Frankie Avalon
If you can’t remember a time when Frankie Avalon wasn’t a part of your life, you aren’t alone. This talented performer can look back on a career that spans three generations of music, television and motion pictures which he feels is due primarily to the loyalty and trust of his audience.
Frankie’s years as a “Teenage Idol” have been succeeded by maturity and professionalism. He is currently one of the busiest nightclub performers in the country, playing the nation’s finest supper clubs and headlining top Las Vegas Hotel Main rooms. His motion picture career has already spanned some thirty films.
Frankie was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania September 18, 1940. “It seems like every young kid in Philadelphia wanted to be a singer”, recalls Frankie. “I started as a musician…a trumpet player in the beginning. But, when I picked up the paper one day and read about Jimmy Darren who was from my own neighborhood and school, making a successful career for himself, I decided that I could do it just as well.”
Even before the age of 10, Frankie seized every opportunity to enter local amateur contests, winning one after another. On his own initiative, Frankie began taking lessons and continued his musical studies long and hard through the years that followed. One of his instructors, a member of the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, volunteered to teach the young trumpet virtuoso after hearing him play. Although he downplays the fact, Frankie Avalon was a child prodigy who was good enough to make guest appearances as a trumpet player on The Perry Como and Jackie Gleeson Television Shows.
Frankie has a long string of Gold Record Million-Seller singles and albums. In 1959 alone Frankie had 6 solid hits that were in the top 40 and his music became one of the defining sounds of the “Pre-Beatles” Rock and Roll.
Never one to settle for one career, Frankie’s 30 motion picture credits are quite amazing. Frankie’s starring roles in the highly successful “Beach Party” film series, are perhaps, quickest to recall. They include…