<P> Annette Joanne Funicello was born in Utica, New York, to Italian Americans Virginia Jeanne (née Albano; 1921--2007) and Joseph Edward Funicello (1916--2009). Her family moved to Southern California when she was four years old . </P> <P> Annette took dancing and music lessons as a child to overcome shyness . In 1955, the 12 - year - old was discovered by Walt Disney when she performed as the Swan Queen in Swan Lake at a dance recital at the Starlight Bowl in Burbank, California . Disney cast her as one of the original Mouseketeers . She was the last to be selected, and one of the few cast - members to be personally selected by Walt Disney himself . She proved to be very popular and by the end of the first season of The Mickey Mouse Club, she was receiving 6,000 letters a month, according to her Disney Legends biography . </P> <P> In addition to appearing in many Mouseketeer sketches and dance routines, Funicello starred in several serials on The Mickey Mouse Club . These included Adventure in Dairyland, Walt Disney Presents: Annette (which co-starred Richard Deacon), and the second and third Spin and Marty serials--The Further Adventures of Spin and Marty and The New Adventures of Spin and Marty . In a hayride scene in the Annette serial, she performed the song that launched her singing career . The studio received so much mail about "How Will I Know My Love" (lyrics by Tom Adair, music by Frances Jeffords and William Walsh), that Walt Disney issued it as a single, and gave Funicello (somewhat unwillingly) a recording contract . </P> <P> A proposed live - action feature Rainbow Road to Oz was to have starred some of the Mouseketeers, including Darlene Gillespie as Dorothy and Funicello as Ozma . Preview segments from the film aired on September 11, 1957, on Disneyland's fourth anniversary show . By then, MGM's The Wizard of Oz had already been shown on CBS Television for the first time . Theories on why the film was abandoned include Disney's failure to develop a satisfactory script, and the popularity of the MGM film on television . Disney ultimately replaced this film project with a new adaptation of Babes in Toyland (1961), which starred Funicello as "Mary Contrary". </P>

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