December 7, 2022 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, not many teen idols are able to carve a successful career for themselves as they mature, but Frankie Avalon is one of these exceptions. Avalon had 31 charting U.S. Billboard singles from 1958 to late 1962, including number one hits, "Venus" and "Why" in 1959. Avalon is also well known for his role in the 1970s musical film Grease as Teen Angel, in which he sings "Beauty School Dropout" to Frenchy. He’s recently appeared on American Idol to sing for Simon Cowell on his birthday. Here's Frankie Avalon to tell his story!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habibe 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 Greece
as Teen Angel, in which he sings Beauty School chop
out to French without any further ado. Here's Frankie Avalon
with his story as a young man, young boy really
growing up in South Philadelphia. I really started into this
(01:14):
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, I think
about eight or nine. Because in the neighborood where I
lived was a great neighborhood, a melting pot for all
kinds of nationalities and great friends and growing up as
(01:34):
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 into the theater there so we
could watch the cartoons and everything for the part of
the day. And of course, you know, we'd walked to
(01:56):
the theater and of course walked back. It was a
very safe neighbor hood 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 gonna have a singing contest. And I never sang
in my life, but I said to myself, this is
(02:17):
going to be okay. 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. They introduced me, and
as what's your name, I said, Frank Avaloni? How old
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
(02:38):
going to sing? So they said what are you going
to sing? Said, I'm gonna sing a song that I
hear on the radio all the time. 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 of our four or five kids who auditioned. Well,
(02:59):
I fortunate only won that contest 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
(03:20):
kids off the street and had them something 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
(03:42):
film about six or seven times, 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 there was a really talented guy, not professionally,
(04:03):
but he could play piano, could play guitar, he could
play accordion. He was 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 brought 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
(04:26):
blowing on this thing. 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
La Dad Love and you and music, And so I
played that song and I started practicing. I loved it
so much. I became so involved with this horn that
(04:47):
I would 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
(05:09):
dad and 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 ought to look 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
(05:32):
audition 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 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
(05:55):
heard in the neighborhood that one of the neighbors, Silvio,
was giving him a 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 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 Sylvio,
(06:16):
I really didn't know him, 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 kids. So when 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 the song called Tenderly, and I kind of
stopped the party, and all of a sudden. Al Martino
(06:38):
went to Sylvia 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 into New
York City and we went to the agency and jack
(07:02):
Sobel was the agent, and I took out my horn
and I played tender Lee 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 penthouse. He said, let's take him in there.
Maybe he'll play for Jackie. And you're listening to Frankie
Avalon tell a heck of his story when we come back.
(07:23):
More of Frankie Avalon's story here on Our American Stories.
Leehabibi here the host of our American Stories. Every day
on this show, we're bringing inspiring stories from across this
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(07:45):
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Give a little, give a lot. Go to our American
Stories dot com and give and we continue with our
(08:10):
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 with a great One and
that would be Honeymooner's impresario and comedic genius Jackie Gleason
at his Sheraton Hotel penthouse. So we walked in there.
(08:30):
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 Gleason, come out from
the second floor of the penthouse. And after I finished,
they all applauded, and he said, Jackie said that there's
(08:53):
writers and producer director write a show I won them
on in two weeks. Oh, come on it, kid, come on,
it all set, somebody to go. Where are you going?
This is Frankie Avalon. I'm taking him down to Joel
the Batten as he's a driffer trumpet player. Pretty good. Huh,
(09:14):
it's a terrific Oh, oh, Frankie. This is my good
neighborhood friend, Missus Kramlin. This is my wife Fixie. Oh
when you hear this kid, give us a number now, Frankie,
come on out. That was my first major experience on
(09:43):
national television with the great one Jackie Gleason. I wonderful
are your kid? You're ready for the big time? Do
you hear that, Frankie coming from my wife? Boy, that's
a compliment. Gino. Well let's go. We're going down to
Jola Batten as we'll see you later. Let's go. For
so as time went by, because of the success that
(10:04):
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
me to RCA Victor label X. I auditioned for them
(10:28):
and they assigned 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,
and I kept studying. I became number one trumpet player
in the Old City Orchestra of Philadelphia. And then and
(10:51):
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 Rocco win His Saints,
and somebody said they're looking for a trumpet player. And
someone told somebody, and Rocco came into my house and
he said, let me hear you play. And I played
(11:11):
for him. He said, oh kay, I'll give you a job.
