RIP Annette Funicello

There's a reason she didn't show skin:
Walt Disney told her that she was positive role model to her fans and asked her to wear a one piece. She agreed.

Just think - in those days teen role models cared about the message they were sending out to their fans and that message wasn't "party party party".

Goodgulf

Perhaps my memory is faulty as it's been a long, long time since I've seen one of her movies, but, among the many stills shown online in various places announcing her passing, is one of her with Frankie Avalon and she's wearing a bikini. Granted, it's nowhere nearly as revealing as later "models" but it IS a bikini. It didn't specify what movie it was from, but it appeared to be one of her later movies as she and Frankie are looking well past the teenage years they usually portrayed.

Bogiephil1, I think those stills would have been from" Back to the Beach, which was released in 1987. In this movie, she and Frankie play the parents of beach partying teenagers. It's a tribute to their beach party movies from the '60s. I think I'm right on this, but it's been over 20 years since I've seen this movie, so my memory could be faulty. BTW, it was while making this movie that Annette "came out" about having MS. As a result of this disease, she had trouble maintaining her balance while walking, and a rumor started that she was an alcoholic.

I am of the age group that remembers the Mickey Mouse Club.
Its correct that Walt did not want Annette wearing a bikini- I think she is in a one piece in all the beach movies.Recently got a bunch of them from Netflix. Great nostalgia- and while we think they are tame and "wholesome"as someone put it now, at the time they were considered quite naughty and risque. All these teens runnning around in swimsuits and little adult presence.

This afternoon, a local television station showed several episodes of Make Room For Daddy. (AKA The Danny Thomas show.) These all featured Annette, who was a member of the cast for one season, or had a recurring role, depending on which source you consult. Anyway, she played a teenager who was staying with Danny Thomas and his family for a year as an exchange student from Italy. In the first episode, she had a rough time adjusting to her new environment, and appeared unhappy no matter what her host family did to try to make her fit in. After she fled from a party in her honor in tears, Danny had had enough. He followed her to her room, where he told her that her behavior is unacceptable, and threatened to turn her over his knee for a good spanking. It turned out that what she was missing was being yelled at. Now that she has been yelled at by Danny, just like he yells at his own kids, she feels like she is part of the family. I'm not sure if it would have been politically correct for him to spank a 16 year old girl even in 1959. (We won't even mention how politically incorrect that would be for television today.) There were grown women spanked on television in those days, and children often got spanked, although these would sometimes take place off screen. But a 16 year old was in between being a child and a woman, so I'm not sure if that would have been acceptable. Still, we can dream. What if Danny Thomas had actually spanked Annette? Then she told him that was what she needed to feel like part of the family.