ARTICLE ARCHIVE: "You're My Very Best Friend"

Screen TV & Record Stars - 2/60

“Shelley… I’ve got so much to tell you!”

It was Annette Funicello speaking on her own private phone in her big bedroom leading out to the swimming pool, talking to her best friend, Shelley Fabares.

Almost every day Annette phones Shelley, or Shelley phones Annette.  They exchange confidences, swap gossip, compare notes on boyfriends, agree on double dates, talk about their homework, wonder when they will be accepted as real grown-up’s and sigh about their frustrations in love.  They also discuss their frequent crushes.

When Annette had her exciting 16^th birthday party, she was so jittery wondering if everything would go off right, that Shelley had to come over and help calm her best friend down.

Annette became 17 last October 22^nd, and Shelley won’t reach 17 until January 19, 1961.  Annette is 15 months older than Shelley, but this gap is more than closed by their common interests: showbusiness, same friends, rock ‘n roll music, the same religion, and, of course, knowing the same boys.

The girls are sometimes taken for sisters, although they don’t really look that much alike.  Annette has black hair and brown eyes; Shelley has brown hair and brown eyes.  Shelley is five-feet-three and Annette is a bit shorter.  Shelley has less trouble keeping her trim figure than Annette, who gets panicky as soon as she goes two pounds over her normal weight.

Shelley is one of a small circle of girl friends that Annette has been close to the past couple of years.  The other girls include Sharon Baird, a former Mouseketeer who lives in Van Nuys, and with whom Annette trades weekends ; Roberta Shore, 15, another former Disney starlet who portrayed the foreign girl in Shaggy Dog; Noreen Corcoran, 15, who’s in the Bachelor Father series; Noreen’s sister Donna, 18, who’s studying at Providence High School in Burbank; Cheryl Holdridge, 15, another former Mouseketeer now doing TV; Debbie Blum, 17, a singer and dancer now a student at North Hollywood High School; Ronie Glassman, 16, a Dorsey High student, not in showbusiness; and Mary Sartori, 16, also a former Mouseketeer for Disney.

PAJAMA GAME

These are the girls, for instance, who attended Annette’s slumber party recently.  They met in Annette’s house in Studio City, some of them bringing along their own sleeping bags and an overnight valise containing nightgowns, night robes, slippers and toothbrushes.

The girls played string games, listened to records (mostly Elvis, Ricky, Dion and the Belmonts, Fabion, Bobby Darin and Frankie Avalon), chewed bubble gum, tried on funny hats and made faces at each other, blew rubber balloons, drank plenty of soda pop, nibbled on pizza pies, engaged in a lively pillow fight and gossiped and giggled.

In fact, says Annette, the big thing at most of the girl parties is giggling.  The girls giggle up a storm.  They giggle when they just look at each other; they giggle when they remember something funny; they giggle when they say something; they giggle at anything and everything.

Annette has been dating since she was 14, under the strict supervision of her Mom and Dad (Joe and Virginia Funicello), who always insisted that any boy dating her must call for her at the Funicello home and must bring her back in person.

Nowadays, she usually double dates with Shelley on Saturday nights.  When the weather’s okay, they like to go to the beach – Santa Monica, usually – but they often go to football games and wind up later at one of Bob’s Big Boy drive-in’s, which are favorite teenage hangouts.

Sometimes they go to the fun zone at Ocean Pier, enjoying all the rides, and then spending the evening roasting marshmallows around the bonfire on the beach.

When Annette and Shelley are with an all-girl bunch, they often finish the day by having a pajama party at one of the girl’s house.  Of course, they always tell their parents in advance of their plans, or phone their mothers to make sure it’s okay to stay out late or sleep over.

Many of Annette’s friends are girls she met at Disney when doing the Mouseketeers series and when all of them were in the same class at the studio school.

Most of the Annette-Shelley group are high school students.  Annette will be graduating in June from University High School.  Shelley goes to Immaculate Heart High School, and when she graduates she plans to go to UCLA or the University of Utah at Salt Lake City and study Theater Arts.  Annette hasn’t made up her mind yet whether to go to college.

Perhaps one of the great bonds between Annette and Shelley (who happens to be Nanette Fabray’s niece) is their love of family life.  Annette is very close to her mom and dad, and her kid brothers Mike and Joey.  Shelley lives with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. James Fabares, and her older sister “Smokey,” 18, and her kid brother Jeff, 12, both of whom do a good deal of acting on TV and in movies.

