PRIME talks with Frankie Avalon

By Debbie Gardner PRIME Editor "It's been a career that's lasted almost 50 years now," said the man who started out in showbiz playing the trumpet, but found his claim to fame first as a 1950s teen idol and 60s beach movie leading man, and later as an actor and enduring concert performer. At 9:30 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 19, the Sorrento Cheese bandshell at the 95th annual Fishermen's Feast in Boston's North End will bring back those sounds of the 1950s and 60s as the famous Frankie Avalon takes the stage. PRIME talks with Frankie In a telephone interview from his Los Angeles offices, Avalon spoke with PRIME about his upcoming appearance in Boston, his friend Annette Funicello, and creating a career on his own terms as he approaches 66. "I've [performed in] Boston all through my career, from Mechanics Hall to the theatres," said Avalon, though he did add that this will be his first appearance at the Fishermen's Feast. For the Feast, Avalon said he's prepared a repertoire of songs that he knows will get the audience moving. "I'll do a retrospective of all those songs from the 1950s and 60s and get some audience participation,' Avalon said. "People will leave not only with full stomachs, but with with good feelings and good memories.' Among those songs the audience can expect from Avalon is his 1959 hit, Venus. "That's the most requested, especially from Boomers," he said. Avalon, who has been helping Sorrento Cheese keep Italian Festivals such as North Boston's Fisherman's Feast alive across the country for the past few years, said he became involved with the company because of the way they give back to the community. "They're trying to keep the Italian- American culture alive ... it's a festival and that's what Italian people are all about. They love to have a good time, good food, good wine, good friendships," said this Philadelphia-born Italian-American, who proudly told me his last name is actually "Avalon." "I think that's a wonderful image to convey to the public ... not the negative of your name ending in "I" or "O." Doing it his way Avalon's career seems to just keep going, long after the teen idols with whom he shared the spotlight have become a page in pop culture history. "And it does [keep going] because they keep asking, thank God," Avalon told PRIME. "And I still enjoy what I'm doing." There was a period of time, though, when Avalon said his career reached the point when he was feeling burned out. "Now I enjoy doing what I want when I want to do it," he said. For Sorrento, he does "four or five" festivals a year, and that doesn't include other appearances. "[My] longevity ... it's a wonderful combination of luck, tenacity, talent and timing," Avalon said. On Annette "It's been nothing but downhill all the way," Avalon said of his beach movie co-star, Annette Funicello's diagnosis with multiple sclerosis eighteen years ago. "She's such a fighter ... it's such a devastating disease," he said. When he's asked about Annette, as PRIME asked him, Avalon said he responds "just say a lot of prayers for her." And he said he was glad that he and Funicello had the opportunity to make one last beach picture, Back to the Beach, back in 1987, just before her MS diagnosis. "that's such a cute picture,"Avalon told PRIME. "And I'm so happy that the Good Lord gave us the opportunity to do that last one. It was the summation of what Frankie and Annette were about."