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AUCTION SPOTLIGHT: Annette's Handwritten Text for her "Tribute to Walt Disney"

The Annette Funicello Research Fund for Neurological Diseases observes the 116th anniversary of Walt Disney's birth (December 5) by offering a truly special and most appropriate item from Annette's personal career archive: Annette's own hand-written text for her "Tribute to Walt Disney".

While preparing to record her tribute to the man she so greatly respected as a mentor and father figure, Annette penned this "final" draft in blue ink...on two legal sized sheets of notebook paper before heading to Sunset Sound Studios in 1983. Annette would ultimately return to the recording studio on her birthday in 1984 to re-record a single line that was revised from this original draft, clarifying John Glenn as "our first orbiting astronaut".  Annette and husband Glen actively explored a number of distribution opportunities for the completed track until Annette's Multiple Sclerosis diagnosis in 1987, when the project was set aside.

Annette's heart-felt recording was finally released to the public by the Annette Funicello Research Fund for Neurological Diseases on December 7, 2013 with an official launch at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco, California.  Prior to this, Annette shared her tribute onstage at the official Disneyana Convention in 1993...held in the Grand Ballroom of the Disneyland Hotel...and the text itself was published within the forty page booklet that accompanied the two-CD box set "Annette - A Musical Reunion with America's Girl Next Door" under the title "Forever in My Heart". 

This one-of-a-kind treasure is currently available for purchase HERE with all proceeds benefiting the Annette Funicello Research Fund for Neurological Diseases.


Comments

  1. RitaJanuary 29, 2018 at 5:56 AM

    I remember when she wrote this and sent it to me to look at. I found the astronaut discrepancy (Alan Shepard was our first man in space) and suggested she change it to that name. Instead she opted to leave Glenn in and add "orbiting." Such a heartfelt tribute to the man who gave us Annette AND decades of quality entertainment!

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