August 12, 2025 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Frankie Avalon became a household name before he turned twenty. With hits like “Venus” and “Why,” he dominated the Billboard charts during the golden age of American pop. But while many teen idols faded, Avalon evolved. He starred alongside Annette Funicello in a string of beach party films that captured the imagination of a generation. Decades later, he returned to the spotlight in Grease, performing “Beauty School Dropout” as Teen Angel—a moment that introduced him to millions of new fans. In this episode, Frankie Avalon reflects on his music career and how he’s continued performing from the 1950s through today.
Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
And to search for the Our American Stories podcast, go
to the iHeartRadio app, to Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
get your podcasts. Not many teen idols are able to
(00:30):
carve a successful career for themselves as they mature, but
Frankie Avalon is one of those exceptions. Avalon had thirty
one charting US Billboard singles from nineteen fifty eight to
late nineteen sixty two, including number one hits Venus and
Why in nineteen fifty nine. Avalon is also well known
(00:51):
for his role in the nineteen seventies musical film Grease
as teen Angel, in which he sings Beauty School chop
out to French without any further ado. Here's Frankie Avalon
with his story.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
As a young man, young boy really growing up in
South Philadelphia. I really started into this business of show business,
unaware of trying to be in show business. But I
became a part of show business at the age of
probably I don't know, think about eight or nine. Because
in the neighborhod where I lived, it was a great
neighborhood a melting pod for all kinds of nationalities and
(01:32):
great friends and growing up as a boy boy, it
was really just terrific. There used to be a movie
theater called the Point Breeze Theater. It was in South Philadelphia,
and on a Saturday afternoon, a lot of the moms
used to pack a little lunch and put us in
the theater there so we could watch the cartoons and
everything for the part of the day. And of course,
(01:55):
you know, we'd walk to the theater and of course
walk back. It was a very safe neighbor and that's
what we did. And this one time when I went
in there and I was about eight years old, in
between some of the cartoons, there was a man that
came on stage and said we're going to have a
singing contest. And I never sang in my life, but
I said this to myself, this is going to be okay.
(02:18):
He said, So anybody wants to sing, well, we got
the first prize is going to be a red scooter.
So I raised my hand and they took me up
there and I introduced me. They introduced me and as
what's your name, I said, Frank Abaloni, how old are
you are? I'm about eight years old. Okay, are you
ready for this contest? And I said yeah, and they
said what are you going to do? I said, I'm
going to sing. So they said what are you going
(02:40):
to sing? I said, I'm going to sing a song
that I hear on the radio all the time. But
my mom and dad like, it's called give me five
minutes more. He said, okay, you're on no band, none
of this stuff. And I sang, give me five minutes more,
only five minutes more. Let me stay, let me stay
in your heart. Well, after that they had our four
or five kids auditioned. Well, I fortune only won that contest,
(03:01):
and I won my first prize, which was a red scooter.
So that really was the introduction for me being into
this show business world. And as time went by, you know,
I really wanted to be a boxer, and I used
to box for the Police Athletic League because they kind
of kept the kids off the street and had something
(03:21):
to do something, and I liked boxing. So that became
obsolete after a while. And then I went back to
the movie theater and I saw a film. I must
have been about nine at that time, closer to ten,
and there was a film there called young Man with
a Horn, and I stayed until it was getting dark,
and I watched that film about six or seven times,
(03:44):
and I just fell in love with the sound of
the trumpet. And it was a story about a young
boy who becomes a trumpet player becomes very successful, and
I kind of related to that, I guess, but I
really liked the sound of the trumpet. And I came
back home to my dad and I said, Dad, I
want to play the trumpet. Well, my father was a
really talented guy, not professionally, but he could play piano,
he could play guitar, he could play accordion. He was
(04:07):
just a very talented guy and he loved music. And
he said okay. So the next day he came back
and he told me that he went to this pawn
shop and he bought a horn for about seven or
eight dollars and he gave me the horn, and I
went into my room and I started practicing. And how
I don't know. I just started blowing on this thing.
(04:27):
And in about two hours I came out of the
room and I played a song called music, Music, Music,
and he went da da da da da da da
da da da da da da da All I want,
I Love and you and music. So I played that
song and I started practicing. I loved it so much.
I became so involved with this horn that I would
(04:48):
play three, four or five hours a day. And I
lived in a row house, and a lot of the
neighbors didn't like that, you know, because I was practicing morning,
noon and night. But all of a sudden, after about
a year's time, my dad got me a teacher from
the neighborhood and his name was Danny Dee as he
went by and he started teaching me, and I started
reading music, and he finally came to my dad and
(05:09):
he said, you know, Nick was my father's name. He said,
you know, this kid has really got some talent, and
I think I can take him so far. I think
you would have looked for somebody that can really work
with this boy as a trumpet player. So finally my
dad talked to some of the people in the neighborhood
and him, and they found this teacher who was with
the Philadelphia Orchestra, Seymour Rosenfeld, and I went to audition
(05:33):
for him. He was in North Philadelphia, and my uncle
took me there and I auditioned. He said i'll work
with this boy, and I started studying with him, and
because of that, I really learned how to play very well.
When there was a singer by the name of Al
Martino who was number one in the world with a
song called Here in My Heart. I heard in the
(05:56):
neighborhood that one of the neighbors, Silvio, was giving him party.
And our neighborhood just loved and admired the fact that
he was such a big star. So they threw this
party and there was a big crowd outside of this
little row house, and I took my horn and I
kind of wiggled my way through everybody and knocked on
the door. And this man, Silvio, I really didn't know him.
(06:16):
I knew he was in the neighborhood, but he said, yeah,
what do you want. I said, well, I'm a trumpet player.
I like to play my trumpet for Al Martino. He said,
come on and kid, So I went in. They were
having a party. Everybody was drinking and eating, having a
good time, and I took out my horn from the case.
I started to play this song called Tenderly, and I
kind of stopped the party, and all of a sudden,
(06:37):
Al Martino went to Sylvia. He said, who is this kid?
He said, I don't know. What's your name? Kid, I said,
Frank Avaloni. He said, call his mother and father and
see if we could take him to New York. I
think this kid's got some talent that would take him
to my agency. So he did. My mother and father agreed.
We knew him from the neighborhood Silvio, and we drove
(06:58):
into New York City and we went to the agency
and Jack Sober was the agent, and I took out
my horn and I played tenderly, and he said, I
got a great idea. We handle Jackie Gleason and he
loves trumpet. So he's right across the street at the
Sheraton Hotel. He's got a pehouse. He said, let's take
him in there. Maybe he'll play for Jackie.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
And you're listening to Frankie Avalon tell a heck of
his story when we come back. More of Frankie Avalon's
story here on our American Stories. Leah bib here, and
I'm inviting you to help our American story celebrate this
country's two hundred and fiftieth birthday.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Only a short time away.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
If you want to help inspire countless others to love
America like we do, and want to help us bring
the inspiring and important stories told ere to millions for
years to come. Please consider making a tax deductible donation
to our American Stories. Go to Alamericanstories dot com and
click the donate button. Give a little, give a lot,
any amount helps. Go to Alamericanstories dot com and give,
(08:09):
and we continue with our American Stories and with Frankie
Avalon's story. We last left off with him as a
twelve year old boy about to perform with his trumpet
for the Great One, and that would be honeymooner's impresario
and comedic genius Jackie Cleeson at his Sheraton Hotel penthouse.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
So we walked in there. They were having a meeting
and Jackie wasn't there, but it was a penthouse. He
was there, but I didn't know because he wasn't in
that particular part of the penthouse. I took out my
horn and I played tenderly, and as I was playing,
through the corner of my eye, I saw the Great One,
Jackie Gleeson, come out from the second floor of the penthouse.
