Today's stroll is taking you back to two places, one when you were just a kid watching the Mickey Mouse Club, and the other to the Beach Party movie days.

We are going to visit somone who was a big part of both. When we heard the name "Annette", we knew just who they were talking about. She was also the argument my Mom used not to let me have a bikini....
Annette never wore one even though she made all those bikini beach movies!


Annette Joanne Funicello (born October 22, 1942) was Walt Disney's most popular Mouseketeer.

Born in Utica, New York to an Italian-American family, she took dancing and music lessons as a child to try to overcome shyness, and was discovered by Disney in a recital while performing in Swan Lake. Her family had moved to southern California when she was 4.
She was cast as one of the original "Mouseketeers". She was the last as well as the only one picked by Walt Disney. She soon went on to television roles in Zorro and Elfego Baca, and Disney-produced movies such as The Shaggy Dog, Babes in Toyland,
The Misadventures of Merlin Jones, and The Monkey's Uncle.


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, including: "Tall Paul," "First Name Initial," "O Dio Mio," "Train of Love" (written by Paul Anka) and "Pineapple Princess."


After maturing, she became a teen idol and went on to star in a series of "Beach Party" movies with Frankie Avalon including Beach Party, Muscle Beach Party, Bikini Beach and Beach Blanket Bingo.

Funicello and Avalon re-united in 1987 for Back to the Beach, and toured the country as a singing act.


Annette first noticed her MS symptoms in l987 when she was making the movie Back to the Beach, a friendly spoof of her early sand-and-surf films that received both public and critical acclaim.

In l989, Annette did a year-long concert tour to cheering crowds with Frankie Avalon, her long time friend and movie co-star. Annette resides in California with her second husband Glen Holt, a race horse breeder.


In l992, when rumors and gossip began to surface in the press after Annette's MS symptoms became increasingly pronounced, she decided to go public with her condition.

Although Annette has been forced by the effects of this devastating disease to retire from her stage and screen career, her indomitable spirit led her to found the popular Annette Funicello Collectible Bear Company, which is celebrating more than ten years in business.
Annette's life story was both celebrated in a made-for TV movie, which was aired on Lifetime Television, and in her book, A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes (Hyperion, 1995).


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 in response to rumours, due to her impaired carriage, that she was an alcoholic. In 1993 she opened the Annette Funicello Fund for Neurological Disorders at the California Community Foundation.


I hope you've enjoyed this blast from the past and hope that you'll join me again next month when we go





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