Annette Funicello: Baby-boomer icon

NEW YORK

- She was the first crush for a generation of boys, the perfect playmate for a generation of girls.

Annette Funicello, who became a child star as a Mouseketeer on "The Mickey Mouse Club" in the 1950s, ruled among baby boomers, who tuned in every weekday afternoon to watch her on their black-and-white television sets.

Then they shed their mouse ears, as Annette did when she teamed up with Frankie Avalon during the '60s in a string of frothy, fun-in-the-sun movies with titles like "Beach Blanket Bingo."

Decades later, she endeared herself to baby boomers all over again after she announced in 1992 that she had multiple sclerosis and began grappling with the slow, degenerative effects with remarkably good cheer and faith.

Funicello died Monday at Mercy Southwest Hospital in Bakersfield, Calif., of complications from MS, the Walt Disney Co. said. She was 70 and had dropped from public view years ago.

"She really had a tough existence," Avalon said. "It's like losing a family member. I'm devastated but I'm not surprised."

The pretty, dark-haired Funicello was 13 when she gained fame on "The Mickey Mouse Club," a kids' variety show that consisted of stories, songs and dance routines. It ran on ABC from 1955 to 1959.

She became the most popular Mouseketeer, receiving 8,000 fan letters a month, 10 times more than any of the 23 other young performers.

Singer and composer Paul Anka, the onetime teen idol who briefly dated Funicello when they were on the concert circuit in the late 1950s, said that like seemingly every young American male of the time, he was in love with her.

Outgrowing the kid roles by the early '60s, Annette teamed with Avalon in a series of movies for American-International, the first film company to exploit the burgeoning teen market.

In the 1970s, she made commercials for Skippy peanut butter, appearing with her real-life children.

She and Avalon were reunited in the 1987 movie "Back to the Beach."

It was during the filming of "Back to the Beach" that Funicello noticed she had trouble walking - the first insidious sign of MS. She gradually lost control of her legs. Fearing people might think she was drunk, she went public with her condition in 1992.

After her film career ended, she devoted herself to her family.