I said, where we go to play? He said, Mary,
He's in It's a New Jersey. And I said, okay,
what's a pay? He said five dollars. They said, okay,
I'll play. So as time went by, I was playing
trumpet with Rocco and the Saints. We played on weekends,
and finally I started singing a couple of songs because
(11:32):
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 Loverman what it was, and another song,
and people started coming up to rock and say, let
this kid sing a little more. So on one of
our breaks, he came to me and he said, how
(11:57):
about singing some more songs. I said, no, you hired
me as a trumpet player, and he said, yeah, but
I'll give you an extra five hours. I said, you
got it. So that's how I started singing. Then in
a summertime, we went out to a place down the
shore in Summer's Point, New Jersey, and it was called
(12:19):
Base Shores was the name of this club. 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 was looking for
some new talent, and our band, Rocco the Saints, became
pretty popular and they came in listened to us, and
(12:40):
on one of our breaks, we went back to the
dressing room and Pete Dangos and Bob Barcucci were the
owners of this record company, and they said, we'd like
to sign the band, and Rocco was our man to
make the deal, and he did and he said, okay,
and we want this boy Frank to sing on one
side and we'll do an instrumental. So we did an
(13:01):
instrumental called drive Him with the Saints, and they wrote
a song for me called Cupid Shot an 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, my side of the record, started to make
(13:22):
the Boston charts, and Bob Marcuccie 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
Fats Domino and Little Richard and all these guys, and
they had hit records. And my manager went to Joe
Smith and said, could you put this kid on? Said,
(13:44):
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 brought 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, but no, no,
my fan club was above said I think you got
(14:04):
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 Oarners that put away, and now I've got
a contract with Chancellor Records, and I do a couple
of other songs. Uh. I did a song called Shy Guy,
which didn't do anything, and I did something else, Blue Betty,
(14:29):
which didn't do anything. And then all of a sudden,
we had I had one more record to do. They
took me in 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 ded Dinah, And as they
were rehearsing, there was a very staccato kind of a
(14:52):
song to me that that that I was just doing,
kind of singing through my nose that then end up,
so they the producer of the record came out to
me and he said, what are you doing this, I'm
just having some fun. Sounds very staccato to me, so
let's make a couple like that. Well I went back
(15:13):
to the microphone and started saying that, and they made
the take of it. They put it out and about
a month that started to make some noise around the country.
All of a sudden became a top five or top
ten record, which really launched me as a singer. Singing
through my nose did Diana and a lot of people
who were out there held their noses too when they
(15:35):
heard it. Now, after dd Diana, I had to do
another nose job, which I thank through 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 I'll Wait for You, and it was very
(15:57):
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, my name is Ed Marshall, I'm a songwriter.
(16:19):
I'd like to play this song for you. He came in.
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 Marcucci and Pete the Angles. I said,
I got a song here, can we drive over? So
(16:40):
we drove into town where where their offices were. They
had a piano there, and we walked in there and
he played the song and Pete the Angels, 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 this. So the writer,
(17:02):
Ed Marshall said, okay, 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 Gleason.
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
(17:22):
playing all summer long, living above 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 Avlone, known to the rest of
(17:44):
us as Frankie Avalon. His story continues here on our
American stories. And we continue with our American stories. Let's
(18:11):
pick up where we last left off. Frankie Avalon brought
a new song to his producer called Penis, and the producer, well,
he fell in love with it. Here's Frankie with the
rest of the story. So he said, you know it
goes da da da da da da da da da
da da da da da. He said, I'd like to
(18:31):
change one note, da da da da da da da.
So he agreed to that. So we had made one change,
and Pete janson I 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
(18:54):
the song. Uh, you know that you had to do
it straight, 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 see for twenty four hours. And
to me, I was right. Pete Deannas was right, and
Ed Marshall, the producer writer of the song, was right.
