When I was twelve, I watched the Mickey Mouse Club where Annette, also aged twelve, was the most "popular"of the Mouseketeers. I liked Annette, but I was really a Darlene fan. Annette reigned as queen of the little mouse-eared people, while Darlene was more of a Miss Congeniality type. Plus, Darlene had a wide mouth, but not as wide as Bobby's mouth. Anyway, I'm drawn to people with wide mouths like my own, and though I admired queens, (there's Amy of Little Women again), I preferred the tortured, humorous secondary characters.
I'm mixing metaphors.
I admired Jo March, who was not a Mouseketeer at all, nor was she secondary. Darlene, was not tortured. Disney did not do "tortured" in 1955.
Annette Funicello is dead at 70, and I'm more sad than I can believe. She was pretty and sweet at twelve. It's like saying good-bye to sixth grade all over again. Good-bye to being twelve, when I was my best self.
1955 was before Frankie Avalon and the beach movies and big hair. I did not follow Annette Funicello into those beach movies, but the year I was twelve, she was one of my best friends. She and Darlene and Bobby.
love this post.
ReplyDeletei'm sad too. babes in toyland was my first "favorite movie." i watched every.single.day from age 4-8.
ReplyDeletei still know all the words to the songs.
A lovely, melancholy post.
ReplyDeleteFrom everything I've read, Annette stayed sweet. I don't know why that matters to me, but it does. Did you know that she collected and designed her line of teddy bears? That seems fitting somehow.
I love it when you write like this. Lovely.
ReplyDelete