Annette Funicello: Five facts about the Disney icon

Beloved Disney icon, singer, and actress Annette Funicello passed away this week at the age of 70, following a long battle with multiple sclerosis. One of Disney’s original Mouseketeers and star of the long running Beach Party movie series, Funicello was the model of the all-American girl next door in the late 1950s and early '60s.

Here are five facts you may not have known about the late Mouseketeer.

The inspiration for classic love songs
Very few people can claim they were the inspiration for not one but two classic love ballads, but that was one of Funicello’s many claims to fame. While working with the former Mouseketeer on her fledgling singing career in the late 1950s, Canadian crooner Paul Anka developed a huge crush on Funicello. Unfortunately for the then-teenage Anka, an overprotective Walt Disney kept the teens at arm's length from one another, prompting the young singer to write “Puppy Love” about their relationship. “As Paul wrote in his hit song about us, just because we were 17 didn’t mean that, for us, our love wasn’t real,” Funicello later said. Anka also wrote “Put Your Head On My Shoulder” when his relationship with Funicello became more serious.

Trailblazing Mouseketeer
Funicello was the first real breakout star of Walt Disney’s original Mickey Mouse Club, a song and dance troupe/talent incubator that performed on a daily variety show throughout the 1950s, appeared in numerous movie serials, and toured around the world. Funicello’s success and the continued popularity of the Mickey Mouse Club paved the way for a late '80s/early '90s TV revival featuring future stars like Ryan Gosling, Keri Russell, Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, and Christina Aguilera as a new generation of Mouseketeers.

Annette by any other name...
Back in the 1950s, many Hollywood performers of European descent opted to use stage names in place of their birth names. Before “The Mickey Mouse Club” began airing Funicello, an Italian-American born in Utica, New York, was initially self-conscious about her last name, suggesting to Disney that she should change her name to something more “American” sounding. Walt Disney argued that her unique last name was actually an asset and convinced Funicello to keep it. Ironically, later in her career, the actress would become synonymous with the mere mention of her first name, often being billed in trailers as simply “Annette.”

A star for a more innocent time
After being cast in her first beach movie, the 1963 film “Beach Party,” Walt Disney – who was still closely involved in managing the young actress’s career at the time – requested that Funicello not wear a bikini (scandalous!) in the movie. In the interest of maintaining her wholesome image, Funicello agreed and appeared in the film wearing a one-piece swimsuit instead. Funicello would, however, appear in a bikini in subsequent movies like “Bikini Beach Party.” Go figure!

Spokesperson for a serious illness
Later in life Funicello became a high profile spokesperson for awareness of multiple sclerosis, a disease which she was diagnosed with in the 1980s and that was, at the time, not well understood by the general public. Though she would eventually succumb to the disease, her charity, The Annette Funicello Fund for Neurological Disorders, would raise millions of dollars for MS research and treatment over the years. A worthwhile legacy that made her more than just an American screen sweetheart.

Funicello’s career will serve as a constant reminder of a more innocent and wholesome time in Hollywood, when movies about “going steady” and “puppy love” still had a place in mainstream entertainment for kids and teens.