(19:17):
We were all right. And of course the audience around
the world 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. If I don't know,
we'd get somewhere around twelve fifteen thousand letters a week
(19:42):
and a big fan base. And so now Hollywood recognized, Hey,
this kid's got some fans. Let's put him in a
picture with a major star. So Warner Brothers says, I
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
(20:03):
called Guns of the Timberland and that started being in
the motion picture industry, and from there on end, I
made I don't know, over forty motion pictures of my career. Well,
what had happened. I was playing the steel period 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 to seven twelve shows a day, depending upon the weather.
You would do a fifteen minute show and they would
show a movie, then another fifteen minute show. And they
had a phone booth in backstage there and it was
by Asian Jack Gilardi who said, Frankie, it's Jack. I
(20:47):
just 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 start in a picture with
John Wayne and a major major motion picture. I'm out
(21:11):
there now. 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 hanger that's
pulling you up. So keep your shoulders very straight and
very just kind of go along with the float with
(21:32):
this horse. And 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 EXPERI Richard Widmark and Lawrence Harvey and John Wayne
(21:53):
and John Ford, 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 too. I did a
picture with the RJ. Wagner, and of course I got
(22:15):
to know a lot of 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
(22:37):
he was really such a 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. You know.
He was just a major, major, big kunk of a storm.
(22:58):
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,
and I had a lot of my friends there, and
Steve McQueen used to come by, and Jack Nicholson we
(23:19):
all have. You know, we were young Hollywood at the time,
and a lot of gals that were young on jineers
that I was dating and had great dates with them.
And then one night I was playing cards with my
friends and now Rona Barrett, who was a big a columnist.
She wasn't at the time, but she was starting. I
had a friend and she brought her over and introduced me.
(23:42):
I left a 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
I said to my friends there, well see that gal,
that I'm going to marrier. And about six or seven
(24:02):
months we dated and got married. We started having children
right away, and our firstborn we named him Frank after
me and my grandfather, really, and after thirteen months we
had another one, Tony, and then another. To kind of
(24:22):
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, here's another one. And we're
very fortunate to have eight children, very healthy, and we
have ten grandchildren. And she's a great mom. They love her,
(24:44):
they adore her. You know, she's like a general. To
have eight children and keeping everyone in tact 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 and they adore. The first time I met
it at Funicello was at the Hollywood Bowl for Dick Clark.
(25:07):
We were playing the Hollywood Bowl. He had a show
of about four or five different acts on the show.
When she was one, she was very popular as a
mouseketeer on the Mickey Mouse Club. And she must have
been about, oh, fourteen fifteen, and I must have been
about seventeen. And we started talking and I said, Jesus,
I'd like to maybe we'll take you out for a
(25:27):
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 poler there and we had some pizza and some
soft drinks and that was it. And we kept in touch,
(25:50):
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
company called American International Pictures. I made some films for them,
and finally they said. I got friendly with a writer
(26:13):
by the name of Lou Roussov, and I said to him,
Lou write 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 and he hears, here's
a script of read this. It's called Beach Party. And
I read it. I thought it was really fun. It
looked like the old then end kids gang and having fun.
(26:34):
I said, who's going to play? D d was the
girl's name. I guess he named her after ded Dinah.
He said, we got we're talking to Walt Disney as
a loan out for a net foot cello, and 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
(26:55):
from South Philly soon finds himself in a Western met
his bride, and when he met her, he told his
poker buddies I'm going to marry that girl. And seven
or eight months later he did eight kids. Later, in
ten years, his wife Kay, he calls the General and
then this movie idea Beach Party, back when a movie
(27:17):
could just be silly and fun. The story of Frankie Avalon,
as told by Frankie Avlon continues here on our American stories,
and we continue with our American stories. We last left
(27:40):
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. Let's return to Frankie Avalon.
I said that's great. I'm better when she was young
and said would be fun. And that's how we got together.
(28:02):
They put us together. We did our first worship picture
of 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 about seven and
made tons of tons of money for AIP. I always
(28:24):
wanted to keep a career going by, not just being
a teen I and of course those days you know
when by the wayside, because you married, you've got kids,
you know, when your fan base got into windles. And
so I wanted to get into the 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 Copacabana, which is once
(28:46):
you made the Copacabana, you 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 playing at
the Copa and they wanted to do a promotion for
a Broadway show that was playing there called Grease, and
(29:06):
I said sure ago. It was in the afternoon, and
I met the cast and Travolta, by the way, was
in that show, was one of the side guys, one
of the chorus boys. And I saw the plane. The
time had gone by, and it was about nineteen seventies seven.