And after I finished, they all applauded, and he said
(08:52):
Jackie said that there's writers and producer and director write
a show. I won them on in two weeks.
Speaker 5 (09:03):
Oh, come on it, kid, come on, it all set,
somebody to go.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Where are you going? This is Frankie Avalon.
Speaker 5 (09:10):
I'm taking him down to Jodah Bartenners.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
He's a terrific trumpet player.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Pretty good.
Speaker 5 (09:14):
Huh that's a terrific Oh, oh, Frankie. This is my
good neighbor friend, Missus Crampton. This is my wife Fixie.
Oh when you hear this, kid, Hey, give us a
number now, Frankie, come on out.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
That was my first major experience on national television with
the great one Jackie Gleason.
Speaker 5 (09:47):
Wonderful.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
Oh you sure are, kid, You're ready for the big time.
Speaker 5 (09:51):
You hear that franky coming from my wife.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Boy, that's a compliment, you knows.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Well.
Speaker 5 (09:55):
Let's go. We're going down to Jordah Bartenner. We'll see
you later. Girls, Let's go. Okay yea.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
So as time went by, because of the success that
I had, I also did an audition for a company
that was run by a bender's name and he had
another trumpet player and he thought it would be a
great combination of him kind of being my mentor was
Ray Anthony, who had a lot of hit records, the
Buddy Hop and all that stuff. So then they took
(10:24):
me to RCA Victor label X. I auditioned for them
and they signed me under a contract to have a
recording contract playing trumpet, and I did and I had
a song called Trumpet Sorrento and it became on the
national charts as a trumpet player, and from then on
in I kept studying. I became number one trumpet player
(10:46):
in the Old City Orchestra of Philadelphia, and then in
summertimes I would try to play for different bands to
make some extra money as a kid growing up, and
I heard about a band called Roco and the Saints,
and somebody said they're looking for a trumpet player. And
someone told somebody, and Roco came into my house and
(11:09):
he said, let me hear you play. And I played
for him. He said, oh hey, I'll give you a job.
I said, where are we going to play? He said, Mary,
He's in It's in New Jersey. And I said, okay,
what's a pay? He said five dollars. I said, okay,
I'll play. So as time went by I was playing
trumpet with Roco and the Saints. We played on weekends,
(11:30):
and finally I started singing a couple of songs because
a lot of there were seven guys in the band
and everybody had to sing a couple of songs to
keep the band kind of fresh. And I did a
couple of songs A Lover Man where It Was and
another song, and people started coming up to Rocker saying,
let this kid sing a little more. So on one
(11:52):
of our breaks, he came to me and he said,
how about singing some more songs? I said, no, you
hired me as a trumpet player, and he said yeah,
but I'll give you extra five hours. I said, you
got it. So that's how I started singing. Then in
the summertime, we went out to a place down the
(12:13):
shore in summers Point, New Jersey, and it was called
Bass Shores was the name of this club we did.
We played seven days a week, five sets a night,
two jam sessions, and we were living on top of
the nightclub there. And a new company out of Philadelphia
(12:33):
was looking for some new talent and our band, rock
On the Saints became pretty popular and they came in
listened to us, and on one of our breaks, we
went back to the dressing room and Pete d'angels and
Bob Marcucci were the owners of this record company, and
they said, we'd like to sign the band, and of
course Roco was our man to make the deal, and
he did and he said, okay, and we want this
(12:56):
boy Frank to sing on one side and we'll do
it an instrumental. So we did an instrumental called drive
Him with the Saints, and they wrote a song for
me called Cupid Shot and Arrow. So that was my
first record, and the record came out. They put it
out and it really didn't make any noise at all
until in the Boston area. For some reason, my song,
(13:20):
my side of the record started to make the Boston charts,
and Bob Marcucci drove me into Boston and there was
a man by the name of Joe Smith, and there
was a big rock and roll show with Fat Stamino
and Little Richard and all these guys, and they were
all had had hit records, and my manager went to
(13:41):
Joe Smith and said, could you put this kid on?
He said, we don't have any money for this kid,
and I know he's got a record, but you know,
we don't have any money and we're all filled up.
He said, don't pay him, just just put him on,
and my manager bought me a twelve dollars suit that
I had on. I went on stage. I did a
couple of songs. The kids were waiting outside for my
autograph of but no No. My fan clubs above said I
(14:04):
think you got some of these kids like you. And
that was the start of being that teen idol that
that lasted for a while. Now I'm a recording artist.
Now I'm a singer the Horners that put away, and
now I've got a contract with Chancellor Records, and I
do a couple of other songs. I did a song
called Shy Guy, which didn't do anything, and I did
(14:26):
something else, Blue Betty, which didn't do anything. And then
all of a sudden, we had I had one more
record to do. They took me to New York City
and those days, there was just two tracks, so there
wasn't all of this technology. And the band was in
one part of the room and I was in the
other part of the room. And they started playing this
song which I was going to record, called DEDI Dina,
(14:48):
And as they were rehearsing. It was a very staccato
kind of a song. To me that that's what I
was just doing, kind of singing through my nose then
end up. So they the producer of the record came
out to me and he said, what are you doing?
Is I'm just having some fun? Sounds very staccato to me.
(15:09):
He said, let's make a couple like that. Well, I
went back to the microphone and started singing that make
Daddy then, and they made the take of it. They
put it out and in about a month that started
to make some noise around the country. All of a
sudden it became a top five or top ten record,
which really launched me as a singer singing through my
nose Dedy Dinad and a lot of people who were
(15:32):
out there held their noses too when they heard it. Now,
after Dedy Diana, I had to do another nose job
which I sang in my nose called Gingerbread, And finally
they said, no, come on, you know you've got a
quality that the kids really like and it's more of
a romantic So they wrote another song for me called
(15:54):
I'll Wait for You, and it was very pretty ballad,
and again it became a chart record and it was
probably in the top fifteen, I think. And then I
had another recording date to do and I was at
home in my house and there was a knock on
the door, and again it was a songwriter and he said,
(16:17):
my name is Ed Marshall, I'm a songwriter. I'd like
to play this song for you.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
He came in.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
We had a little piano and he sat down and
he played this song called Venus, and I just fell
in love with it the first time I heard it,
and I said, played again, played again, played again, and
finally I called Our record company was in Philadelphia, and
I called Bob mark Uci and Ptianceles. I said, I
got a song here, can we drive over? So we
drove into town where there's where their offices were. They
(16:44):
had a piano there and we walked in there and
he played the song and pt Atlis, who was my producer,
fell in love with the song and he said, as
he played it again and again, he said, you know what,
I'd like to make two changes to the song if
you'll permit me to do that. So the writer, Ed
Marshall said, okay.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
And you're listening to Frankie Avalon tell his life story
in the business, so to speak. And it starts in
that penthouse auditioning for Jackie Gleeson. The next thing you know,
he's on national television. But as the world will have it,
he's still got to get that next gig. And it's
at the Jersey shore playing all summer long, living above
(17:25):
the joint. He was playing that he would start to
sing and from singing, well, he gets to the hit
song Venus. When we come back, more of the story,
the life journey of the South Philadelphia kid named Frankie Avelone,
known to the rest of us as Frankie Avalon. His
(17:47):
story continues here on our American stories. And we continue
(18:09):
with our American stories. Let's pick up where we last
left off. Frankie Avalon brought a new song to his
producer called Venus, and the producer, well, he fell in
love with it.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Here's Frankie with the rest of the story.
Speaker 6 (18:25):
So he said, you know it goes da da da
da da da da da da da da da da
da da da da da. He said, I'd like to
change one note, Da da da da da da da
da da da da da da da.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
So he agreed to that. So we had made one change,
and Pete Chanceler said, I'd like to make another change
lyrically at the very end, instead of saying as long
as we will live, I'd like to say as long
as we shall live. So we made those two changes,
went into New York City. I made seven takes on
the song. You know that you had to do it straight,
(18:58):
just like a performance, and I waited till four o'clock
in the morning to take it home. I knew that
I had a smash record, and I kept playing it.
