Annette Funicello, most famous for her role as a mousetekeer on "The Mickey Mouse Club" died Monday after a prolonged battle with multiple sclerosis (MS). She was 70 years old.
Funicello passed away from complications resulting from her illness, according to her family, who spoke to "Extra." She was taken off life support with her family surrounding her. She had been in a coma resulting from MS for years.
Funicello grew up performing on the Walt Disney afternoon show, with a wholesome image on screen and off.
After she left "The Mickey Mouse Club" she began doing films, and was well known for her roles opposite Frankie Avalon in the beach blanket buddy movies they did in the 1960's.
In 1963, producer Samuel Z. Arkoff cast her in "Beach Party," the first in the series of beach movies with Frankie Avalon.
"You knew she was very attractive, very pretty and voluptuous, but Annette never flaunted it," Avalon, 75, told People in 1998. "She underplayed everything, she never tried to be sexy."
"People said to themselves, 'I could date that girl if I ever met her,'" Avalon continued. "She wasn't untouchable."
Funicello was born on October 22, 1942, in Utica, New York. Her father was an auto-repair-shop owner, Joseph Funicello, and her mother was a homemaker, Virginia. When Annette was four, the family moved to southern California.
In spring 1955, Walt Disney was casting his new kids' television program when he stopped by the Burbank Starlite Bowl, where Funicello was performing in a recital of "Swan Lake" with a dance school.
"Mr. Disney," as Funicello called him, helped her with her career for the next ten years, as she starred in Disney productions such as the 1959 film "The Shaggy Dog," the 1961 film "Babes In Toyland" and the television show "Zorro."
She also recorded pop songs, such as "Tall Paul" and "Puppy Love," written for her by Paul Anka, which became hit singles. Despite this, Funicello was shy about her singing.
"I remember being frightened every time I went into a recording studio," she said in 1992.
In 1965, Funicello married her agent, Jack Gilardi, and the couple had three children, Gina, Jack, Jr. and Jason.
She retired from film in 1968 to raise her family, after appearing in "Head" with the Monkees.
"She was always there for carpools, Hot Dog Day and the PTA," her daughter Gina told InStyle in 1994. "She was a normal mom."
Funicello and Gilardi divorced in 1982. She later married racehorse breeder Glen Holt and went back into film. She reunited with Avalon in 1987 for another beach movie, "Back to the Beach." The movie was a huge success and led to a 35-city concert tour.
During filming, Funicello first noticed symptoms of MS, which is a chronic and debilitating disease that attacks the central nervous system.
"We'd be shooting a scene on the sand, and when I'd try to get up, I couldn't balance," she told People in 1992. "We'd laugh about it, and Frankie would say, 'Look at you, you look like you've had too much to drink.'"
"I'd say, 'Frankie, this is just the weirdest thing,'" she said.
She initially kept her illness quiet, only letting her immediate family know. She made the news public in 1991, after rumors circulated that she was an alcoholic. After losing the ability to read and write, and only able to speak with difficulty, Funicello spent her final years confined to a wheelchair designed by her husband with a seat from a harness-racing sulky.
She has lived in a ranch house in Encino, California for the past 40 years, a place she called, "my good-luck house."
"It's funny, but sometimes when I feel discouraged or have a problem I can't work out, I find myself thinking, 'If only Mr. Disney were here, he would know what to do,'" Funicello wrote in her autobiography.
Her family requests donations in her honor be sent to the Annette Funicello Research Fund for Neurological Disorders.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
