Not too many celebrity deaths bring a tear to my eye (only Lucille Ball and Jill Haworth come quickly to mind), but the passing of Annette Funicello has and more. I spent many an afternoon as a pre-teen and teen glued to the TV set watching Annette, Frankie Avalon and the zany beach party gang on the ABC-TV 4:30 Movie. Annette was just so pretty and likable and had such wonderful chemistry with Frankie. Her films like Beach Party, Beach Blanket Bingo, Pajama Party, Muscle Beach Party always brought joy to a sometimes lonely kid in the suburbs.

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Annette Joanne Funicello was born on October 22, 1942.  Her family relocated to Los Angeles from Utica when Annette was just a child and her mother enrolled her timid daughter into dance classes to help her overcome her shyness.  Producer Walt Disney happened to see her dance the lead role in Swan Lake at her school’s year-end recital in the spring of 1955 and had an associate contact her to audition to become a Mouseketeer.  The Mickey Mouse Club debuted in October 1955 and Annette quickly became one of the show’s most popular cast members.  Part of this had to do with her talent and the sweetness that she just radiated but the fact that the twelve-year-old was maturing into womanhood far faster than her peers certainly played a big factor.  Due to her growing bosom she quickly became the fantasy girl of pubescent boys around the country and the butt of many jokes.

The Mickey Mouse Club was excellent training for the newcomer as she sang and danced, and acted in a number of its serials including her own entitled “Annette.”  When the series came to an end in 1959, Funicello was the only Mouseketeer who remained under contract at Disney.  Though her singing voice was thin, it was perfect for the undiscriminating teenage rock ‘n’ roll fan.  Annette cut a few singles—the most popular being “Tall Paul,” which climbed to No. 7 on the Billboard charts in 1959.  She had another Top 10 hit the following year with “O Dio Mio.”

Walt Disney, who took the amiable girl under his wing, knew she had acting talent and cast her in the hit comedy The Shaggy Dog (1959) starring Fred MacMurray and Tommy Kirk.  Annette went on to star in The Horsemasters (1960) one of three films that she starred in that were broadcast in two parts on Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color but released theatrically in Europe and other parts of the world.  Annette could be seen on the big screens in the U.S. as Mary Contrary in the disappointing musical Babes in Toyland (1961).

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In 1962, Annette turned twenty years old and Disney was having trouble finding parts for the well-developed actress to play.  When AIP offered her a lead role in the swinging new surfing epic Beach Party (1963), Disney strongly advised Annette to take the role but not to wear a bikini so she would stick out from the other beach beauties like Valora Noland, Delores Wells, Salli Sachse, and Meredith MacRae.  Paired with Frankie Avalon as teenage lovers Frankie and Dolores, Beach Party was the sleeper of the year and AIP immediately commissioned a sequel.  After starring with Tommy Kirk in Disney’s The Misadventures of Merlin Jones (1964), Annette reprised her Beach Party character renamed Dee Dee in Muscle Beach Party (1964) where the surfers battle the musclemen and Bikini Beach (1964) where drag racing and British Potato Bug (Avalon in a dual role parodying the Beatles) take center stage.  Pajama Party (1964) was an offshoot as Annette co-starred with Disney alumni Tommy Kirk playing a Martian who crashes the beach party.

All four of Annette’s movies were box office hits and she delivered charming performances especially in Muscle Beach Party as she vied for Frankie with Luciana Paluzzi as a spoiled Italian contessa.  She was voted a Star of Tomorrow placing second in the Motion Pictures Exhibitor’s poll and was named a Star of the Future by Boxoffice magazine.  That same year she was also nominated for the Photoplay Gold Medal Award for Favorite Actress.

Though Annette became synonymous with surfing and beach movies, she rarely ventured into the ocean with her surfboard or even got her hair wet.  She explained in Interview, “Well, 24 years ago the surfboards were so big and heavy.  A couple of times we tried to get a shot of me grabbing a board, running down to the water and diving in.  But every time we’d rehearse it I’d grab this huge board and say something like, ‘Hey kids!  Surf’s up!’ and then I’d have to drag this heavy, ungainly board down to the water.  By the time I got to the ocean I’d be totally out of breath.”  Needless to say, director William Asher (a real surfer himself) gave up and used the old reliable blue screen to show Annette “surfing” the waves.

Annette had a very busy year in 1965.  She married her agent Jack Gilardi and then re-teamed with Tommy Kirk in the Disney comedy, The Monkey’s Uncle, whose title tune was sung by Annette and the Beach Boys on screen.  After co-starring with Frankie Avalon in arguably the best of the sand-and-surf epics Beach Blanket Bingo and making a very funny cameo appearance as an amorous college professor in Ski Party, Annette became pregnant with her first child.  She was a few months along when she had to head back to the beach for How to Stuff a Wild Bikini.

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Though How to Stuff a Wild Bikini was the end of the beach-party for Frankie and Annette, AIP would team the popular duo one last time.  Fireball 500 (1966) featured Avalon and Fabian as rival stock car racers who battled over the charms of Annette while becoming embroiled in a moonshine smuggling operation.  Funicello would co-star again with Fabian in Thunder Alley (1967) playing the good girl vying with Diane McBain as a golddigging vixen for stunt driver Fabian.  It was her final movie for AIP.