I didn't sleep for twenty four hours. And to me,
I was right. Pete d Anders was right, and Ed Marshall,
the producer writer of the song, was right. We were
all right. And of course the audience around the world
(19:21):
was really infatuated with the song. It became number one
for a long long time and gave me an opportunity
to sing around the world. When I became very successful
and was selling a lot of records and a teen
idol had a fan base of I don't know, we'd
get somewhere around twelve fifteen thousand letters a week and
(19:42):
a big fan base, and so now Hollywood recognized, hey,
this kid's got some fans. Let's put them in a
picture with a major star. So Warner Brothers made a
deal with my manager and my agent and they brought
me out to Hollywood to do my first film for
Warner Brothers with a big star, Alan Ladd, called Guns
(20:03):
of the Timberland, and that started being in the motion
picture industry, and from there on in I made I
don't know, over forty motion pictures of my career. Well,
what had happened. I was playing to Steel Pier in
Atlantic City and the film was released and it was
very successful and very successful for me, and I'll never
(20:27):
forget I was in the dressing room. I was doing five, seven,
twelve shows a day, depending upon the weather. You would
do a fifteen minute show and they would show a
movie and then another fifteen minute show. And they had
a phone booth in backstage there and it was my
Asian Jack Gallardi, who said, Frankie, it's Jack. I just
(20:47):
got a call from John Wayne. He just saw your
performance and Guns of the Timberland with Alan Ladd. He
wants you to sign a contract to do a picture
called The Alamo, where he's going to start direct and
it's going to be done in Texas and That was
my first introduction to star in a picture with John
Wayne and a major, major motion picture. I'm out there now.
(21:11):
I've got to ride this horse, and I play a
character called Smitty, and I have to learn how to ride.
So the Duke said, Frankie, here's what you do. When
you sit on the saddle here, you make it feel
like you've got a clothes hagar that's pulling you up.
So keep your shoulders very straight and very just kind
of go along with a float with this horse. And
(21:33):
I learned how to ride, and I became a pretty
good rider. And it was an experience of a South
Philly kid who nothing but the streets of South Philly
and under a fire plug, you know when it was
a real hot summer day. But I learned a lot,
you know, being experienced with a lot of ex Richard
Widmark and Lawrence Harvey and John Wayne and John Ford
(21:54):
and oh my god, it was a great experience for me.
And I was on that picture for four months, all
of a sudden, becoming involved in motion pictures and meeting
a lot of the celebrities from I don't know, from
Natalie Wood to I did a picture with the RJ. Wagner,
and of course I got to know a lot of
(22:16):
movie stars, and of course Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin,
and then of course working with John Wayne when I
had to promote the film with him. I mean I
was with these major stars, but never the acceptance that
John Wayne would get. When I'd walk into a restaurant
with him. I mean, everybody's jaw just dropped. There was
such respect for him. And he was really such a
(22:38):
shy guy. He was six foot five and with his
boots on, he must have been nine feet to me,
and we'd walk in and people would just look at
him and look at him and just stare at him,
and nobody would They were kind of afraid to even
ask for an autograph.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
You know.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
He was just a major, major, big kunk of a stone.
So that was a great experience working with him, and
of course traveling with him. So now I'm living in California,
in Hollywood, and I'm living right off Sunset Boulevard there,
(23:13):
and i had a lot of my friends there, and
Steve McQueen used to come by, and Jack Nicholson we
all have you know, we were young Hollywood at the time,
and a lot of gals that were young onngenews that
I was dating then had great dates with them. And
then one one night I was playing cards with my
friends and now Rona Barrett, who was a big eclumnist.
(23:35):
She wasn't at the time, but she was starting. I
had a friend, and she brought her over and introduced me.
I left the card game and her name was Kay,
and we started talking and her she was coming from
her mother's birthday party with Rona Barrett, and we got
into a good conversation for about an hour, and when
she left, I went back to the card game and
(23:56):
I said to my friends there, well see that guy
that I'm gonna marrier. And about six or seven months
we dated and got married. We started having children right away,
and our first born we named it Frank after me
and my grandfather really, and after thirteen months we had
(24:18):
another one, Tony, and then another. To kind of sum
it up, we had eight children in ten years. So
my wife was pregnant every single year, and she loved
being pregnant. She loved having children. And of course I
was on the road and coming back and here's another one,
here's another one, there's another one, and we're very fortunate
(24:39):
to have eight children, very healthy, and we have ten grandchildren.
And she's a great mom. They love her, they adore her.
You know, she's like a general. To have eight children
and keeping everyone in tac was quite a job that
she had. And of course I'd come home and have
a lot of fun with the kids, and she was
the disciplinary. So she was a great mom, still is,
(24:59):
and they had to the first time I met at
at Fonicello was at the Hollywood Bowl for Dick Clark.
We were playing the Hollywood Bowl. He had a show
of about four or five different acts on the show,
and she was one. She was very popular as a
mouseketeer on the Mickey Mouse Club. And she must have
been about fourteen fifteen, and I must have been about seventeen.
(25:22):
And we started talking and I said, Jesus, I'd like
to maybe we'd take you out for her a pizza
and a cool drink or something. She said, you got
to talk to my mother. And I went to Virginia
and I said, can I take your daughter for a
slice of pizza whatever? She said, okay, call me and
I went over to the house, picked her up and
we went down the street. There was a little Pizza
(25:44):
Poller there and we had some pizza and some soft
drinks and that was it. And we kept in touch,
and of course she was working, I was working, and
that was our first date and only date really. And
then time had gone by and I had made a
few films. I must have made about ten or fifteen
films at the time, and I was signed to a
(26:05):
company called American International Pictures. I made some films for them,
and finally they said. I got friendly with a writer
by the name of Lou Russof and I said to him,
Lou writes something that's fun for kids, you know, where
we hang out together and laugh and sing. And he
came back at about a month of his years, so
he's here's a script. Read this. It's called Beach Party.
(26:27):
And I read it and I thought it was really fun.
It looked like the old ven En kids gang and
having fun. I said, who's going to play d d
was the girl's name. I guess he named her after
Dede Dinah. He said, we're talking to Walt Disney as
a loanout for a Nette Funicello, and.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
You're listening to Frankie Avalon share some remarkable stories that call.
He got at the steel pier in Atlantic City. He
was about to work with John Wayne, and this kid
from South Philly soon finds himself in a Western He
met his bride and when he met her, he told
his poker buddies, I'm going to marry that girl. And
(27:05):
seven or eight months later he did eight kids later,
in ten years, his wife Ka.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
He calls the General and then.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
This movie idea Beach Party, back when a movie could
just be silly and fun. The story of Frankie Avalon,
as told by Frankie Avalon continues here on our American Stories,
(27:37):
and we continue with our American stories. We last left
off with Frankie Avalon sharing the story of how he
wrote a movie script about teens well just having fun
on the beach, casting the female role opposite of Frankie Well,
that was up in the air.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
Let's return to Frankie Avalon.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
I said that's great. I'm better when she was young,
and she said that would be fun. And that's how
we got together. They put us together. We did our
first motion picture, Beach Party. It came out. We did
it in January. I think it came out kind of
towards the start of the summer and it was a
tremendous success at the box office, and because of that,
we had lots of fun doing those pictures. We made
(28:17):
about seven and made tons of tons of money for AIP.
I always wanted to keep a career going by not
just being a teen I and of course those days,
you know, went by the wayside because you're married, you
got kids, and you know, when your fan base got
in dwindles, and so I wanted to get into the
(28:37):
nightclub business, which I did. I worked with a lot
of good people that helped me develop a show and act,
and of course I opened up at the Copa Cabana,
which is once you made the Copa Caabana, you were
really you were in show business. And I would play
the show business under contract with them for about five years.
