The Original Mickey Mouse Club Show

Background

Annette Joanne Funicello was born in Utica, New York, the first child and only daughter of Virginia Albano and Joseph Funicello. When she was three the family, now including baby brother Joey, relocated to North Hollywood, in the San Fernando Valley just north of Los Angeles. Later, the family moved to Studio City, where brother Michael was born in 1952. Early on Annette displayed the contradictory nature of an essentially shy person who nevertheless loved to perform. Her kindergarten teacher suggested she overcome her shyness by taking up a musical instrument. Annette took drum lessons from Roy Ball, but her parents made her give it up when they noticed she was twitching rhythmically at all times. As a substitute, she took dance lessons at age six with Margie Rix. Annette quickly picked up tap, ballet, and toe dancing, and even developed the skill to do that uniquely American form of dancing called "toe-tap" (dancing en pointe with taps). She cracked all the floor tiles in the bathroom practicing new steps.

At age nine Annette entered and won a beauty contest at Willow Lake Camp. The prizes included a free modeling course at the Lynn Terrell School. Annette soon became a paid professional model, working for stores all over the San Fernando Valley. According to her mother, Annette spent as much time modeling as dancing from ages nine to twelve. It was from this experience that she developed her natural poise with cameras, and her sense of fashion. Annette's 1994 memoir passes over this in one sentence, as it tends to diminish the carefully drawn picture of her as a complete amateur. Another part of the Annette legend is her discovery by Walt Disney. This supposedly happened by accident, when she danced the lead in a school production of Swan Lake at the Burbank Starlite Bowl.

It was no accident that Walt Disney and several staff were in the audience that evening in April 1955. The school recital, Ballet vs. Jive, was, in effect, a preliminary audition for The Mickey Mouse Club, one of many such events attended by Disney scouts looking for suitable kids. The next day someone called her dance instructor, Al Gilbert, to request she tryout for the show. She auditioned three times, performing ballet and tap routines, and at the final one, sang a song as well.

In her memoir, Annette says Walt Disney was at all her auditions, something that no other Mouseketeer has recounted as happening with them. Annette's parents were informed that she would be given a two-week tryout, then a formal contract. Much has been made of Annette being the "twenty-fourth and last Mouseketeer cast", blithely ignoring that there were twenty-eight kids hired for the first season. It seems certain for instance, that John Lee Johann came on board after Annette, and Ronnie Steiner and Dickie Dodd as well. But studio publicists liked the drama in that phrase, lending a touch of uncertainty where there was obviously none.

Performance

Annette has often been accused of being talentless and of being the recipient of Walt Disney's favoritism on the show. The release of the first week DVD in 2004 clearly shows that her dancing was very good and her singing perfectly adequate for what was required. She also had a good speaking voice, and made a fine narrator for newsreel specials. From the show's start, Annette received more fan mail than any other Mouseketeer. This was surprising, because she was very much in the background for the early episodes. Later on there would be more accusations that the fan mail was augmented by letters from her numerous extended family in New York.

However it was, the studio acknowledged her fan mail by letting her narrate a travel serial called Italian Correspondent at the end of the first season. By the start of the second season she was clearly the show's star, and was given her first dramatic serial, filmed on location in Wisconsin, called Adventure in Dairyland. She then had third billing in the Further Adventures of Spin and Marty, and narrated several short documentary serials, including Christmas Round the World, A Mouseketour to Samoa, and Junior Safari to Africa. The last two serials were co-hosted by Tommy Kirk, who would figure as Annette's co-star in later Disney films.


With the third season she again appeared in serials, starting with The New Adventures of Spin and Marty, though this time she had to share third billing with her bête noire, Darlene Gillespie. The two girls were set to have their own serial, to be called Annette and Darlene, but it turned into a solo star vehicle, Annette. This also featured David Stollery, Tim Considine, and several of the Mousketeers, as well as the lady who became Annette's lifelong closest friend, Shelley Fabares. She also appeared in an episode of Disneyland with other Mouseketeers to promote the projected film The Rainbow Road to Oz (which was never made), and again narrated newsreel specials, like Hawaiian Adventure.

Aftermath

When the show ended and the other Mouseketeers were let go, Annette's contract option was renewed. She twice appeared in multi-part episodes of Zorro, had a running character on eight episodes of The Danny Thomas Show, and appeared in the 1959 movie The Shaggy Dog with Tim Considine, Tommy Kirk, and Roberta Shore. Her singing career took off when she did a cover version of the song Tall Paul, which ex-Mouseketeer Judy Harriet had first recorded. Judy had a much better voice, but people wanted to listen to Annette. She was the first of a long line of singers who sold records, not because of her voice, but in spite of it. Annette herself never had any illusions about her talent, and modestly described her singing as having a three-note range.

Walt Disney next cast Annette in The Horsemasters, which starred another Disney protege, Janet Munro. Given a theatrical release in Europe, the movie was only shown on Disneyland in North America. Despite the film, Annette never caught on with the Europeans, and her appeal remained mainly to Americans.

In 1959 Annette filed her first lawsuit to try and break her Disney contract. She lost, but tried again the next year and won. She was given a new contract with a considerable increase in pay and back wages. She makes no mention of this in her 1994 memoir. Her relations with Walt Disney remained friendly, and he cast her in several films over the next few years, including Babes in Toyland, The Misadventures of Merlin Jones, and The Monkey's Uncle. He also lent her out to American International Pictures, a limited budget production company. She made Beach Party for them with Frankie Avalon, and when that proved a financial success, a host of sequels. There were also several television show episodes, but Annette's interest in show business was waning. She married her agent, Jack Gilardi, in 1965, and concentrated on raising her family, which grew to include a daughter and two sons.

As her children grew up, Annette's interest in performing began to revive. She had taken charge of the 1980 Mouseketeer 25th Reunion Show, and had performed at Disneyland with her former colleagues. She then did a revival tour with Frankie Avalon, and made another movie, Back to the Beach. By then she had divorced Jack Gilardi and had married Glenn Holt. Rumors about alcoholism in the early 1990's led her to reveal she had Multiple Sclerosis. In 1992, Annette was given a Disney Legends award, along with posthumous awards for Jimmie Dodd and Roy Williams. She dictated her memoirs in 1994, filmed a series of introductions to videotapes of the Mickey Mouse Club, and the following year took part in a TV biography of her life based on her memoir. She then withdrew from public life, though in 1997 she was the guest of honor at a party celebrating her "Angel in Show Business" award.