Friends visit Annette Funicello at home 1998

Annette Funicello captured America's heart as one of the original Mouseketeers now she's showing us just how much heart she has as she wages the Battle of her life Annette's closest friends reveal the latest on her courageous struggle in this Entertainment Tonight cover story she is at 55 as beautiful as ever her eyes still filled with the laughter of youth it's when looking into those eyes that one sees the essence of Annette Funicello and so doing it somehow becomes easy to forget that she is a woman who has been ravaged by the effects of MS she's just an amazing person she has great spirit and great heart and loves life she can no longer walk and her ability to speak has become very labored but even as Annette faces the greatest challenge of her life she is surrounded with love by family and girlhood friends like Shelley Fabares an original Mouseketeer Sharon Baird she may not be able to walk but her spirit still dances and when she gets tired her voice may disappear for a little bit but her heart still sings from her days as a 12 year old on the Mickey Mouse Club through her years as a teen idol on the beach with Frankie Avalon Annette seemed to be the embodiment of all that was good diagnosed with MS in 1987 she soon became a spokeswoman for the National MS Society and just two years ago took part in a TV movie based on her life if you try to keep a smile on your face it makes it easy and through it all say her friends she has kept a smile as the young girl who grew up to be an icon for a generation of baby boomers finds herself today and perhaps her most important role yet and that has always been America's Sweetheart and I think they made a very good choice after all of these years and having been showered with all of this love for so many years she still genuinely is sort of astonished not sort of she is astonished that people care about her and will take the time to do that so I know for sure that she would like to take this moment in time to to say to everybody thank you very much they can't know how much that means to her she truly is such a beautiful person Annette told People magazine she believes everything happens for a reason so she thinks her mission in life now is to help raise funds for multiple sclerosis research if you'd like to send a message of hope to Annette you can do it simply by visiting ET online will forward your email to her

Channel: Annette Funicello TV

Views: 111,940

Rating: 4.9117646 out of 5

Keywords: Annette Funicello (TV Actor), Shelley Fabares (TV Actor), Entertainment Tonight (Award-Winning Work), Mary Hart (TV Personality), yt:stretch=4:3

Id: td6T4R0Fzmg

Length: 2min 48sec (168 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 23 2014