I learned on Monday, April 8,
that Annette Funicello and Margaret Thatcher passed away. Thatcher was 87 years old when she passed
and Funicello was 70. Both were
suffering with chronic illnesses.
Thatcher had dementia for many years which was a central theme of the
movie Iron Lady starring Meryl
Streep as Thatcher. Funicello was
stricken with multiple sclerosis.
Margaret Thatcher is certainly a luminary worth writing about but this
is about Annette Funicello who was born on October 22, 1942 in Utica, NY. She died on April 8 in Los Angeles.
Annette Funicello was eleven
years older than me. I was born in the
1950s. We were, supposedly, the first TV
generation. The Mickey Mouse Club, which
debuted on October 3, 1955 when I was just two and she was 13. I am not sure we even had a TV at that
time. But, I do remember growing up
watching the first manifestation of the Mickey Mouse Club which ran to 1959. I remember, at the age of six, not
understanding why they stopped the show.
I felt like I was a Mouseketeers and was devastated when the show
stopped. To show you the power of the
show, I thought the Musketeers of Dumas, when I first learned of them, were
ripping off the Mouseketeers!
I enjoyed the Mickey Mouse
club. My favorite was Jimmie Dodd
(1910-1964). At 42, he was the oldest
Mouseketeer. He was the emcee and
ringleader of the show. I thought he was
the show and it revolved around him. I
came to understood, even at that young age, that Annette was the Disney darling
of the show.
In the April 9, 2013, LA Times:
If you were a girl in the
1950s, Annette Funicello was ideal of feminine goodness, your fantasy best
friend forever. If you were a boy, she
was your dream date, demure, doe-eyed and just different enough to set hearts
pounding.
The LA Times noted that she one of the original Mouseketeers and
"most adored." Unlike, what
seemed like the rest of the country who were her devoted fans, I was rather
ambivalent to the perky actress.
Why? I have a few theories.
First, I believe that Annette
took away from the more fun stuff the Mouseketeers did. Things slowed down when she was the center of
attention. I felt the same was about
Darla of the Little Rascals. It was
like, "hey, we are having fun here.
why do you have to come along and ruin it. Actually, both Darla and Annette had roundish
faces and looking back, I was always drawn to ladies with more oval faces. Really?
It sounds odd, but I think it is true.
Maybe, being a contrarian even
then, I was not a big Annette fan because everybody else was. The same applied to Elvis Presley and even
The Beatles when they first hit the scene.
So, my Annette ambivalence continued through her teenage heartthrob
singing and movie careers. With the
social unrest and change in the late sixties and seventies, Annette became even
more of an afterthought for me.
Two things changed my view.
As an adult, I have become a
quasi-movie buff, I came to enjoy the MGM surfer films she did with Frankie
Avalon. What was not to like? They were fun, funny, and entertaining. Frankie and Annette were predictable but
always cute. The most popular is, of
course, Beach Blanket Bingo. They also appeared in:
How to Stuff a Wild Bikini
Beach Party
Bikini Beach
Fireball 500
Thunder Alley
Muscle Beach Party
Ski Party
Secondly, in the late 1980s,
we heard that she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. That was sad news and it did not seem
fair. She was supposed to be forever
young either as a Mouseketeer or as she appeared in the surfer movies. Her affliction made me take her more
seriously. Obviously, her affliction was
a mortality slap in the face for my entire generation. I took her more seriously not in becoming a
huge fan, but more so I would read the occasional article about her when I came
across them to see how she was doing.
I came to learn that she was
pretty much what we saw. She came from a
family with principles and values which along with her immense talent appealed
to Walt Disney. Annette carried that
through her life and it showed in everything she did. She was married twice and is survived by
three children. With the MS, she had
brain surgery in 1999 to stem the growth of the tumors. She was wheelchair bound in her last years
and actually bedridden her final year.
Despite this, she was still involved in her business interests,
especially her Fund of Neurological Disorders.
Upon her passing, Frankie
Avalon said, "She had the heart and soul and a feeling about her that
everybody just connected to - male or female - without being pretentious in any
way. She was just a nice, nice girl next
door... America's sweetheart."
I might be late coming to the
fan club, but I realize that we just lost an American Icon.
I was sad to hear Annette Funicello passed away. I love the beach movies growing up. I thought Frankie Avalon was handsome lol!
ReplyDeleteThis video gives a look at how MS took its toll on Annette.
ReplyDeletehttp://youtu.be/6VbaLzo--ds