cover image A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes: My Story

A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes: My Story

Annette Funicello. Disney Editions, $22.95 (256pp) ISBN 978-0-7868-6020-3

The autobiography of America's favorite Mouseketeer holds few surprises but is a charming read. Funicello describes herself as an atypical celebrity: shy, unassuming and more interested in marrying and raising a family than in mixing with the Hollywood ``glitterati.'' She was discovered by Walt Disney at a dance recital and was catapulted to fame as the most popular Mouseketeer on Disney's The Mickey Mouse Club . When the TV show was canceled in 1959, she embarked on a career in music and film, producing such hit singles as ``Tall Paul,'' starring in a slew of '60s movies like Beach Blanket Bingo and becoming an icon of wholesome young womanhood. The book, written with freelancer Romanowski, is sprinkled with affectionate tributes to such friends and colleagues as Frankie Avalon, Paul Anka, Fabian Forte and Walt Disney himself. Unabashedly adhering to the ``traditional family values'' that governed American culture in the '50s, Funicello asserts she had no qualms about giving up fame and fortune to marry and become a mom. But in 1987 she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and the latter part of the book is a moving account of her attempt to come to terms with the debilitating disease. Photos not seen by PW . Doubleday Book Club selection. (May)