And about nineteen seventy one or two whatever, it was
(29:00):
playing at the Copa and they wanted to do a
promotion for a Broadway show that was playing there called Grease,
and I said, sure, I'll go. It was in the
afternoon and I met the cast and Travolta, by the way,
was in that show. Is one of the side guys,
one of the chorus boys, and I saw the play.
And then time had gone by, and it was about
(29:22):
nineteen seventy seven. I had got the call. I was
playing golf and I got off the ninth hole. My
manager was there with the script. He said, this is
a script. Paramount wants you for this picture. I said,
what's the picture called? He said Grease and I said
what character? He said teen angel. And I thought about
(29:43):
what I saw on Broadway and I said pass and
I went and played the second nine. I came back in.
He was still there. He said they will not take no.
They would like to at least have a meeting with you.
I said, okay. So I win with Alan Carr and
Patty Birch who was the choreographer, and Randall Kleiser, who
was the director. And they said, why don't you want
to do this? I said, because I saw the play
(30:06):
and it's not my style. I said, you know, he
was all in black. It comes off of a rope
and black leather jacket and low alongside burns, and there's
a little wiggles and this, and sings this beauty school dropout.
I said, not my style. They said, well change it.
I said, what do you mean you'll change it? They said,
we'll do it all in white. We'll get a piano
(30:28):
over here. Let's see how you want to do it.
They did, and in nineteen seventy seven I went in
for six days of rehearsals, two days of shooting the
five minute song, and Beauty School Dropout became a part
of Greece and Frankie Avalon was a teenageer. When when
(30:50):
we're finally putting grease together and at rehearsals, I said, look,
I don't want to be a joke of this film.
I think this is a good character and it really
is something important to this gal, her character. I don't
want to be a joke. So they said, oh no, no,
no no, we'll make this absolutely perfect for you and
(31:12):
the people just gonna love it. So when the picture
comes out, they opened the premiered it in Honolulu and
there was the big columnist, Liz Smith was her name,
and in her column she was at the premiere and
she said the film was fun. But when Frankie Avalon
entered his part as teen angel singing Beauty School Dropout,
(31:34):
the audience went wild, and when he left the scene
they applauded, So it made its mark. I had come
home from a trip and I'm sitting in my den
with my wife and the phone rings, and she hands
me the phone. She said, it's for you. It's a
Bobby de Niro. So I looked at her, and all
(31:58):
of a sudden it clicked in my mind, it's a
Robert de Niro. Well didn't register with her because she
thinks a kid that I grew up with in South Philly.
A lot of Italian kids thought it was Bobby de
Niro and associated at all. So he says, Frankie, it's
a Bobby. We're doing a picture with the Scorsese It's
called Casino, and we know that you were the first
(32:19):
guest to Lefty, whose character was Robert de Niro. And
Marty Scorsese likes to be so exacting with whatever he does,
and he did research. He said he would like to
use you to recreate that scene, and I said, sounds
good to me. He said when can you do it.
I said, well, I'm home. I'm home for about a week.
(32:39):
He said, can you do it Monday? I said, fine
with me. They sent the jet and I got on
the jet, went into the dressing room. When I got
to Las Vegas, went into Marty. He showed me the
clip and I went on the set and I stayed
there for about fourteen hours shooting my one scene.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
With De Niro. Our first guest to see.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
It's Frank Yavamo. I've got a large family. How many
kids do you have? Very proud to say that we
have eight children? No, no, no, it's please, there's north Please, amazing,
There's nothing to it. It's my pleasure. And Joe Pesci
(33:22):
was waiting for me. After my scene, we went to
this place called Joe Piggs. He had a Vesuvio restaurant.
We went and had chicken meat balls and the picture
came out and I was in the picture. Health has
been very exciting for me for a long long time.
I got interested in not only just just vitamins, but herbs,
(33:42):
and I started back about fifty years ago in where
I lived with my wife and eight children in North Hollywood.
There was a place called Herb Products that was in
North Hollywood, and I saw the sign and I went
in there and I got very friendly with a man
who was part of it, and John was his name,
and he started introducing me to different kinds of herbs
(34:03):
that were in big box forms. They weren't even capsules yet,
and he would make capsules and put together different herbs.
So I would start taking herbs and I really got
involved with it, and through the years I started to say, Jesus,
I should people ask me, Frankie, what do you do well?
I mean, you're still doing that. I'm in my eighties
now and I still go out there and still perform.
(34:27):
I do a lot of singing, I do a lot
of performing. I travel a lot, and I've been taking
herbs and I created a product with John called Zero Pain.
It's a pain reliever that I brought onto a home
shopping network and we sold tons and tons of it.
It still is available today. And I'm going to tell
everybody listening, you talk about being healthy and being taken
(34:48):
care of yourself. I have a company called Frankie Avalon product,
So if you look at Frankie Avalon dot com, you
could look at what I've been doing for all these years,
not only with the Zero Pain, which is pain reliever topical,
which has helped so many people, from Arnold Palmer to
Ernie Banks, a lot of my friends in the business,
and they still request it and we still offer it
(35:10):
to the public. But your health is very important. You
never know when you're going to lose it, so keep
trying to keep it. They had asked me to do
a guest shot on American Idol. I said, okay, what
do I do? They said, well, it's Simon Kyle's birthday
(35:30):
and the year of Venus was nineteen fifty nine. That's
the year he was born. So we'd like to give
him this little birthday gift and you singing Venus to him.
I said, okay, but you've got to be you know,
stay in your dress room. You've got to be a surprise.
So I go to my dress room and I watched
my weight, I watched this, I was watching this, that whatever.
So I go to my dress room and they sent
(35:51):
a whole box of candies and things and I'm waiting.
I'm waiting and I'm eating these red hots or whatever
they are. But well, I ate about two boxes with
these things ready to go on. Now I've got twelve
minutes to go on and do this. This is live,
you know, And I said, I really don't feel good.
Now They've got the paramedics right there. They take my
blood pressure. I'm going through the roof and they said,
(36:13):
I don't think you should go on, And my blood
pressure was very, very high. I went on and I
did that song not feeling one hundred percent, but pulled
it off. I came off of there, I calmed down
with a lot of water and all this other stuff
and when my blood pressure went down, and that was
quite an experience for me. Like the show goes on, listen,
(36:34):
I want to thank for the opportunity I having great
conversation going through parts of my life. I could write
a book, but I won't. But in the meantime, I
just want to thank everybody that's been with me, and
I've been with you for many, many years for being
a part of my life. Thank you so much, and
thanks to Good Lord for giving me the opportunity to
my wife, to my eight children, to my ten grandchildren,
(36:56):
and stay well and God bless and.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
A terrific job on the storytelling in production by Greg Hengler,
and a special thanks to Frankie Avalon for sharing his
life's journey with us. That Beach Party series well, it
was a huge box office success, and Avalon, well, he'd
go on to make a career for himself in the
nightclub business as a prime act to play at the
Copa and then all over the world, and then came Greece,
(37:24):
that paramount picture and that character teen Angel.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
He passed.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
He said that character is not my style, so they
changed the character and the rest is history. I have
watched this movie more times than I would care to admit.
Is when you have a wife and a daughter, this,
along with Mamma Mia, is required required viewing at least
a few times a year. And then, of course that
call from Robert de Niro and Bobby de Niro, probably
(37:52):
a bunch of them in his South Philly neighborhood. Little
did he know it was the Robert de Niro and
a scene in Casino, the story of Frankie Avalon, the
story of America in a way from nowhere to somewhere
and appreciating with great gratitude every single step along the way.