I had got the call. I was playing golf and
(29:30):
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, the picture call.
He said Grease and I said what character? He said,
teen angel. And I thought about 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
(29:52):
to at least have a meeting with you. I said, okay,
so I can win with Alan Carr and Patty Birch
who was a choreographer, Randal Pleiser, who was the director.
And they said, why don't you want to do this?
I said, because I saw the play and it's not
my style. I said, you know. He was all in black,
comes off of a rope and black leather jacket and
(30:14):
low alongside burns and just a little wiggles and this
and things, 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 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,
(30:38):
two days of shooting the five minute song, and Beauty
School Dropout became a part of Grease and Frankie Avlon
was teenageer. When when 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
(30:58):
good character and it really something important to this 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 the people just gonna
love it. So when the picture comes out, they opened
the premier at it in Honolulu, and there was the
(31:20):
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, the audience went wild,
and when he left the scene they applauded. So it
made its mark. I had come home from a trip
(31:45):
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 of a sudden clicked in
my mind, it's it's a Robbert 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
(32:06):
kids though it was Bobby de Niro, and it 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 guest to Lefty,
whose character was Robert de Niro. And Marty Scorsese likes
to be so exacting with whatever he does, and he
(32:29):
did research. He said he would like to use you
to recreate that scene, and I said, sounds good to me.
He said when could you do it. I said, well,
I'm home. I'm home for about a week. 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
(32:50):
went on the set and I stayed there for about
fourteen hours shooting my one scene with De Niro. A
first guest to see it's Frankie Avlon. I've got a
large found. How many kids do you have? I'm very
proud to say that we have eight children. No no, no,
(33:13):
he is please give us pigs north please amazing. There's
nothing to it. It's my pleasure. And Joe Peshi was
waiting for me. After my scene, we went to this
place called Joe Piggs. You had a Vesuvio restaurant. We
went and had chicken meatballs and the picture came out
and I was in the picture. Health has been very
(33:34):
exciting for me for a long long time. I got
interested in not only just a vitamins, but herbs. 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 but Products. It was
in North Hollywood, and I saw the sign and I
went in there and I got very friendly with a
(33:55):
man who was part of it, and John was his name,
and he started introducing me to different kinds of herbs
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,
(34:17):
I should people ask me, Frankie, what do you do well.
I mean you're still doing it. I'm in my eighties
now and I still go out there and still perform.
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
(34:39):
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
care of yourself. I have a company called Frankie Avalon Products,
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 a pain
(35:00):
reliever topical, which has helped so many people, from Arnold
Palmer to Ernie Banks to a lot of my friends
in the business. And they still request it and we
still offer it to the public. But your health is
very important. You never know when you're gonna lose it,
so keep trying to keep it. They had asked me
(35:20):
to do a guest shot on American Idol. I said, Okay,
what do I do? They said, well, it's Simon Cole's
birthday and the year 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.
(35:40):
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
the whole box of candies and things, and I'm waiting.
I'm waiting, and I'm meeting these red hots or whatever
they are. But well, I ate about two boxes these things.
I'm ready to go on. Now I've got twelve minutes
(36:02):
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
and I'm going through the roof and they said, 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.
(36:22):
I came off there and 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, 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
(36:43):
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 give me the opportunity to my wife,
to my eight children, to my ten grandchildren, and stay
well and God bless And a terrific job on the
storytelling and production by Greg Hengler, and a special thanks
(37:04):
to Frankie Avalon for sharing his life's journey with us
at 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 Coppa and then all
over the world. And then came Greece, that paramount picture
(37:25):
and that character teen Angel he passed. He said, that character,
it's not my style, so they change the character and
the rest is history. I have watched this movie more
times than I would care to admit, because when you
have a wife and a daughter, this, along with Mamma Mia,
is required required viewing at least a few times a year.
