Frankie Avalon can look back on a career that spans three generations of music, television and motion pictures. He feels his sustained career in numerous media is due primarily to the loyalty and trust of his fans. And he's remained close to his audience every step of the way.
Avalon’s years as a “teenage idol” led to a professional maturity that has served him well. He's now one of the busiest nightclub performers in the country, playing the nations finest supper clubs and often headlining top rooms in Las Vegas and Atlantic City. His motion picture career has already spanned some thirty films.
Francis Thomas Avalone was born in Philadelphia and enjoyed a typical Italian American childhood surrounded by familial love, neighborhood camaraderie and great food. “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 he began taking lessons, and continued his musical studies long and hard through the years that followed. Although he down plays 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 (see below).
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. 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. In “The Take” co-starring Billy Dee Williams, Eddie Albert and Vic Marrow, Frankie showed not only his dramatic ability, but also his capacity for working “against type”.
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