Frankie Avalon story here on our American stories,
This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
And to search for the Our American Stories podcast, go
to the iHeartRadio app, to Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
get your podcasts. Not many teen idols are able to
(00:30):
carve a successful career for themselves as they mature, but
Frankie Avalon is one of those exceptions. Avalon had thirty
one charting US Billboard singles from nineteen fifty eight to
late nineteen sixty two, including number one hits Venus and
Why in nineteen fifty nine. Avalon is also well known
(00:51):
for his role in the nineteen seventies musical film Grease
as teen Angel, in which he sings Beauty School chop
out to French without any further ado. Here's Frankie Avalon
with his story.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
As a young man, young boy really growing up in
South Philadelphia. I really started into this business of show business,
unaware of trying to be in show business. But I
became a part of show business at the age of
probably I don't know, think about eight or nine. Because
in the neighborhod where I lived, it was a great
neighborhood a melting pod for all kinds of nationalities and
(01:32):
great friends and growing up as a boy boy, it
was really just terrific. There used to be a movie
theater called the Point Breeze Theater. It was in South Philadelphia,
and on a Saturday afternoon, a lot of the moms
used to pack a little lunch and put us in
the theater there so we could watch the cartoons and
everything for the part of the day. And of course,
(01:55):
you know, we'd walk to the theater and of course
walk back. It was a very safe neighbor and that's
what we did. And this one time when I went
in there and I was about eight years old, in
between some of the cartoons, there was a man that
came on stage and said we're going to have a
singing contest. And I never sang in my life, but
I said this to myself, this is going to be okay.
(02:18):
He said, So anybody wants to sing, well, we got
the first prize is going to be a red scooter.
So I raised my hand and they took me up
there and I introduced me. They introduced me and as
what's your name, I said, Frank Abaloni, how old are
you are? I'm about eight years old. Okay, are you
ready for this contest? And I said yeah, and they
said what are you going to do? I said, I'm
going to sing. So they said what are you going
(02:40):
to sing? I said, I'm going to sing a song
that I hear on the radio all the time. But
my mom and dad like, it's called give me five
minutes more. He said, okay, you're on no band, none
of this stuff. And I sang, give me five minutes more,
only five minutes more. Let me stay, let me stay
in your heart. Well, after that they had our four
or five kids auditioned. Well, I fortune only won that contest,
(03:01):
and I won my first prize, which was a red scooter.
So that really was the introduction for me being into
this show business world. And as time went by, you know,
I really wanted to be a boxer, and I used
to box for the Police Athletic League because they kind
of kept the kids off the street and had something
(03:21):
to do something, and I liked boxing. So that became
obsolete after a while. And then I went back to
the movie theater and I saw a film. I must
have been about nine at that time, closer to ten,
and there was a film there called young Man with
a Horn, and I stayed until it was getting dark,
and I watched that film about six or seven times,
(03:44):
and I just fell in love with the sound of
the trumpet. And it was a story about a young
boy who becomes a trumpet player becomes very successful, and
I kind of related to that, I guess, but I
really liked the sound of the trumpet. And I came
back home to my dad and I said, Dad, I
want to play the trumpet. Well, my father was a
really talented guy, not professionally, but he could play piano,
he could play guitar, he could play accordion. He was
(04:07):
just a very talented guy and he loved music. And
he said okay. So the next day he came back
and he told me that he went to this pawn
shop and he bought a horn for about seven or
eight dollars and he gave me the horn, and I
went into my room and I started practicing. And how
I don't know. I just started blowing on this thing.
(04:27):
And in about two hours I came out of the
room and I played a song called music, Music, Music,
and he went da da da da da da da
da da da da da da da All I want,
I Love and you and music. So I played that
song and I started practicing. I loved it so much.
I became so involved with this horn that I would
(04:48):
play three, four or five hours a day. And I
lived in a row house, and a lot of the
neighbors didn't like that, you know, because I was practicing morning,
noon and night. But all of a sudden, after about
a year's time, my dad got me a teacher from
the neighborhood and his name was Danny Dee as he
went by and he started teaching me, and I started
reading music, and he finally came to my dad and
(05:09):
he said, you know, Nick was my father's name. He said,
you know, this kid has really got some talent, and
I think I can take him so far. I think
you would have looked for somebody that can really work
with this boy as a trumpet player. So finally my
dad talked to some of the people in the neighborhood
and him, and they found this teacher who was with
the Philadelphia Orchestra, Seymour Rosenfeld, and I went to audition
(05:33):
for him. He was in North Philadelphia, and my uncle
took me there and I auditioned. He said i'll work
with this boy, and I started studying with him, and
because of that, I really learned how to play very well.
When there was a singer by the name of Al
Martino who was number one in the world with a
song called Here in My Heart. I heard in the
(05:56):
neighborhood that one of the neighbors, Silvio, was giving him party.
And our neighborhood just loved and admired the fact that
he was such a big star. So they threw this
party and there was a big crowd outside of this
little row house, and I took my horn and I
kind of wiggled my way through everybody and knocked on
the door. And this man, Silvio, I really didn't know him.
(06:16):
I knew he was in the neighborhood, but he said, yeah,
what do you want. I said, well, I'm a trumpet player.
I like to play my trumpet for Al Martino. He said,
come on and kid, So I went in. They were
having a party. Everybody was drinking and eating, having a
good time, and I took out my horn from the case.
I started to play this song called Tenderly, and I
kind of stopped the party, and all of a sudden,
(06:37):
Al Martino went to Sylvia. He said, who is this kid?
He said, I don't know. What's your name? Kid, I said,
Frank Avaloni. He said, call his mother and father and
see if we could take him to New York. I
think this kid's got some talent that would take him
to my agency. So he did. My mother and father agreed.
We knew him from the neighborhood Silvio, and we drove
(06:58):
into New York City and we went to the agency
and Jack Sober was the agent, and I took out
my horn and I played tenderly, and he said, I
got a great idea. We handle Jackie Gleason and he
loves trumpet. So he's right across the street at the
Sheraton Hotel. He's got a pehouse. He said, let's take
him in there. Maybe he'll play for Jackie.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
And you're listening to Frankie Avalon tell a heck of
his story when we come back. More of Frankie Avalon's
story here on our American Stories. Leah bib here, and
I'm inviting you to help our American story celebrate this
country's two hundred and fiftieth birthday.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Only a short time away.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
If you want to help inspire countless others to love
America like we do, and want to help us bring
the inspiring and important stories told ere to millions for
years to come. Please consider making a tax deductible donation
to our American Stories. Go to Alamericanstories dot com and
click the donate button. Give a little, give a lot,
any amount helps. Go to Alamericanstories dot com and give,
(08:09):
and we continue with our American Stories and with Frankie
Avalon's story. We last left off with him as a
twelve year old boy about to perform with his trumpet
for the Great One, and that would be honeymooner's impresario
and comedic genius Jackie Cleeson at his Sheraton Hotel penthouse.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
So we walked in there. They were having a meeting
and Jackie wasn't there, but it was a penthouse. He
was there, but I didn't know because he wasn't in
that particular part of the penthouse. I took out my
horn and I played tenderly, and as I was playing,
through the corner of my eye, I saw the Great One,
Jackie Gleeson, come out from the second floor of the penthouse.
And after I finished, they all applauded, and he said
(08:52):
Jackie said that there's writers and producer and director write
a show. I won them on in two weeks.
Speaker 5 (09:03):
Oh, come on it, kid, come on, it all set,
somebody to go.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Where are you going? This is Frankie Avalon.
Speaker 5 (09:10):
I'm taking him down to Jodah Bartenners.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
He's a terrific trumpet player.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Pretty good.
Speaker 5 (09:14):
Huh that's a terrific Oh, oh, Frankie. This is my
good neighbor friend, Missus Crampton. This is my wife Fixie.