(37:47):
And then, of course, that call from Robert de Niro,
Bobby DeNiro, probably a bunch of him in his South
Philly neighborhood. Little did you 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
(38:09):
step along the way Frankie Avalon's story. Here on our
American Stories.
This is Lee Habibe 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 Greece
as Teen Angel, in which he sings Beauty School chop
out to French without any further ado. Here's Frankie Avalon
with his story as a young man, young boy really
growing up in South Philadelphia. I really started into this
(01:14):
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, I think
about eight or nine. Because in the neighborood where I
lived was a great neighborhood, a melting pot for all
kinds of nationalities and great friends and growing up as
(01:34):
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 into the theater there so we
could watch the cartoons and everything for the part of
the day. And of course, you know, we'd walked to
(01:56):
the theater and of course walked back. It was a
very safe neighbor hood 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 gonna have a singing contest. And I never sang
in my life, but I said to myself, this is
(02:17):
going to be okay. 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. They introduced me, and
as what's your name, I said, Frank Avaloni? How old
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
(02:38):
going to sing? So they said what are you going
to sing? Said, I'm gonna sing a song that I
hear on the radio all the time. 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 of our four or five kids who auditioned. Well,
(02:59):
I fortunate only won that contest 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
(03:20):
kids off the street and had them something 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
(03:42):
film about six or seven times, 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 there was a really talented guy, not professionally,
(04:03):
but he could play piano, could play guitar, he could
play accordion. He was 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 brought 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
(04:26):
blowing on this thing. 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
La Dad Love and you and music, And so I
played that song and I started practicing. I loved it
so much. I became so involved with this horn that
(04:47):
I would 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
(05:09):
dad and 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 ought to look 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
(05:32):
audition 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 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
(05:55):
heard in the neighborhood that one of the neighbors, Silvio,
was giving him a 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 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 Sylvio,
(06:16):
I really didn't know him, 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 kids. So when 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 the song called Tenderly, and I kind of
stopped the party, and all of a sudden. Al Martino
(06:38):
went to Sylvia 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 into New
York City and we went to the agency and jack
(07:02):
Sobel was the agent, and I took out my horn
and I played tender Lee 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 penthouse. He said, let's take him in there.
Maybe he'll play for Jackie. And you're listening to Frankie
Avalon tell a heck of his story when we come back.
(07:23):
More of Frankie Avalon's story here on Our American Stories.
Leehabibi here the host of our American Stories. Every day
on this show, we're bringing inspiring stories from across this
great country, stories from our big cities and small towns,
but we truly can't do the show without you. Our
(07:45):
stories are free to listen to, but they're not free
to make. If you love what you here, go to
our American Stories dot com and click the donate button.
Give a little, give a lot. Go to our American
Stories dot com and give and we continue with our
(08:10):
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 with a great One and
that would be Honeymooner's impresario and comedic genius Jackie Gleason
at his Sheraton Hotel penthouse. So we walked in there.
(08:30):
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 Gleason, come out from
the second floor of the penthouse. And after I finished,
they all applauded, and he said, Jackie said that there's
(08:53):
writers and producer director write a show I won them
on in two weeks. Oh, come on it, kid, come on,
it all set, somebody to go. Where are you going?
This is Frankie Avalon. I'm taking him down to Joel
the Batten as he's a driffer trumpet player. Pretty good. Huh,
(09:14):
it's a terrific Oh, oh, Frankie. This is my good
neighborhood friend, Missus Kramlin. This is my wife Fixie. Oh
when you hear this kid, give us a number now, Frankie,
come on out. That was my first major experience on
(09:43):
national television with the great one Jackie Gleason. I wonderful
are your kid? You're ready for the big time? Do
you hear that, Frankie coming from my wife? Boy, that's
a compliment. Gino. Well let's go. We're going down to
Jola Batten as we'll see you later. Let's go. For
so as time went by, because of the success that
(10:04):
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
me to RCA Victor label X. I auditioned for them
(10:28):
and they assigned 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,
and I kept studying. I became number one trumpet player
in the Old City Orchestra of Philadelphia. And then and
(10:51):
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 Rocco win His Saints,
and somebody said they're looking for a trumpet player. And
someone told somebody, and Rocco came into my house and
he said, let me hear you play. And I played
(11:11):
for him. He said, oh kay, I'll give you a job.
