http://www.fanpix.net/picture-gallery/a ... 172238.htm

60's teen queen Annette Funicello passed away today. That's bad news for guys like me who grew up in that era.

Annette Funicello, Mouseketeer and film star, dies

NEW YORK (AP) - The Walt Disney Co. says Annette Funicello, who went from Mouseketeer to beach party movie icon, has died at age 70.

Funicello stunned fans and friends in 1992 with the announcement she was suffering from multiple sclerosis. Yet she was cheerful and upbeat, grappling with the disease with exceptional courage and grace. The pretty, dark-haired Funicello was just 13 when she gained fame on Walt Disney's television "Mickey Mouse Club," an amalgam of stories, songs and dance routines that ran from 1955 to 1959.

Cast after Disney saw her at a dance recital, she soon began receiving 8,000 fan letters a month, 10 times more than any of the 23 other young performers.

MIC....See you real soon....KEY..Why? Because we like you.....MOUSE....

RIP Annette.

No self-respecting, red-blooded, macho, American high school male with either a hall locker or a sports locker would be without pin-up pics of Annette Funicello (the good girl we'd take home to introduce to our parents); Anne-Margaret Olsson (the slightly older redheaded professional dancer/actress that made us day-dream in class); and Bridget Bardot, the French blond-bombshell who'd always show us a little skin in her movies. Those were the days; or so we thought!.

Annette is the first one to leave us and the only one who was never, ever caught up in any sort of Hollywood, Paris or Cannes sex scandal. Ya gotta respect the way she chose to lead her life! There's something to be said for the way those Roman Catholic Nuns put the fear of the Lord in parochial school students back in the day.