Oh when you hear this, kid, Hey, give us a
number now, Frankie, come on out.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
That was my first major experience on national television with
the great one Jackie Gleason.
Speaker 5 (09:47):
Wonderful.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
Oh you sure are, kid, You're ready for the big time.
Speaker 5 (09:51):
You hear that franky coming from my wife.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Boy, that's a compliment, you knows.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Well.
Speaker 5 (09:55):
Let's go. We're going down to Jordah Bartenner. We'll see
you later. Girls, Let's go. Okay yea.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
So as time went by, because of the success that
I had, I also did an audition for a company
that was run by a bender's name and he had
another trumpet player and he thought it would be a
great combination of him kind of being my mentor was
Ray Anthony, who had a lot of hit records, the
Buddy Hop and all that stuff. So then they took
(10:24):
me to RCA Victor label X. I auditioned for them
and they signed me under a contract to have a
recording contract playing trumpet, and I did and I had
a song called Trumpet Sorrento and it became on the
national charts as a trumpet player, and from then on
in I kept studying. I became number one trumpet player
(10:46):
in the Old City Orchestra of Philadelphia, and then in
summertimes I would try to play for different bands to
make some extra money as a kid growing up, and
I heard about a band called Roco and the Saints,
and somebody said they're looking for a trumpet player. And
someone told somebody, and Roco came into my house and
(11:09):
he said, let me hear you play. And I played
for him. He said, oh hey, I'll give you a job.
I said, where are we going to play? He said, Mary,
He's in It's in New Jersey. And I said, okay,
what's a pay? He said five dollars. I said, okay,
I'll play. So as time went by I was playing
trumpet with Roco and the Saints. We played on weekends,
(11:30):
and finally I started singing a couple of songs because
a lot of there were seven guys in the band
and everybody had to sing a couple of songs to
keep the band kind of fresh. And I did a
couple of songs A Lover Man where It Was and
another song, and people started coming up to Rocker saying,
let this kid sing a little more. So on one
(11:52):
of our breaks, he came to me and he said,
how about singing some more songs? I said, no, you
hired me as a trumpet player, and he said yeah,
but I'll give you extra five hours. I said, you
got it. So that's how I started singing. Then in
the summertime, we went out to a place down the
(12:13):
shore in summers Point, New Jersey, and it was called
Bass Shores was the name of this club we did.
We played seven days a week, five sets a night,
two jam sessions, and we were living on top of
the nightclub there. And a new company out of Philadelphia
(12:33):
was looking for some new talent and our band, rock
On the Saints became pretty popular and they came in
listened to us, and on one of our breaks, we
went back to the dressing room and Pete d'angels and
Bob Marcucci were the owners of this record company, and
they said, we'd like to sign the band, and of
course Roco was our man to make the deal, and
he did and he said, okay, and we want this
(12:56):
boy Frank to sing on one side and we'll do
it an instrumental. So we did an instrumental called drive
Him with the Saints, and they wrote a song for
me called Cupid Shot and Arrow. So that was my
first record, and the record came out. They put it
out and it really didn't make any noise at all
until in the Boston area. For some reason, my song,
(13:20):
my side of the record started to make the Boston charts,
and Bob Marcucci drove me into Boston and there was
a man by the name of Joe Smith, and there
was a big rock and roll show with Fat Stamino
and Little Richard and all these guys, and they were
all had had hit records, and my manager went to
(13:41):
Joe Smith and said, could you put this kid on?
He said, we don't have any money for this kid,
and I know he's got a record, but you know,
we don't have any money and we're all filled up.
He said, don't pay him, just just put him on,
and my manager bought me a twelve dollars suit that
I had on. I went on stage. I did a
couple of songs. The kids were waiting outside for my
autograph of but no No. My fan clubs above said I
(14:04):
think you got some of these kids like you. And
that was the start of being that teen idol that
that lasted for a while. Now I'm a recording artist.
Now I'm a singer the Horners that put away, and
now I've got a contract with Chancellor Records, and I
do a couple of other songs. I did a song
called Shy Guy, which didn't do anything, and I did
(14:26):
something else, Blue Betty, which didn't do anything. And then
all of a sudden, we had I had one more
record to do. They took me to New York City
and those days, there was just two tracks, so there
wasn't all of this technology. And the band was in
one part of the room and I was in the
other part of the room. And they started playing this
song which I was going to record, called DEDI Dina,
(14:48):
And as they were rehearsing. It was a very staccato
kind of a song. To me that that's what I
was just doing, kind of singing through my nose then
end up. So they the producer of the record came
out to me and he said, what are you doing?
Is I'm just having some fun? Sounds very staccato to me.
(15:09):
He said, let's make a couple like that. Well, I
went back to the microphone and started singing that make
Daddy then, and they made the take of it. They
put it out and in about a month that started
to make some noise around the country. All of a
sudden it became a top five or top ten record,
which really launched me as a singer singing through my
nose Dedy Dinad and a lot of people who were
(15:32):
out there held their noses too when they heard it. Now,
after Dedy Diana, I had to do another nose job
which I sang in my nose called Gingerbread, And finally
they said, no, come on, you know you've got a
quality that the kids really like and it's more of
a romantic So they wrote another song for me called
(15:54):
I'll Wait for You, and it was very pretty ballad,
and again it became a chart record and it was
probably in the top fifteen, I think. And then I
had another recording date to do and I was at
home in my house and there was a knock on
the door, and again it was a songwriter and he said,
(16:17):
my name is Ed Marshall, I'm a songwriter. I'd like
to play this song for you.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
He came in.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
We had a little piano and he sat down and
he played this song called Venus, and I just fell
in love with it the first time I heard it,
and I said, played again, played again, played again, and
finally I called Our record company was in Philadelphia, and
I called Bob mark Uci and Ptianceles. I said, I
got a song here, can we drive over? So we
drove into town where there's where their offices were. They
(16:44):
had a piano there and we walked in there and
he played the song and pt Atlis, who was my producer,
fell in love with the song and he said, as
he played it again and again, he said, you know what,
I'd like to make two changes to the song if
you'll permit me to do that. So the writer, Ed
Marshall said, okay.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
And you're listening to Frankie Avalon tell his life story
in the business, so to speak. And it starts in
that penthouse auditioning for Jackie Gleeson. The next thing you know,
he's on national television. But as the world will have it,
he's still got to get that next gig. And it's
at the Jersey shore playing all summer long, living above
(17:25):
the joint. He was playing that he would start to
sing and from singing, well, he gets to the hit
song Venus. When we come back, more of the story,
the life journey of the South Philadelphia kid named Frankie Avelone,
known to the rest of us as Frankie Avalon. His
(17:47):
story continues here on our American stories. And we continue
(18:09):
with our American stories. Let's pick up where we last
left off. Frankie Avalon brought a new song to his
producer called Venus, and the producer, well, he fell in
love with it.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Here's Frankie with the rest of the story.
Speaker 6 (18:25):
So he said, you know it goes da da da
da da da da da da da da da da
da da da da da. He said, I'd like to
change one note, Da da da da da da da
da da da da da da da.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
So he agreed to that. So we had made one change,
and Pete Chanceler said, I'd like to make another change
lyrically at the very end, instead of saying as long
as we will live, I'd like to say as long
as we shall live. So we made those two changes,
went into New York City. I made seven takes on
the song. You know that you had to do it straight,
(18:58):
just like a performance, and I waited till four o'clock
in the morning to take it home. I knew that
I had a smash record, and I kept playing it.
