'That 70's Show' Star's Suspicious Death Under Investigation
Lindsay Lohan's Rehab Diary to Become Public?
Life may not have been exactly one giant session of beach blanket bingo for Frankie Avalon, but you’d never know it from talking to him.
The 72-year-old crooner on the other end of the line in California sounds just as bright and breezy as he did when he was wooing Annette Funicello in Beach Party, which debuted 50 years ago last month.
He’ll be in Toronto on Aug. 29 to entertain the crowds at The Ex in the CNE Bandshell and his fans will be pleased to know that they shouldn’t expect any surprises.
“I do what I’ve been doing for a lot of years, because that’s what the audience likes to hear,” declares Avalon, “so why should I change it?”
The guy born Francis Thomas Avallone on Sept. 14, 1940, grew up in Philadelphia, which also gave the world Eddie Fisher, Al Martino and Fabian Forte during the same period, making it a particularly fertile ground for romantic male singers.
“The world has changed a lot since those days,” admits Avalon. “You listen to the news for just 30 seconds and you get depressed. Everybody wants to get back to the simplicity of the past, back to those nice wonderful times.”
But isn’t that just a myth people construct for themselves? Was it really all that sweet back then?
“Yes it was,” insists Avalon. “Like any older guy, I sit around and reminisce now and then. I think about growing up back in Philly. It was about friendship with the guys and having a distant crush on some gal. And when you finally got the nerve to take her out on a date, you went to her parents’ house with a shine on your shoes, took her to the movies and got her home nice and early.
“It’s not like that anymore. Everybody wants instant gratification for everything. It’s all got to be like fast food. You want a hamburger now, you get it now. Hey, even when McDonald’s started out, it took them a couple of minutes to make your burger and get it to you. Now, it’s all wham, bam. That’s tough enough on a burger. It’s impossible with a relationship.”
But Avalon has bucked the odds. He married Kay Diebel 50 years ago in January and they’re still together, eight kids and ten grandchildren later.
“What’s my secret? Patience. You just gotta have patience. Everything in a relationship isn’t always 100 per cent all of the time. Sometimes it dips down to 50 per cent, to 40 per cent, maybe even lower. But you handle it. You stay with it. You make it work.”
Avalon has heeded his own words when it came to his career as well. His heyday as a recording artist only lasted four years, from 1958-1962, but during that time he had 31 singles make it to the Billboard charts.
When his songs started slipping, he went into the movies, spinning out 20 films from 1961-1965. After that, he laid low for a while and then popped back as a nostalgia giant, largely thanks to his appearance in the 1978 film version of Grease as Teen Angel.
“I actually hate the word nostalgia,” he says. “It sounds like a perfume your grandma would use. I like the new word ‘retro.’ It sounds like you’re zapping back to the past, not lingering there wondering what to do with your life.”
Ask anybody to pick one Frankie Avalon song and they’d probably mention “Venus,” which spent 5 weeks at the top of the charts in 1959.
Avalon remains proud of the song and he uses his still-true tenor to illustrate all the counter melodies and intricate riffs woven into a heart-on-the-sleeve ballad about a guy praying to the goddess of love to send him the girl of his dreams.
Avalon got his start as a trumpet playing prodigy on TV at the age of 11, but Bob Marucci, head of Chancellor Records, discovered Avalon’s singing voice and thought that would be the kid’s key to stardom.
A couple of songs in 1958 almost made it, like “Gingerbread,” with its classic 1950’s visualization of a perfect girl: “You’re full of sugar, you’re full of spice/You’re kinda naughty, but you’re naughty and nice.”
But “Venus” was the one that took Avalon to the top of the charts and gave him the celebrity he still basks in today.
And if fame consists, as they say, of “the man and the moment,” it’s not surprising that Avalon has almost total recall for the moment that set him up for the rest of his life.
“I still remember it so vividly. I’ll never forget it. The minute I heard the song, I fell in love with it and we decided to go to New York right away to record it. I sat in the back seat of the car with Bob (Marucci, his producer), rehearsing the arrangement he had done on the guitar.
“We walked into Bell Sound in New York. We had a 7 p.m. recording date. It was all one track then, the band was there with you and they played and you sang and that was it, buddy. No mixing and fixing like today.”
Avalon chuckles to himself as he recalls the next thing he did.
“Back then, they pressed the acetate recording right away. I waited for it to be done until 4:00 AM. I took it back to Philly with me like it was gold. I had a little victrola and I played it over and over again. I just knew it was going to be a smash.”
And it was, making Avalon more than just another kid from Philadelphia with a pretty voice.
The other facet of Avalon’s career he remembers fondly, if more sadly these days, is his on-screen partnership with former Mouseketeer, Annette Funicello. She died in April after a long struggle with multiple sclerosis.
They appeared in a half dozen films between 1963 and 1965, almost all of which had the words “Beach” or “Party” in the titles, so they became known as “The Beach Party Movies.”
(For the record, they were: Beach Party, Muscle Beach Party, Bikini Beach, Pajama Party, Beach Blanket Bingo and How To Stuff A Wild Bikini.)
“Isn’t it crazy how everybody remembers those movies?” laughs Avalon. “We shot all of them in about 15 days and we were just having a good time. “We’d be laughing so much that our director, Bill Asher, would have to say things like ‘OK, kids, quit fooling around so we can shoot the comedy scenes.’ ”
But when asked about his co-star, Avalon’s laughter stops.
“She was a great gal. So loved. And she never understood why. I’d keep coming off the road from my concert tours and say ‘Everyone loves you and asks for you, Annette,’ and she couldn’t understand why. She never liked the limelight.
“I think about her all the time and I’ve come to accept that her death was inevitable. She just kept getting worse and worse until. . . ” He can’t finish the sentence.
“I would pray for her every single day, every single night. I’d say ‘God, do what you have to do.’
“And He finally did.”
“The biggest party was off the screen, not on it. We all just had such fun working together.”
“I was a kid from Philly who grew up going to see John Wayne in the movies and then one day, bam, I’m acting with him and being directed by him.”
“When I got to act opposite Ray Milland, that’s when my family thought I had really arrived.”
“Sure, I was making fun of my old image in that movie, but why not? You’ve got to laugh at yourself.”
“It was great to get back together with Annette for one more movie. She was such a great person.”
0 comments:
Post a Comment