Annette Funicello by Marc Shapiro

Author:Marc Shapiro
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: 60s, 50s, mickey mouse, beach party hollywood, frankie avalon, mouseketeers
Publisher: Riverdale Avenue Books

CHAPTER NINE

HIT THE BEACH

In Annette’s eyes, Jack Gilardi was smooth and charming; qualities that did not necessarily translate into romantic interest. But Frankie had assured her that he was very good at what he did, and one need only look at how far Frankie had come in his career to see that he was good at his job. It also did not hurt that, in meetings with Annette’s parents, he impressed Joseph and Virginia with his business acumen and, most importantly to them, his sincerity and belief in traditional values.

For Annette, Jack was part of a personal and emotional equation that had been with her all her life. He was not, at least that she could see, a wild swinger. He was conservative, a straight arrow and, perhaps most importantly, he was very much like her father.

And so, despite still being under contract to Disney and feeling an obligation to the man who had discovered her and given her a career, she signed on with Jack to secure her non-Disney-related work. How Disney felt about her doing this was never certain. If he was upset by Annette’s decision he did not show it. Public displays of anger, at least around Annette, had never been his style.

Jack took his newfound association with Annette seriously and was determined to expand her profile beyond the aura of Disney innocence. His instincts told him that there was a woman behind the carefully created Disney persona, and he was convinced that Annette should be playing more mature roles. Disney, per his contract agreement with Annette, continued to have script approval over all of her non-Disney projects but he was comfortable with Jack and saw the benefit of Annette stretching her wings.

Which was why he gave immediate approval for Annette’s guest-starring roles in the television series Wagon Train and Burke’s Law in which Annette proved she could indeed play believable and slightly more mature characters. But neither Annette nor Disney knew that fame of a different sort was just around the corner.

American International Pictures had emerged in the early ‘60s as the king of the low-budget exploitation film on the strength of such movies as The Creature from the Haunted Sea, Dragstrip Girl and Terror from the Year 5000. AIP made no bones about the level and quality of their movies. They were not making great art. The studio was making escapist entertainment that would feed primarily a young audience’s need to be entertained and not have to think too much about what they were watching.

The company’s bosses, Sam Arkoff and James Nicholson, were always casting about for a new hot topic to hang a film on and, in 1962, had stumbled upon the idea of sun, sand, surf and babes in bikinis that had resulted in a lighthearted script called Beach Party.

Beach Party was designed to be shot on a shoestring budget, and so actors with any big name recognition were out of the question. “We couldn’t afford any young stars because of our budget,”

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