I didn't sleep for twenty four hours. And to me,
I was right. Pete d Anders was right, and Ed Marshall,
the producer writer of the song, was right. We were
all right. And of course the audience around the world
(19:21):
was really infatuated with the song. It became number one
for a long long time and gave me an opportunity
to sing around the world. When I became very successful
and was selling a lot of records and a teen
idol had a fan base of I don't know, we'd
get somewhere around twelve fifteen thousand letters a week and
(19:42):
a big fan base, and so now Hollywood recognized, hey,
this kid's got some fans. Let's put them in a
picture with a major star. So Warner Brothers made a
deal with my manager and my agent and they brought
me out to Hollywood to do my first film for
Warner Brothers with a big star, Alan Ladd, called Guns
(20:03):
of the Timberland, and that started being in the motion
picture industry, and from there on in I made I
don't know, over forty motion pictures of my career. Well,
what had happened. I was playing to Steel Pier in
Atlantic City and the film was released and it was
very successful and very successful for me, and I'll never
(20:27):
forget I was in the dressing room. I was doing five, seven,
twelve shows a day, depending upon the weather. You would
do a fifteen minute show and they would show a
movie and then another fifteen minute show. And they had
a phone booth in backstage there and it was my
Asian Jack Gallardi, who said, Frankie, it's Jack. I just
(20:47):
got a call from John Wayne. He just saw your
performance and Guns of the Timberland with Alan Ladd. He
wants you to sign a contract to do a picture
called The Alamo, where he's going to start direct and
it's going to be done in Texas and That was
my first introduction to star in a picture with John
Wayne and a major, major motion picture. I'm out there now.
(21:11):
I've got to ride this horse, and I play a
character called Smitty, and I have to learn how to ride.
So the Duke said, Frankie, here's what you do. When
you sit on the saddle here, you make it feel
like you've got a clothes hagar that's pulling you up.
So keep your shoulders very straight and very just kind
of go along with a float with this horse. And
(21:33):
I learned how to ride, and I became a pretty
good rider. And it was an experience of a South
Philly kid who nothing but the streets of South Philly
and under a fire plug, you know when it was
a real hot summer day. But I learned a lot,
you know, being experienced with a lot of ex Richard
Widmark and Lawrence Harvey and John Wayne and John Ford
(21:54):
and oh my god, it was a great experience for me.
And I was on that picture for four months, all
of a sudden, becoming involved in motion pictures and meeting
a lot of the celebrities from I don't know, from
Natalie Wood to I did a picture with the RJ. Wagner,
and of course I got to know a lot of
(22:16):
movie stars, and of course Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin,
and then of course working with John Wayne when I
had to promote the film with him. I mean I
was with these major stars, but never the acceptance that
John Wayne would get. When I'd walk into a restaurant
with him. I mean, everybody's jaw just dropped. There was
such respect for him. And he was really such a
(22:38):
shy guy. He was six foot five and with his
boots on, he must have been nine feet to me,
and we'd walk in and people would just look at
him and look at him and just stare at him,
and nobody would They were kind of afraid to even
ask for an autograph.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
You know.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
He was just a major, major, big kunk of a stone.
So that was a great experience working with him, and
of course traveling with him. So now I'm living in California,
in Hollywood, and I'm living right off Sunset Boulevard there,
(23:13):
and i had a lot of my friends there, and
Steve McQueen used to come by, and Jack Nicholson we
all have you know, we were young Hollywood at the time,
and a lot of gals that were young onngenews that
I was dating then had great dates with them. And
then one one night I was playing cards with my
friends and now Rona Barrett, who was a big eclumnist.
(23:35):
She wasn't at the time, but she was starting. I
had a friend, and she brought her over and introduced me.
I left the card game and her name was Kay,
and we started talking and her she was coming from
her mother's birthday party with Rona Barrett, and we got
into a good conversation for about an hour, and when
she left, I went back to the card game and
(23:56):
I said to my friends there, well see that guy
that I'm gonna marrier. And about six or seven months
we dated and got married. We started having children right away,
and our first born we named it Frank after me
and my grandfather really, and after thirteen months we had
(24:18):
another one, Tony, and then another. To kind of sum
it up, we had eight children in ten years. So
my wife was pregnant every single year, and she loved
being pregnant. She loved having children. And of course I
was on the road and coming back and here's another one,
here's another one, there's another one, and we're very fortunate
(24:39):
to have eight children, very healthy, and we have ten grandchildren.
And she's a great mom. They love her, they adore her.
You know, she's like a general. To have eight children
and keeping everyone in tac was quite a job that
she had. And of course I'd come home and have
a lot of fun with the kids, and she was
the disciplinary. So she was a great mom, still is,
(24:59):
and they had to the first time I met at
at Fonicello was at the Hollywood Bowl for Dick Clark.
We were playing the Hollywood Bowl. He had a show
of about four or five different acts on the show,
and she was one. She was very popular as a
mouseketeer on the Mickey Mouse Club. And she must have
been about fourteen fifteen, and I must have been about seventeen.
(25:22):
And we started talking and I said, Jesus, I'd like
to maybe we'd take you out for her a pizza
and a cool drink or something. She said, you got
to talk to my mother. And I went to Virginia
and I said, can I take your daughter for a
slice of pizza whatever? She said, okay, call me and
I went over to the house, picked her up and
we went down the street. There was a little Pizza
(25:44):
Poller there and we had some pizza and some soft
drinks and that was it. And we kept in touch,
and of course she was working, I was working, and
that was our first date and only date really. And
then time had gone by and I had made a
few films. I must have made about ten or fifteen
films at the time, and I was signed to a
(26:05):
company called American International Pictures. I made some films for them,
and finally they said. I got friendly with a writer
by the name of Lou Russof and I said to him,
Lou writes something that's fun for kids, you know, where
we hang out together and laugh and sing. And he
came back at about a month of his years, so
he's here's a script. Read this. It's called Beach Party.
(26:27):
And I read it and I thought it was really fun.
It looked like the old ven En kids gang and
having fun. I said, who's going to play d d
was the girl's name. I guess he named her after
Dede Dinah. He said, we're talking to Walt Disney as
a loanout for a Nette Funicello, and.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
You're listening to Frankie Avalon share some remarkable stories that call.
He got at the steel pier in Atlantic City. He
was about to work with John Wayne, and this kid
from South Philly soon finds himself in a Western He
met his bride and when he met her, he told
his poker buddies, I'm going to marry that girl. And
(27:05):
seven or eight months later he did eight kids later,
in ten years, his wife Ka.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
He calls the General and then.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
This movie idea Beach Party, back when a movie could
just be silly and fun. The story of Frankie Avalon,
as told by Frankie Avalon continues here on our American Stories,
(27:37):
and we continue with our American stories. We last left
off with Frankie Avalon sharing the story of how he
wrote a movie script about teens well just having fun
on the beach, casting the female role opposite of Frankie Well,
that was up in the air.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
Let's return to Frankie Avalon.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
I said that's great. I'm better when she was young,
and she said that would be fun. And that's how
we got together. They put us together. We did our
first motion picture, Beach Party. It came out. We did
it in January. I think it came out kind of
towards the start of the summer and it was a
tremendous success at the box office, and because of that,
we had lots of fun doing those pictures. We made
(28:17):
about seven and made tons of tons of money for AIP.
I always wanted to keep a career going by not
just being a teen I and of course those days,
you know, went by the wayside because you're married, you
got kids, and you know, when your fan base got
in dwindles, and so I wanted to get into the
(28:37):
nightclub business, which I did. I worked with a lot
of good people that helped me develop a show and act,
and of course I opened up at the Copa Cabana,
which is once you made the Copa Caabana, you were
really you were in show business. And I would play
the show business under contract with them for about five years.
And about nineteen seventy one or two whatever, it was
(29:00):
playing at the Copa and they wanted to do a
promotion for a Broadway show that was playing there called Grease,
and I said, sure, I'll go. It was in the
afternoon and I met the cast and Travolta, by the way,
was in that show. Is one of the side guys,
one of the chorus boys, and I saw the play.