I said, where we go to play? He said, Mary,
He's in It's a New Jersey. And I said, okay,
what's a pay? He said five dollars. They said, okay,
I'll play. So as time went by, I was playing
trumpet with Rocco and the Saints. We played on weekends,
and finally I started singing a couple of songs because
(11:32):
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 Loverman what it was, and another song,
and people started coming up to rock and say, let
this kid sing a little more. So on one of
our breaks, he came to me and he said, how
(11:57):
about singing some more songs. I said, no, you hired
me as a trumpet player, and he said, yeah, but
I'll give you an extra five hours. I said, you
got it. So that's how I started singing. Then in
a summertime, we went out to a place down the
shore in Summer's Point, New Jersey, and it was called
(12:19):
Base Shores was the name of this club. 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 was looking for
some new talent, and our band, Rocco the Saints, became
pretty popular and they came in listened to us, and
(12:40):
on one of our breaks, we went back to the
dressing room and Pete Dangos and Bob Barcucci were the
owners of this record company, and they said, we'd like
to sign the band, and Rocco was our man to
make the deal, and he did and he said, okay,
and we want this boy Frank to sing on one
side and we'll do an instrumental. So we did an
(13:01):
instrumental called drive Him with the Saints, and they wrote
a song for me called Cupid Shot an 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, my side of the record, started to make
(13:22):
the Boston charts, and Bob Marcuccie 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
Fats Domino and Little Richard and all these guys, and
they had hit records. And my manager went to Joe
Smith and said, could you put this kid on? Said,
(13:44):
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 brought 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, but no, no,
my fan club was above said I think you got
(14:04):
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 Oarners that put away, and now I've got
a contract with Chancellor Records, and I do a couple
of other songs. Uh. I did a song called Shy Guy,
which didn't do anything, and I did something else, Blue Betty,
(14:29):
which didn't do anything. And then all of a sudden,
we had I had one more record to do. They
took me in 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 ded Dinah, And as they
were rehearsing, there was a very staccato kind of a
(14:52):
song to me that that that I was just doing,
kind of singing through my nose that then end up,
so they the producer of the record came out to
me and he said, what are you doing this, I'm
just having some fun. Sounds very staccato to me, so
let's make a couple like that. Well I went back
(15:13):
to the microphone and started saying that, and they made
the take of it. They put it out and about
a month that started to make some noise around the country.
All of a sudden became a top five or top
ten record, which really launched me as a singer. Singing
through my nose did Diana and a lot of people
who were out there held their noses too when they
(15:35):
heard it. Now, after dd Diana, I had to do
another nose job, which I thank through 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 I'll Wait for You, and it was very
(15:57):
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, my name is Ed Marshall, I'm a songwriter.
(16:19):
I'd like to play this song for you. He came in.
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 Marcucci and Pete the Angles. I said,
I got a song here, can we drive over? So
(16:40):
we drove into town where where their offices were. They
had a piano there, and we walked in there and
he played the song and Pete the Angels, 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 this. So the writer,
(17:02):
Ed Marshall said, okay, 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 Gleason.
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
(17:22):
playing all summer long, living above 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 Avlone, known to the rest of
(17:44):
us as Frankie Avalon. His story continues here on our
American stories. And we continue with our American stories. Let's
(18:11):
pick up where we last left off. Frankie Avalon brought
a new song to his producer called Penis, and the producer, well,
he fell in love with it. Here's Frankie with the
rest of the story. So he said, you know it
goes da da da da da da da da da
da da da da da. He said, I'd like to
(18:31):
change one note, da da da da da da da.
So he agreed to that. So we had made one change,
and Pete janson I 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
(18:54):
the song. Uh, you know that you had to do
it straight, 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 see for twenty four hours. And
to me, I was right. Pete Deannas was right, and
Ed Marshall, the producer writer of the song, was right.
(19:17):
We were all right. And of course the audience around
the world 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. If I don't know,
we'd get somewhere around twelve fifteen thousand letters a week
(19:42):
and a big fan base. And so now Hollywood recognized, Hey,
this kid's got some fans. Let's put him in a
picture with a major star. So Warner Brothers says, I
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
(20:03):
called Guns of the Timberland and that started being in
the motion picture industry, and from there on end, I
made I don't know, over forty motion pictures of my career. Well,
what had happened. I was playing the steel period 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 to seven twelve shows a day, depending upon the weather.
