My first Infatuation - Annette Funicello
Annette Funicello, Mouseketeer and Beach Movie Actress, Dies at 70
Excerpt:
Annette Funicello, who won America’s heart as a 12-year-old in Mickey Mouse ears, captivated adolescent baby boomers in slightly spicy beach movies and later championed people with multiple sclerosis, a disease from which she suffered, died on Monday in Bakersfield, Calif. She was 70.Comment: I was 6 or 7 and she was 12 or 13. And I knew for the first time that I liked girls. A statement about my sexuality is here.
WSJ: The First Mouseketeer to Strike It Big
ReplyDeleteThe beach party movies in which she starred with Frankie Avalon—"Beach Blanket Bingo" and "How to Stuff a Wild Bikini" among them—showed plenty of skin, but were chaste.
"My big line was always, 'Not without a ring you don't,' " Ms. Funicello told the Los Angeles Times in 1987.
Not the only one who had a crush on her: Annette Funicello was my dream crush:
ReplyDeleteOf course, there were other attractive ladies on the airwaves. There was Mary Tyler Moore flitting about in Capri pants throughout various episodes of "The Dick Van Dyke Show." And while some of us couldn't understand quite why Gomez (John Astin) was so attentive to Morticia (Carolyn Jones) on "The Addams Family" -- we couldn't help paying attention to her, too.
But those and other prime-time persons of interest were women. (Like -- yikes! -- our moms.) Annette Funicello was different. She was our age, or close enough. And we couldn't get enough of her.