And then time had gone by, and it was about
(29:22):
nineteen seventy seven. I had got the call. I was
playing golf and I got off the ninth hole. My
manager was there with the script. He said, this is
a script. Paramount wants you for this picture. I said,
what's the picture called? He said Grease and I said
what character? He said teen angel. And I thought about
(29:43):
what I saw on Broadway and I said pass and
I went and played the second nine. I came back in.
He was still there. He said they will not take no.
They would like to at least have a meeting with you.
I said, okay. So I win with Alan Carr and
Patty Birch who was the choreographer, and Randall Kleiser, who
was the director. And they said, why don't you want
to do this? I said, because I saw the play
(30:06):
and it's not my style. I said, you know, he
was all in black. It comes off of a rope
and black leather jacket and low alongside burns, and there's
a little wiggles and this, and sings this beauty school dropout.
I said, not my style. They said, well change it.
I said, what do you mean you'll change it? They said,
we'll do it all in white. We'll get a piano
(30:28):
over here. Let's see how you want to do it.
They did, and in nineteen seventy seven I went in
for six days of rehearsals, two days of shooting the
five minute song, and Beauty School Dropout became a part
of Greece and Frankie Avalon was a teenageer. When when
(30:50):
we're finally putting grease together and at rehearsals, I said, look,
I don't want to be a joke of this film.
I think this is a good character and it really
is something important to this gal, her character. I don't
want to be a joke. So they said, oh no, no,
no no, we'll make this absolutely perfect for you and
(31:12):
the people just gonna love it. So when the picture
comes out, they opened the premiered it in Honolulu and
there was the big columnist, Liz Smith was her name,
and in her column she was at the premiere and
she said the film was fun. But when Frankie Avalon
entered his part as teen angel singing Beauty School Dropout,
(31:34):
the audience went wild, and when he left the scene
they applauded, So it made its mark. I had come
home from a trip and I'm sitting in my den
with my wife and the phone rings, and she hands
me the phone. She said, it's for you. It's a
Bobby de Niro. So I looked at her, and all
(31:58):
of a sudden it clicked in my mind, it's a
Robert de Niro. Well didn't register with her because she
thinks a kid that I grew up with in South Philly.
A lot of Italian kids thought it was Bobby de
Niro and associated at all. So he says, Frankie, it's
a Bobby. We're doing a picture with the Scorsese It's
called Casino, and we know that you were the first
(32:19):
guest to Lefty, whose character was Robert de Niro. And
Marty Scorsese likes to be so exacting with whatever he does,
and he did research. He said he would like to
use you to recreate that scene, and I said, sounds
good to me. He said when can you do it.
I said, well, I'm home. I'm home for about a week.
(32:39):
He said, can you do it Monday? I said, fine
with me. They sent the jet and I got on
the jet, went into the dressing room. When I got
to Las Vegas, went into Marty. He showed me the
clip and I went on the set and I stayed
there for about fourteen hours shooting my one scene.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
With De Niro. Our first guest to see.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
It's Frank Yavamo. I've got a large family. How many
kids do you have? Very proud to say that we
have eight children? No, no, no, it's please, there's north Please, amazing,
There's nothing to it. It's my pleasure. And Joe Pesci
(33:22):
was waiting for me. After my scene, we went to
this place called Joe Piggs. He had a Vesuvio restaurant.
We went and had chicken meat balls and the picture
came out and I was in the picture. Health has
been very exciting for me for a long long time.
I got interested in not only just just vitamins, but herbs,
(33:42):
and I started back about fifty years ago in where
I lived with my wife and eight children in North Hollywood.
There was a place called Herb Products that was in
North Hollywood, and I saw the sign and I went
in there and I got very friendly with a man
who was part of it, and John was his name,
and he started introducing me to different kinds of herbs
(34:03):
that were in big box forms. They weren't even capsules yet,
and he would make capsules and put together different herbs.
So I would start taking herbs and I really got
involved with it, and through the years I started to say, Jesus,
I should people ask me, Frankie, what do you do well?
I mean, you're still doing that. I'm in my eighties
now and I still go out there and still perform.
(34:27):
I do a lot of singing, I do a lot
of performing. I travel a lot, and I've been taking
herbs and I created a product with John called Zero Pain.
It's a pain reliever that I brought onto a home
shopping network and we sold tons and tons of it.
It still is available today. And I'm going to tell
everybody listening, you talk about being healthy and being taken
(34:48):
care of yourself. I have a company called Frankie Avalon product,
So if you look at Frankie Avalon dot com, you
could look at what I've been doing for all these years,
not only with the Zero Pain, which is pain reliever topical,
which has helped so many people, from Arnold Palmer to
Ernie Banks, a lot of my friends in the business,
and they still request it and we still offer it
(35:10):
to the public. But your health is very important. You
never know when you're going to lose it, so keep
trying to keep it. They had asked me to do
a guest shot on American Idol. I said, okay, what
do I do? They said, well, it's Simon Kyle's birthday
(35:30):
and the year of Venus was nineteen fifty nine. That's
the year he was born. So we'd like to give
him this little birthday gift and you singing Venus to him.
I said, okay, but you've got to be you know,
stay in your dress room. You've got to be a surprise.
So I go to my dress room and I watched
my weight, I watched this, I was watching this, that whatever.
So I go to my dress room and they sent
(35:51):
a whole box of candies and things and I'm waiting.
I'm waiting and I'm eating these red hots or whatever
they are. But well, I ate about two boxes with
these things ready to go on. Now I've got twelve
minutes to go on and do this. This is live,
you know, And I said, I really don't feel good.
Now They've got the paramedics right there. They take my
blood pressure. I'm going through the roof and they said,
(36:13):
I don't think you should go on, And my blood
pressure was very, very high. I went on and I
did that song not feeling one hundred percent, but pulled
it off. I came off of there, I calmed down
with a lot of water and all this other stuff
and when my blood pressure went down, and that was
quite an experience for me. Like the show goes on, listen,
(36:34):
I want to thank for the opportunity I having great
conversation going through parts of my life. I could write
a book, but I won't. But in the meantime, I
just want to thank everybody that's been with me, and
I've been with you for many, many years for being
a part of my life. Thank you so much, and
thanks to Good Lord for giving me the opportunity to
my wife, to my eight children, to my ten grandchildren,
(36:56):
and stay well and God bless and.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
A terrific job on the storytelling in production by Greg Hengler,
and a special thanks to Frankie Avalon for sharing his
life's journey with us. That Beach Party series well, it
was a huge box office success, and Avalon, well, he'd
go on to make a career for himself in the
nightclub business as a prime act to play at the
Copa and then all over the world, and then came Greece,
(37:24):
that paramount picture and that character teen Angel.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
He passed.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
He said that character is not my style, so they
changed the character and the rest is history. I have
watched this movie more times than I would care to admit.
Is when you have a wife and a daughter, this,
along with Mamma Mia, is required required viewing at least
a few times a year. And then, of course that
call from Robert de Niro and Bobby de Niro, probably
(37:52):
a bunch of them in his South Philly neighborhood. Little
did he know it was the Robert de Niro and
a scene in Casino, the story of Frankie Avalon, the
story of America in a way from nowhere to somewhere
and appreciating with great gratitude every single step along the way.
Frankie Avalon story here on our American stories,
Host
Lee Habeeb
Popular Podcasts
Fudd Around And Find Out
UConn basketball star Azzi Fudd brings her championship swag to iHeart Women’s Sports with Fudd Around and Find Out, a weekly podcast that takes fans along for the ride as Azzi spends her final year of college trying to reclaim the National Championship and prepare to be a first round WNBA draft pick. Ever wonder what it’s like to be a world-class athlete in the public spotlight while still managing schoolwork, friendships and family time? It’s time to Fudd Around and Find Out!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.