Annette Funicello, Mouseketeer and Film Star, Dies

Annette Funicello
Lennox McLendon / AP

In this Jan. 3, 1978 file photo, actress Annette Funicello recalls moments when she played a "Mouseketeer" on ABC's first successful daytime television show,"The Mickey Mouse Club" in Los Angeles, while she was taping an ABC Silver Anniversary Celebration special.

(NEW YORK) — Annette Funicello, the most popular Mouseketeer on “The Mickey Mouse Club,” who matured to a successful career in records and ’60s beach party movies but struggled with illness in middle age and after, died Monday, The Walt Disney Co. said. She was 70.

She died peacefully at Mercy Southwest Hospital in Bakersfield, Calif., of complications from multiple sclerosis, the company said.

Funicello stunned fans and friends in 1992 with the announcement about her ailment. Yet she was cheerful and upbeat, grappling with the disease with a courage that contrasted with her lightweight teen image of old.

The pretty, dark-haired Funicello was just 13 when she gained fame on Walt Disney’s television kiddie “club,” an amalgam of stories, songs and dance routines that ran from 1955 to 1959.

(PHOTOS: Annette Funicello: America’s Sweetheart)

Cast after Disney saw her at a dance recital, she soon began receiving 8,000 fan letters a month, 10 times more than any of the 23 other young performers.

Her devotion to Walt Disney remained throughout her life. “He was the dearest, kindest person, and truly was like a second father to me,” she remarked. “He was a kid at heart.”

When “The Mickey Mouse Club” ended, Annette (as she was often billed) was the only club member to remain under contract to the studio. She appeared in such Disney movies as “Johnny Tremain,” ”The Shaggy Dog,” ”The Horsemasters,” ”Babes in Toyland,” ”The Misadventures of Merlin Jones” and “The Monkey’s Uncle.”

She also became a recording star, singing on 15 albums and hit singles such as “Tall Paul” and “Pineapple Princess.”

(MORE: Top 10 Bikinis in Pop Culture: Annette Funicello and Beach Party

Outgrowing the kid roles by the early ’60s, Annette teamed with Frankie Avalon in a series of movies for American-International, the first film company to exploit the burgeoning teen market.

The filmmakers weren’t aiming for art, and they didn’t achieve it. As Halliwell’s Film Guide says of “Beach Party”: “Quite tolerable in itself, it started an excruciating trend.”

But the films had songs, cameos by older stars and a few laughs and, as a bonus to latter-day viewers, a look back at a more innocent time. The 1965 “Beach Blanket Bingo,” for example, featured subplots involving a mermaid, a motorcycle gang and a skydiving school run by Don Rickles, and comic touches by silent film star Buster Keaton.

Among the other titles: “Muscle Beach Party,” ”Bikini Beach,” ”Beach Blanket Bingo,” ”How to Stuff a Wild Bikini” and “Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine.”

The shift in teen tastes begun by the Beatles in 1964 and Funicello’s first marriage the following year pretty much killed off the genre.

But she was somehow never forgotten though mostly out of the public eye for years. She and Avalon staged a reunion in 1987 with “Back to the Beach.” It was during the filming that she noticed she had trouble walking — the first insidious sign of MS.

(MORE: Fantagraphics Announces “Mickey Mouse” Reprints)

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.

“My equilibrium is no more; it’s just progressively getting worse,” she said. “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.”

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.

“I have been blessed to have a mentor like Walt Disney,” she said 40 years later. “Those years were the happiest of my life. I felt that back then. I feel the same today.”

Asked about the revisionist biographies that have portrayed Disney in a negative light, she said, “I don’t know what went on in the conference rooms. I know what I saw. And he was wonderful.”

In 1965, Funicello 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.

The beach films featured ample youthful skin. But not Funicello’s.

She remembered in 1987: “Mr. Disney said to me one day, ‘Annette, I have a favor to ask of you. I know all the girls are wearing bikinis, but you have an image to uphold. I would appreciate it if you would wear a one-piece suit.’ I did, and I never regretted it.”

MORE: A Brief History of Mickey Mouse 

26 comments
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davec265
davec265

M-I-C...see ya real soon...K-E-Y...why? because we like you...no...annette...we LOVE you..M-O-U-S-E.....R.I.P., and thanks for all the fond memories i will take with me forever...

KLBC
KLBC

Rest in Peace Annette. My prayers are with your family during this difficult time.  You accomplished many good things in your life and have been such an icon to all.  You will be missed, but your memory lives on in all of your reruns of The Mickey Mouse Club and all of the movies you made, especially with Frankie Avalon.

ShirleyHarris
ShirleyHarris

I was so sad to hear that Annette had died.  I watched her with the Mickey Mouse Club everyday, singing along with them, doing the rollcall with them and dancing.  I loved all of it, and she was so cute.  I always did think that.  She will be missed.  I hope they show the old Mickey Mouse club show in memory of her.

nappycp
nappycp

Oh, how sadden I was to read this. I was a Mickey Mouse Club member from my TV set at home. Annette was my very favorite Mouseketeer and I wanted to be her. Thank you Annette for the wonderful memories from the clubhouse. You will not be forgotten.

TammyRamirez
TammyRamirez

I was not old enough to watch the first run of the Mickey Mouse Club,but I would watch the reruns when I was young,Annette was my favorite Mouseketeer.. I even would watch the old Beach movies and would laugh. Rest In Peace Annette and say hello to Mr Disney

GaryJennings
GaryJennings

I liked Annette.RIP Annette you were loved by many and are going to be missed very deeply.My condolence to the family .


CWatki
CWatki

She always remained a woman of class, intelligence, and loyalty. A great loss for those of us who loved her - and there are many The sun shines a little less bright today..

LyleLafee
LyleLafee

Any teen from the 50's or early 60's had a crush on Annette,on this day we lost two great women may they R.I.P.

WesDaMan
WesDaMan

I'm extremely saddened ... I had a crush on her when I was a kid ... as did thousands of other boys then .... lol

RaySossamon
RaySossamon

She was a beautiful woman inside and out-when I was a teen I hated  those movies but I went JUST to see her

RickDelia
RickDelia

Today's celebu-idiots take note - Annette was one of the biggest stars on the planet and she had no ego, was never pretentious and always carried herself with class and humility.  

Johnny_Fever
Johnny_Fever

Annette had class; something the other "Disney Stars" seem to have forgotten about (Lohan, Cyrus,  etc...)

SharonTomalavage
SharonTomalavage

A little more innocence died today with Annette. I won't say "may God take you with him", as I know he already has. There's such a sad, sinking feeling of what is going on today and what passes for "progress" (the taking of a pre-born's life and calling it 'choice"), minors as young as 10 can now get abortifants, girls younger and younger are having sex, more and more kids are being raised in the new "dysfunctional" family (no father, or two mothers, two fathers, etc. or a home where no one is there and children raise themselves). We now have a culture where staying home and baking cookies is frowned upon, if not outright lambasted. Seems we have our priorities out of whack. Before I get many irate writers, let me say that I find nothing wrong with working outside the home, but if you are blessed with not having to, and you have children--why would you put your career ahead of them?? After all, it seems to me that if one chooses to marry and have children, they are making the choice to put that marriage and family ahead of everything else. Good-by Annette, you've done a very good job here on earth and now you've earned your reward.

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