Of course, many teenagers live at home with parents and brothers and sisters – and yet are not really part of home life.  But in the case of Annette and Shelley, both girls are really part of their home life.  They participate in household chores, they play with their brothers and sisters, they go to church with the family, they pitch in on family problems.

SCHOOL DAYS

The girls don’t slough off their homework – at least no more than other normal teenagers.  Shelley excels in English and history.  Annette is tops in English.  After that, she’s best at history, social studies, physiology and Spanish.  In fact, she got such good marks that her parents surprised her with a good-grade gift: Her very own telephone. 

Annette’s most exciting family gift for being a good girl was a white Thunderbird for Christmas of 1958, two months after her 16^th birthday.  Shelley, of course, can hardly wait for her 16^th birthday so she can take her drivers’ test.  And she hopes her parents will permit her to buy a car when she’s 18.

Another bond between Annette and Shelley is their showbusiness backgrounds.  Annette started playing drums when she was a mere six, in her home town of Utica, New York.  When the family moved to Hollywood that year, Annette went to dancing school, and when she was nine, she entered her first beauty contest and became Miss Willow Lake and also Queen of the Valley.  One of the prizes was a free modeling course, and she began to model clothes.  When she was 12, she auditioned for Walt Disney and he later told her. “You’re a very pretty girl and a good dancer, too!”

She was subsequently signed by Disney, and spent three years with the Mouseketeer show.  Now she’s freelancing in TV and films, and cut’s discs for Disneyland Records.

 

In Shelley’s case, it was her mother who suggested Shelley study acting as a way to develop poise.  So, at four, Shelley (her real name is Michelle) took dancing lessons, and later became a model for children’s wear.  At nine, she acted on a Frank Sinatra TV spectacular and from then on moved to other big roles on such series as The Loretta Young Show, Annie Oakley, Playhouse 90 and Matinee Theater.

SOMETHING TO YAK ABOUT

At 11, she appeared in her first big movie role, in Never Say Goodbye.  Since then, she has appeared in Rock Pretty Baby and Summer Love, and is now a steady on The Donna Reed Show on ABC-TV.

So Annette and Shelley have plenty to talk about.  They yak about casting, the new girls they see at the studio and the new boys at the studio and in the neighborhood.

They are beginning to become interested in cooking.  Shelley bakes a mean chocolate cake.  Annette admits she hates cooking but will have to learn anyway.  At this stage in her life, Annette likes eating better than cooking.  Her favorite meal is T-bone steak and baked potato with garlic butter.  On Fridays, when she doesn’t eat meat, she prefers lobster with melted butter.

Both girls have crushes and candidly admit it.  Annette was madly in love with Guy Williams, star of the Zorro show.  But, it’s all right; he knows it and Mrs. Williams knows it, and they kid her about it.  She thinks Danny Thomas is wonderful.  She would love to meet Rock Hudson and John Saxon (sigh,sigh!) and she thinks Dick Clark is divine.

 

But, coming down to earth, she and Shelley set their sights on fellows under 20, like Tim Considine, Kevin Corcoran, Paul Anka, Fabian, Frankie Avalon and boys not in showbusiness like Jack Wrather III, son of the TV Tycoon: Mike Rosen, Larry Larsen, Rudy Lee, Jimmy Gardner, and Val Herring, among others.

Annette admits her heart thumps when she thinks of Fabian.  “ I saw him for the first time on Dick Clark’s Show, and I flipped.  I went wild.  I’m a real fan of his.” They met briefly in Chicago, and then again in Hollywood.  Of course, Annette is almost four months older than Fabian, but Fabian says “I like older girls.”  So, who knows…..?

 

Both Annette and Shelley love boys who dance well, but they are also smart enough to bone up on a subject all boys like to talk about – sports.  “We’ve got to speak their language.” smiles Annette.  “They want to talk about sports, so we’ve got to know about sports, too.”

SEA, SURF AND FABIAN

But, getting back to Fabian, he and Annette did get together for a magazine “date layout.”  The photographer suggested they go to Santa Monica Beach and go surfboard riding.  Neither had tried surfboards before, but they were brave.  Well, the waves were high and wild, and Fabian got banged against the rocks a few times……and came out gasping, “This is really roughing it!”

Annette, supposedly the weaker of the two, managed to escape without a single bruise from the rocks.

Before Fabian had to leave to return East, he phoned Annette and asked if he could take her to a movie.  This was a real date with no publicity gimmick and no entourage.  Just Fabian and Annette.

Annette didn’t even ask Shelley to come along and make it a double date.  After all, there are times when a girl doesn’t want even her best friend along.  You know how it is.  And Shelley understood.