Annette Funicello

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Annette Funicello

Funicello on the Mickey Mouse Club.
Birth name Annette Joanne Funicello
Born October 22, 1942
Utica, New York
Years active 1959-1995
Spouse(s) Jack Gilardi (1965-1981; Glen Holt (1986-present)
Notable roles several characters named Annette

Annette Joanne Funicello (born October 22, 1942) is an American singer and actress. She was Walt Disney's most popular Mouseketeer, and went on to appear in a series of beach movies.

Contents

Born in Utica, New York to an Italian-American family, she took dancing and music lessons as a child to try to overcome shyness. Her family had moved to southern California when she was four years old.[1]

In 1955, the 12-year-old was discovered by Walt Disney as she performed as the Swan Queen in Swan Lake at a dance recital in Burbank, California. On the basis of this appearance, Disney cast her as one of the original "Mouseketeers". She was the last of them to be selected, and the only one picked by Walt Disney. She soon proved to be quite popular. By the end of the first season of Mickey Mouse Club, she was receiving 6,000 letters a month, according to her Disney Legends biography.

In addition to appearing in many of the Mouseketeers' sketches and dance routines, Funicello starred or co-starred in a number of serials on The Mickey Mouse Club. These included Adventures in Dairyland, her own self-titled serial, Walt Disney Presents: Annette (which co-starred Richard Deacon), and the second and third Spin and Marty serials,The Further Adventures of Spin and Marty and The New Adventures of Spin and Marty.

After the Mickey Mouse Club she remained under contract with Disney for a time, with television roles in Zorro, Elfego Baca and The Horsemasters. For Zorro she played Anita Cabrillo in a three-episode storyline, about a teenaged girl who arrives in Los Angeles to visit a father who does not seem to exist. This role was reportedly a birthday present from Walt Disney, and the first of two different characters played opposite Guy Williams as Zorro. Annette also co-starred in Disney-produced movies such as The Shaggy Dog, Babes in Toyland, The Misadventures of Merlin Jones, and The Monkey's Uncle.[2]

Although uncomfortable being thought of as a singer, Annette had a number of pop record hits in the late 1950s and early 1960s, mostly written by the Sherman Brothers and including: "Tall Paul", "First Name Initial," "O Dio Mio," "Train of Love" (written by Paul Anka) and "Pineapple Princess." Annette also recorded "It's Really Love" in 1959, a reworking of an earlier Paul Anka song called "Toot Sweet;" Anka reworked the song for a third time in 1962 as "Johnny's Theme" and it opened The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson on television for the next three decades. In an episode of the Disney anthology television series titled "Disneyland After Dark", Annette can be seen singing live at Disneyland. Walt Disney was reportedly a fan of 1950s pop star Teresa Brewer and tried to pattern Annette's singing in the same style.

After maturing, she moved on from Disney and became a teen idol, starring in a series of "Beach Party" movies with Frankie Avalon for American International Pictures. These included Beach Party, Muscle Beach Party, Bikini Beach and Beach Blanket Bingo.

When she was cast in her first beach movie, Walt Disney himself asked her to not wear a bikini and instead wear a one–piece swimsuit because Annette had an image to uphold. While she is seen wearing a bikini in several of the Beach films, she recognized and respected Disney's concerns, wearing only outfits which reached up to her navel. Reports in the trade press said that Disney had "ordered" her to avoid the most skimpy outfits, but Funicello has always tried to counter rumor, saying that he had been concerned that she keep her public image intact for her own sake, and that she was glad for his advice.

In fact, she and Avalon set the standard for "beach picture" stars -- so much that they were re-united in 1987 for Back to the Beach, parodying their own films of two decades earlier. They then toured the country as a singing act.

In 1979, at age 37, Funicello began starring in a series of television commercials for Skippy peanut butter.[3]

Funicello was married to her first husband, Jack Gilardi from 1965 until 1981. They had three children together. In 1986 she married her current husband, Glen Holt.[1]

Funicello announced in 1992 that she suffers from multiple sclerosis. She had kept her condition a secret for many years, but felt it necessary to go public to combat false rumors that her impaired carriage was the result of alcoholism. That same year, she was inducted as a Disney Legend. In 1993 she opened the Annette Funicello Fund for Neurological Disorders at the California Community Foundation.

Her autobiography, published in 1994, is A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes: My Story. The title is taken from a song from the movie Cinderella. A made-for-TV movie based on the book, A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes: The Annette Funicello Story, was made in 1995. In the final scene, the actress portraying Funicello, riding in a wheelchair, is turned away from the camera -- turning back, it is Funicello herself, who delivers a moving, inspirational message to a group of children (and, of course, the viewer). During this period she also produced her own line of teddy bears for the Annette Funicello Collectible Bear Company. The last collection in the series was made in 2004.

  • "Tall Paul" # 6 (1959)
  • "Jo-Jo The Dog Faced Boy" # 73 (1959)
  • "Lonely Guitar" # 50 (1959)
  • "My Heart Became Of Age" # 74 (1959)
  • "First Name Initial" # 20 (1959)
  • "O Dio Mio" # 9 (1960)
  • "Train Of Love" # 36 (1960)
  • "Pineapple Princess" # 11 (1960)
  • "Talk To Me Baby" # 92 (1960)
  • "Dream Boy" # 87 (1961)

  • Funicello, Annette and Patricia Romanowski. A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes: My Story 1994, ISBN 0-7868-8092-9

  1. ^ a b Annette Funicello Biography (1942-). Crystal Reference, Biography.com. A&E Television Networks (2003). Retrieved on 2007-03-30.
  2. ^ Cotter, Bill (1997). The Wonderful World of Disney Television. New York: Hyperion Books. ISBN 0-7868-6359-5. 
  3. ^ History of Skippy. Unilever (2007). Retrieved on 2007-03-30.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../a/n/n/Annette_Funicello_2035.html"
Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.