You would do a fifteen minute show and they would
show a movie, then another fifteen minute show. And they
had a phone booth in backstage there and it was
by Asian Jack Gilardi who said, Frankie, it's Jack. I
(20:47):
just 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 start in a picture with
John Wayne and a major major motion picture. I'm out
(21:11):
there now. 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 hanger that's
pulling you up. So keep your shoulders very straight and
very just kind of go along with the float with
(21:32):
this horse. And 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 EXPERI Richard Widmark and Lawrence Harvey and John Wayne
(21:53):
and John Ford, 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 too. I did a
picture with the RJ. Wagner, and of course I got
(22:15):
to know a lot of 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
(22:37):
he was really such a 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. You know.
He was just a major, major, big kunk of a storm.
(22:58):
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,
and I had a lot of my friends there, and
Steve McQueen used to come by, and Jack Nicholson we
(23:19):
all have. You know, we were young Hollywood at the time,
and a lot of gals that were young on jineers
that I was dating and had great dates with them.
And then one night I was playing cards with my
friends and now Rona Barrett, who was a big a columnist.
She wasn't at the time, but she was starting. I
had a friend and she brought her over and introduced me.
(23:42):
I left a 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
I said to my friends there, well see that gal,
that I'm going to marrier. And about six or seven
(24:02):
months we dated and got married. We started having children
right away, and our firstborn we named him Frank after
me and my grandfather, really, and after thirteen months we
had another one, Tony, and then another. To kind of
(24:22):
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, here's another one. And we're
very fortunate to have eight children, very healthy, and we
have ten grandchildren. And she's a great mom. They love her,
(24:44):
they adore her. You know, she's like a general. To
have eight children and keeping everyone in tact 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 and they adore. The first time I met
it at Funicello was at the Hollywood Bowl for Dick Clark.
(25:07):
We were playing the Hollywood Bowl. He had a show
of about four or five different acts on the show.
When she was one, she was very popular as a
mouseketeer on the Mickey Mouse Club. And she must have
been about, oh, fourteen fifteen, and I must have been
about seventeen. And we started talking and I said, Jesus,
I'd like to maybe we'll take you out for a
(25:27):
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 poler there and we had some pizza and some
soft drinks and that was it. And we kept in touch,
(25:50):
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
company called American International Pictures. I made some films for them,
and finally they said. I got friendly with a writer
(26:13):
by the name of Lou Roussov, and I said to him,
Lou write 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 and he hears, here's
a script of read this. It's called Beach Party. And
I read it. I thought it was really fun. It
looked like the old then end kids gang and having fun.
(26:34):
I said, who's going to play? D d was the
girl's name. I guess he named her after ded Dinah.
He said, we got we're talking to Walt Disney as
a loan out for a net foot cello, and 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
(26:55):
from South Philly soon finds himself in a Western met
his bride, and when he met her, he told his
poker buddies I'm going to marry that girl. And seven
or eight months later he did eight kids. Later, in
ten years, his wife Kay, he calls the General and
then this movie idea Beach Party, back when a movie
(27:17):
could just be silly and fun. The story of Frankie Avalon,
as told by Frankie Avlon continues here on our American stories,
and we continue with our American stories. We last left
(27:40):
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. Let's return to Frankie Avalon.
I said that's great. I'm better when she was young
and said would be fun. And that's how we got together.
(28:02):
They put us together. We did our first worship picture
of 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 about seven and
made tons of tons of money for AIP. I always
(28:24):
wanted to keep a career going by, not just being
a teen I and of course those days you know
when by the wayside, because you married, you've got kids,
you know, when your fan base got into windles. And
so I wanted to get into the 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 Copacabana, which is once
(28:46):
you made the Copacabana, you 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 playing at
the Copa and they wanted to do a promotion for
a Broadway show that was playing there called Grease, and
(29:06):
I said sure ago. It was in the afternoon, and
I met the cast and Travolta, by the way, was
in that show, was one of the side guys, one
of the chorus boys. And I saw the plane. The
time had gone by, and it was about nineteen seventies seven.
