on the TV commercials she made for peanut butter. She had battled MS for 25 years, when she died at the age of 70 on April 8, 2013 due to complications of the disease.
She not only could sing but she could dance and she did skits that almost seemed like a little reality show about her life with her school-aged friends, The Mouseketeers, that appeared with her on the show. I was just in elementary school and she was a teen; so I looked up to her.
She was so popular it's been reported that she received 10 times the fan mail as her counterparts. There were 23 other little actors, but her mailbag came in at a whopping eight thousand per month.
I remember I had to read the book, "Johnny Tremain" for a book report in school and Annette was in the film version. How lucky was I.
Movies:
Disney movies
Johnny Tremain
The Shaggy Dog
The Horsemasters
'Babes in Toyland
'The Misadventures of Merlin Jones
The Monkey's Uncle."
Albums:
She was a recording star. She sang on 15 albums. Her hit singles included: "Tall Paul" and "Pineapple Princess."
The Films:
Then she grew up and was little curvier. So in the early '60s, she moved on from the Mickey Mouse Club to films. Disney teamed Annette up with fine, fine, fine Frankie Avalon. Can you imagine the pretty girl and the heart throb? These films were called, Teen Movies and Beach Party Movies.
Those films were so good! The times were so innocent that the mere onscreen shot of a boy and girl together, who liked each other, was risqué in and of itself. That's all. They did not need to do anything. They could smile into the camera with any nonsensical dialogue. The chemistry of the opposite sex permeated the entire big screen in the movie theatre.
Those films were fun with songs. The films had a plot with several sub-plots that had older famous actors popping up like Don Rickles, and Buster Keaton making cameos. To me, it was 1965, I was 12 and omg, when Annette's first beach movie came out, I begged my mom to let me go. So, I and some of my church friends went. The movie was called, Beach Blanket Bingo, and I was in awe.
I recall 3 years later I begged my mom to let me buy a bikini. My mom reminded me that Annette never wore a bikini. And then I remembered, Annette was different. Even when all the other girls had on bikinis and that was the talk of the town, she wore a 1-piece swimsuit. (Little did I know that was at the behest of Mr. Walt Disney, who did not want Annette to spoil her image). Anyway, I was allowed a 2-piece that might as well had been a 1-piece. In the meantime, Annette was continuing in beach movies and in her 1-piece. The movies were: Muscle Beach Party, Bikini Beach, Beach Blanket Bingo, How to Stuff a Wild Bikini", "Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine."
Around this time the Beatles were on the scene. There was one assassination after the other, (JFK, Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers, and Bobby Kennedy). Innocence was waning. And then Annette got married. Somehow that killed off her image. Although she was never forgotten, but she was out of the public eye for many years.
In 1987, she and Frankie Avalon staged a reunion in the film "Back to the Beach."
I think I'll invite my girlfriends over and have a
Beach Party on my living room floor and watch:
Beach Blanket Bingo". Better check the AMC TV guide.
Illness strikes:
It was during the 1987 filming that she noticed she had trouble walking. This was the first insidious sign of Multiple Sclerosis.
AP wire states: "When it was finally diagnosed", she later recalled, "I knew nothing about (MS), and you are always afraid of the unknown. I plowed into books." Her symptoms were relatively mild at first, but gradually she lost control of her legs, and she feared people might think she was drunk. So she went public with her ordeal in 1992.
She wrote of her triumphs and struggles in her 1994 autobiography, "A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes" — the title taken from a Disney song. In 1995, she appeared briefly in a television docudrama based on her book. And she spoke openly about the degenerative effects of MS.
Quotes by Annette talking about MS:
"My equilibrium is no more; it's just progressively getting worse"
"But I thank God I just didn't wake up one morning and not be able to walk. You
learn to live with it. You learn to live with anything, you really do."
"I've always been religious. This just makes me appreciate the Lord even more
because things could always be worse. I know he will see me through this."
Annette Funicello was born Oct. 22, 1942, in Utica, N.Y., and her family moved to Los Angeles when she was 4. She began taking dance lessons the following year and won a beauty contest at 9. Then came the discovery by Disney in 1955. In 1965, Annette married her agent, Jack Gilardi, and they had three children, Gina, Jack and Jason. The couple divorced 18 years later, and in 1986 she married Glen Holt, a harness racehorse trainer. After her film career ended, she devoted herself to her family. Her children sometimes appeared on the TV commercials she made for peanut butter. She had battled MS for 25 years, when she died at the age of 70 on April 8, 2013 due to complications of the disease.