Showing posts with label Annette Funicell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Annette Funicell. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

(248) FRANKIE AVALON GEARS UP FOR THE BEACH MOVIES!

My Friend from New York, Frankie Avalon, was also headed for a movie career. (He would eventually make eight beach movies in about three years for Warner Brothers.) Frankie, from Philadelphia, and an Italian family, was teamed up with Annette Funicello, who became the Italian-American princess of films. He would make "Back to the Beach," "Beach Blanket Bingo," "Beach Party," "Muscle Beach Party,"...



Surf music was the craze and taking the teen idol romance movie to the beach made a lot of sense. I knew Frankie Avalon in New York and at one point while with United Artists I'd been considered to star in beach movies myself. But the farm country aspect of me, that aspect that I had in common with James Dean, was too strong.