I had got the call. I was playing golf and
(29:30):
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, the picture call.
He said Grease and I said what character? He said,
teen angel. And I thought about 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
(29:52):
to at least have a meeting with you. I said, okay,
so I can win with Alan Carr and Patty Birch
who was a choreographer, Randal Pleiser, who was the director.
And they said, why don't you want to do this?
I said, because I saw the play and it's not
my style. I said, you know. He was all in black,
comes off of a rope and black leather jacket and
(30:14):
low alongside burns and just a little wiggles and this
and things, 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 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,
(30:38):
two days of shooting the five minute song, and Beauty
School Dropout became a part of Grease and Frankie Avlon
was teenageer. When when 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
(30:58):
good character and it really something important to this 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 the people just gonna
love it. So when the picture comes out, they opened
the premier at it in Honolulu, and there was the
(31:20):
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, the audience went wild,
and when he left the scene they applauded. So it
made its mark. I had come home from a trip
(31:45):
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 of a sudden clicked in
my mind, it's it's a Robbert 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
(32:06):
kids though it was Bobby de Niro, and it 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 guest to Lefty,
whose character was Robert de Niro. And Marty Scorsese likes
to be so exacting with whatever he does, and he
(32:29):
did research. He said he would like to use you
to recreate that scene, and I said, sounds good to me.
He said when could you do it. I said, well,
I'm home. I'm home for about a week. 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
(32:50):
went on the set and I stayed there for about
fourteen hours shooting my one scene with De Niro. A
first guest to see it's Frankie Avlon. I've got a
large found. How many kids do you have? I'm very
proud to say that we have eight children. No no, no,
(33:13):
he is please give us pigs north please amazing. There's
nothing to it. It's my pleasure. And Joe Peshi was
waiting for me. After my scene, we went to this
place called Joe Piggs. You had a Vesuvio restaurant. We
went and had chicken meatballs and the picture came out
and I was in the picture. Health has been very
(33:34):
exciting for me for a long long time. I got
interested in not only just a vitamins, but herbs. 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 but Products. It was
in North Hollywood, and I saw the sign and I
went in there and I got very friendly with a
(33:55):
man who was part of it, and John was his name,
and he started introducing me to different kinds of herbs
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,
(34:17):
I should people ask me, Frankie, what do you do well.
I mean you're still doing it. I'm in my eighties
now and I still go out there and still perform.
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
(34:39):
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
care of yourself. I have a company called Frankie Avalon Products,
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 a pain
(35:00):
reliever topical, which has helped so many people, from Arnold
Palmer to Ernie Banks to a lot of my friends
in the business. And they still request it and we
still offer it to the public. But your health is
very important. You never know when you're gonna lose it,
so keep trying to keep it. They had asked me
(35:20):
to do a guest shot on American Idol. I said, Okay,
what do I do? They said, well, it's Simon Cole's
birthday and the year 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.
(35:40):
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
the whole box of candies and things, and I'm waiting.
I'm waiting, and I'm meeting these red hots or whatever
they are. But well, I ate about two boxes these things.
I'm ready to go on. Now I've got twelve minutes
(36:02):
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
and I'm going through the roof and they said, 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.
(36:22):
I came off there and 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, 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
(36:43):
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 give me the opportunity to my wife,
to my eight children, to my ten grandchildren, and stay
well and God bless And a terrific job on the
storytelling and production by Greg Hengler, and a special thanks
(37:04):
to Frankie Avalon for sharing his life's journey with us
at 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 Coppa and then all
over the world. And then came Greece, that paramount picture
(37:25):
and that character teen Angel he passed. He said, that character,
it's not my style, so they change the character and
the rest is history. I have watched this movie more
times than I would care to admit, because when you
have a wife and a daughter, this, along with Mamma Mia,
is required required viewing at least a few times a year.
(37:47):
And then, of course, that call from Robert de Niro,
Bobby DeNiro, probably a bunch of him in his South
Philly neighborhood. Little did you 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
(38:09):
step along the way Frankie Avalon's story. Here on our
American Stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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