To many of you the name Annette Funicello has no meaning. In fact if you are in your teens, twenties, thirties, or even forties you probably never saw any of the movies or television shows that she appeared in. To be fair they were not the stuff that makes it into the American Academy of Motion Pictures top ten or even one hundred lists. I’m sure if you frequent the “oldies but forgettable” stores you can find copies of her work, but they are unlikely to show up on the big or small screen any time soon. OK perhaps they might show up on the “Disney” Channel since the majority of her television appearances were for Disney.
This is a blog about writing and I’m not going to review the body of her work here or elsewhere [Hint the Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tales-by-Tomaszewski/515599331814742 is where you could check to see if I’m fooling.] What I’m going to do is look at what she represented in the 1950s and sixties. To males in the USA who are now in their seventies, sixties and some in their fifties she was the idea girl. She was beautiful, vivacious, and openly friendly in a totally non-threatening way. She portrayed an attainable girl/woman, who didn’t seem to have a mean bone in her lovely body.
Where most movie stars of the age were so beautiful that the stalwart male stars of the day would fight and kill to possess them, Annette could be had only if she chose to give herself to you. OH as I remember she made a series of movies in the 1960s that revolved around the beach culture where she was pursued by a bunch of ner -do-wells that at one point kidnapped her. She was of course saved by the hero, probably an actor named Frankie Avalon, and she of course fell into his arms in a near swoon. [Side Note: Do women “swoon” any more. I don’t think they do. Even if they do faint it wouldn’t be into the arms of a man.]
But back to the character that Annette represented. She was the girl that thousands, make that millions of young men and boys wanted to love. Note the use of the word “love.” I can’t recall a single movie that she was in where she gave more than a kiss or brief hug to her male co-star. The word “sex” was never to be found in any of the reviews of her performances.
Why, you’re asking, is he going on about this female movie person who never even had a good sex scene? Because, he answered, Annette Funicello was quite literally the darling of her age. She received thousands of fan letters each day [Side Note: The words “fan letters” refer to a form of communication where pieces of paper had messages written upon them and then were delivered by the U.S. Postal Service.] In an age when it took minutes to create a message and required the use of a stamp to get the message delivered, thousands of people every week took that time and spent that money to tell Annette that they liked her.
Could an actress in today’s world ever achieve such popularity without at least one nude scene? Think carefully and try to recall a young woman who could be referred to as a film or TV star who has remained untouched by the need to show the world her unclothed body. [Side note: I really do like to look at women with little to no clothing on, but I’m trying to make a point here.] Alright you can stop trying to think of someone. She achieved all of that fame without revealing more than a shapely form covered in a modest bathing suit. Yes there were bikini suits back then but she didn’t wear them. Modest, loving, desirable she was all of that without ever once doing anything that couldn’t be done in the living room of you parent’s home, with your parents in the room. Alright the whole surfing thing wouldn’t have worked out but with that exception.
It was a different world and she was a different type of actress.
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