Frankie Avalon: "Never Give Up. Never Say Never. It's Never Too Late"

By DENNIS ANDERSON
High Desert Medical Group

If a triple threat in baseball is someone who can run, hit and field, Frankie Avalon has always prided himself on being a triple threat entertainer who can sing, dance and act.

Song hits like “Cupid,” and “Venus,” leading to still-loved movies like “Beach Party” and “The Alamo,” with John Wayne, and even a tap-dancing trumpet solo for Jackie Gleason’s “The Honeymooners,” Avalon has pretty much done it all. And, he is still doing it.

“Concerts,” he said. “Concerts are the thing now.”

It was with relish and note of celebration that High Desert Medical Group announced Frankie Avalon as the honored guest for the HDMG Senior Expo for 2021. High Desert Medical Group, which prides itself on its Senior Wellness programs is always looking to salute our seniors, and looks for stars who set the pace to living well while aging well.

Avalon looks much younger than his 81 years, which he attributes to good nutrition, a fitness regime, and extensive knowledge of herbs.

“About 55 years ago, I got involved with herbs,” he said. He recalled that the herbologist he consulted observed that “all prescription drugs are made up of herbs.”

Beyond that, he just enjoys life, and work. He is rarely without the companionship of his Cavalier King Charles breed dog, Sonny Boy, who was seated in his lap during a recent interview. The science is showing that people who keep pets they love stay engaged with life longer, and may even live longer.

“He’s in my lap because he’s a lap dog,” Avalon said.

Turns out that Sonny Boy was one of Avalon’s family nicknames when he was growing up in Philadelphia, where he was born Francis Thomas Avallone on Sept. 18, 1940, to his mother from Sicily, and his father from Campania, Italy.

“Family is important,” he said.

It was kindness and the encouragement he got from his father as a boy that set him on the road to triple threat stardom. Avalon loved a Kirk Douglas movie, “Young Man With A Horn” about a musician using his trumpet to make it to the big time. His father, a butcher, encouraged his musical interest and brought home a trumpet from a pawn shop.

In South Philadelphia, everyone in the neighborhood knew everyone, so the word got around that a birthday party was happening in a nearby row house for a hometown boy made good, Al Martino, who just hit big with a No. 1 song on the Pop Charts.

“I stood at the door and asked if I could come in and play a song, on my trumpet,” Avalon recalled.

His birthday rendition of the song “Tenderly” propelled the pre-teen trumpet player to an audition with Jackie Gleason. The agency representing the entertainer known as “The Great One” sent the young musician to a Manhattan penthouse. He played his trumpet again, “Tenderly,” to what seemed like an empty room.

“I looked up, there was Jackie Gleason looking down at me from the second level of the penthouse,” Avalon recalled. Gleason, he said, told an assistant, “I want to write a show with him in it, and I want him on in two weeks.”

He played his trumpet for the Jackie Gleason show’s “Christmas Special,” and added tap dancing to his repertoire. After an interlude of wedding and birthday dates, a stint with the All City Philadelphia Orchestra, and gigs with a group called “Rocco and the Saints,” he was on his way to the West Coast, and a big singing hit called “Venus,” which still gets play today.

“I had a passion,” he said. Suddenly, “I was a ‘teen idol,’ fan mail, and people rushing up. I really didn’t know how to handle it. It was almost embarrassing.” He was getting 12,000 letters a week.

He had a long string of Gold Record million-seller hits that helped shape the Rock ‘n Roll era before the Beatles invasion.

Hollywood came calling. Pairing a popular young recording artist with an older leading man became a studio strategy, and an opportunity for Avalon in the late 1950s. A role with Alan Ladd in a Western called “Guns Of The Timberland” got him noticed by John Wayne, who cast him to play the young guy in “The Alamo.”

Wayne got to make his big movie, and said, “We’re not cutting out bit of any scene in which Frankie appears,” Wayne said. “I believe he is the finest young talent I’ve seen in a long time.”

It was not long after that epic movie that Avalon headed out to a set locale he would come to be known for, along with his co-star, Annette Funicello.

He had just been on one slice-of-pizza and a soft drink date with the former star of the Mickey Mouse Club. And Miss Funicello directed him to ask her mother if it was alright that they go out. And they lost touch.

Meanwhile, he married Kathryn “Kay” Diebel on Jan., 1963, a beauty pageant winner. His agent said the marriage could impair his teen idol image, but Avalon rejected the guidance. The magic must have been there because they have been married all this time, and have eight grown children, and 10 grandchildren.

When he and Annette Funicello were paired together for “Beach Party” in 1963, Avalon was delighted.

“We were friends, and I knew I would like working with her.”

The “Beach Party” films were what Avalon called “something with young people having fun. I can’t believe we made that movie in 15 days, with great production values, and it was terrific.”

The “Beach Party” movies proved so popular that when they updated the concept in 1987’s “Back To The Beach,” that was a hit, too. It was pretty classic "boy meets girl," boy messes up, and boy gets girl back, with some songs and parties on the beach making the stories easy date movies.

He maintains a concert schedule, and plans to stay at it because “It keeps you on your toes.”

When he’s not out entertaining, there is a big family dinner, doubtless with some of the recipes from “Frankie Avalon’s Italian Family Cookbook.”

“I cook my Sunday dinners,” he said. “I have my own food company with QVC. I feel like I have lived three, four, or five lives.

“The other day, I said to my son, Nick, ‘Never give up. Never say never. And it’s never too late.”