Annette Funicello Passes Away at 70


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Annette Funicello, the dark-haired darling of TV's ?The Mickey Mouse Club? in the 1950s who further cemented her status as a pop-culture icon in the '60s by teaming with Frankie Avalon in a popular series of ?beach? movies, died Monday. She was 70.

Funicello, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1987 and became a spokeswoman for treatment of the chronic, often-debilitating disease of the central nervous system, died at Mercy Southwest Hospital in Bakersfield, Walt Disney Co. spokesman Howard Green said.

Funicello and her husband, Glen Holt, had moved from the Los Angeles area after a 2011 fire gutted their home in Encino.

Funicello was a 12-year-old dance-school student when Walt Disney saw her performing the lead role in ?Swan Lake? at her dance-school's year-end recital at the Starlight Bowl in Burbank in the spring of 1955.

She joined a group of other talented young performers hired to become Mousketeers on ?The Mickey Mouse Club,? the children's variety show that debuted on ABC in October 1955 and quickly became a daily late-afternoon ritual for millions of young Americans.

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She was almost 2 years older than me but I had a crush on her when I was about 12 years old. RIP Annette. You were too beautiful for words.

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