Annette Funicello

Her autobiography, published in 1995, is A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes: The Annette Funicello Story. Trivia: While Hamilton was a teacher back in Cleveland, one of her students was young Jim Backus. After keeping it a secret for years, Annette announced in 1992 that she had begun suffering from multiple sclerosis. She died in Salisbury, Connecticut from a heart attack. They re-united in 1987 for Back to the Beach, and toured the country as a singing act. Hamilton was married briefly in the 30s and had one son, whom she raised on her own. Funicello said in interviews that the reason she was never scantily clad in these films is because she made a promise to Walt Disney that she would never show her navel in a film. She continued acting regularly until her final role in 1979.

After maturing, she became a teen idol and went on to star in a series of "Beach Party" movies with Frankie Avalon including Beach Party, Muscle Beach Party, Bikini Beach and Beach Blanket Bingo. During the 1960s and 1970s she appeared in television, and had a substantial role in the made for television film The Night Strangler (1973). Annette had a number of pop record hits in the late 1950's and early 1960's, including: "Tall Paul" (dedicated to Paul Anka), "First Name Initial," "O Dio Mio," "Train of Love," and "Pineapple Princess.". For example, Hamilton starred in a now-forgotten noir flick of 1948 from one of the "poverty row" studios, entitled Bungalow 13, which co-starred Richard Cromwell. She was cast as one of the original "Mouseketeers", and went on to television roles in Zorro and Elfego Baca, and Disney-produced movies such as The Shaggy Dog, Babes in Toyland, The Misadventures of Merlin Jones, and The Monkey's Uncle. She appeared regularly in supporting roles in films until the early 1950s, and sporadically thereafter. Born in Utica, New York, she took dancing and music lessons as a child and was discovered by Disney while performing in Swan Lake. Hamilton had to recuperate in a hospital and at home for six weeks time after the accident before returning to the set to complete her work on the now-classic film.

Annette Funicello (born October 22, 1942) was one of Walt Disney's most popular Mouseketeers. During the shoot, Hamilton suffered severe burns when the trap-door elevator she was riding on the soundstage malfunctioned during her "fiery disappearance" from Munchkin Land. Hamilton's effective and frightening portrayal eventually secured her the role over the originally cast, but more glamourous, Gale Sondergaard. In 1939, she played in the role of the Wicked Witch opposite Judy Garland 's Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz and created not only her most famous role, but one of the screen's most memorable villains. She appeared in such films as These Three (1936), Saratoga and Nothing Sacred (both 1937) and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938).

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Hamilton was a school teacher who turned to acting, making her screen debut in 1933 in Zoo in Budapest. Margaret Hamilton (December 9, 1902 - May 16, 1985) was an American film actress.