After leaving the studio in 1967, Annette Funicello did a cameo as Davy Jones’ girlfriend in The Monkees’ madcap musical Head (1968) before limiting her acting career to spend more time with her children.  She made sporadic TV guest appearances during the seventies and co-hosted with Frankie Avalon the variety series, Easy Does It in 1976.  But she is best remembered as the spokeswoman for Skippy Peanut Butter in a string of commercials that ran into the eighties.  Annette was more active during the Reagan years and donned a swimsuit for her return with Frankie Avalon to the sandy shores of Malibu in Back to the Beach (1987). They were wonderful and didn’t disappoint, however the producers did by not bringing back any of the old beach party gang like Mike Nader, Aron Kincaid, Salli Sachse, Patti Chandler, Bobbi Shaw, etc. Instead they surrounded the duo with former sitcom stars of the sixties and an annoying Connie Stevens. Annette though as one last wonderful on screen musical number.

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Annette was diagnosed with Multiple Scierosis in 1988.  At first the devastating nerve disorder just affected her balance but got progressively worse and due to her illness disappeared from public life.

Goodbye Annette. The beach won’t be the same without you in your one-piece.

Coming right on my heels about the 1977 Kojak episode with guest stars Carol Lynley and Christopher Walken, my friend Jeremy did a great Blog on pre-1977 Christopher Walken’s stage work. Click here to access and enjoy another photo below of a very young and sexy Walken by photographer Kenn Duncan (copyright held by The New York Public Library). He resembles the actor who plays Nolan on TV’s Revenge.

I like to think that can be reasonably objective when it comes to my favorite actress Carol Lynley. There was a period beginning about 1975 where Carol began a down-slide. She always needed a good director to keep her in check and focused, but during the Seventies as her movies were becoming cheaper independent productions and her TV shows routine, her directors were less than inspiring. That is until she worked with Telly Savalas on Kojak and gave arguably one of her finest TV performances ever.

In “Kiss It All Goodbye,” which aired Feb. 22, 1977, Carol played a high fashion model who is accidentally shot by Det. Crocker (Kevin Dobson) and is paralyzed during a botched fur heist. Telly Savalas was not supposed to direct this episode and before filming began he told Carol Lynley he would like to direct her some time. That time became now when the director scheduled for the episode was rushed to the hospital and Savalas stepped in. You can tell right from Carol’s first scene that Savalas spent time cultivating a performance from her. Polly, lying in her hospital bed, tells Kojak that she is a model and that to keep healthy and her legs shapely she goes for long walks, which led her in front of the building where the robbery occurred. As he goes to leave, she throws off the sheets and asks him if he thinks her legs are pretty. She then cries she can’t feel them. The next day Crocker learns the doctors are reluctant to remove the bullet lodged in Polly’s back leaving her a paralegic for now. When he shows up to her room, the look on his face reveals all and Polly asks him to leave as she contemplates her future in a wheelchair. Carol, prodded by her director no doubt, projects a nice range of emotions in these scenes from confusion to despair to anger arousing audience sympathy.

Crocker is devastated about what he did to Polly and begins seeing the wheel-chair bound young woman determined to help her walk again. They grow closer and Polly develops feelings for him. Then Polly gets a visitor. It is Ben the thief from the burglary (played by a young sexy, yes I said sexy, Christopher Walken) who kisses her hello. Turns out that Polly was the lookout and not an innocent bystander afterall. He admits he tipped off the cops to get their third partner Jaime, who was killed in a shootout, out of the way because he couldn’t trust him. Not wanting to jeopardize her relationship with Crocker, Polly gives Ben written permission to enter her safety deposit box to retrieve his share of the money.

Meanwhile Kojak and crew are closing in on the thieves as they place Jaime and Polly in Cleveland at the same time of similar fur heists. When they discover Polly visited her bank 3 days after each burglary in NYC after a fence paid for the furs, they realize she was part of the robberies.

Ben gets spooked at the bank rightly thinking the cops are watching and Polly set him up. In tears, Polly tells him to take all the money and she won’t give him up to the cops. She’ll do it just so Crocker doesn’t find out what she really is. Ben won’t back off and insists they go together to the bank and then run off. Carol is very good here as Polly comes to terms that her idyllic time with Crocker has to come to an end. He calls just then with good news from another doctor  who thinks she can operate, but Polly is harsh with him not wanting anymore false hope about walking and never wanting to see him again. Crocker is shaken and then learns from Kojak that Polly was the lookout. He refuses to believe it and rushes over to her apartment just as Ben and Polly are exiting. Ben tries to make a break fo rit, but it collared by Kojak.

At the station house, Crocker and Polly have one last moment together. As he wishes her well, Polly sadly tells him that she wished they met before she got involved with the robberies. When Crocker says she would have looked right passed him to the good looking guys, Polly says no she wouldn’t have. He then gives her a kiss goodbye. Kojak tells Polly that Crocker still has faith in her and Polly poignantly replies that she just wanted her time with him to last  a bit longer knowing it would not be forever.

Telly Savalas deserves a lot of credit for her really convincing performance. She doesn’t rush her lines as she does in some other TV shows and really conveys a range of emotions. It also helps that she is working with 3 great actors, Savalas, Christopher Walken just before winning his Oscar for The Deer Hunter, and Kevin Dobson keeping her on her A-game. Though the audience learns she is not an innocent, Carol’s touching performance and sweet chemistry with Dobson’s guilt-ridden Crocker have us hoping they can stay together even though the odds are slim. Too bad Carol never got to work with director Telly Savalas ever again.

As a side note, I remember the exactly the night this episode aired. My dad coached the softball team for his company, Helena Rubinstein Cosmetics. The league had their first captain’s meeting before the new season began. He took my brother and me along for company. I remember leaving there about 9:30ish and feeling very antsy as I knew Kojak was starting in a half hour. We got home a bit after 10pm. I raced into the house and turned the TV on only missing the first 10 minutes or so. Lordie I was such a freak! Still am! LOL

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