Darlene Gillespie

Darlene Gillespie
Born	April 8, 1941 (1941-04-08) (age 70) Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Other names	Darlene Valentine

Darlene Faye Gillespie (born April 8, 1941) is a former child actor. She is best known for having been a singer and dancer on the original Mickey Mouse Club television show from 1955 to 1958. Her Irish father and French-Canadian mother were a former vaudeville dance team. When Darlene was two years old, her family moved to Los Angeles, California, where she became a naturalized US citizen in September 1956.

Biography

Early life and career

She was born in Montreal, Canada. At age ten Darlene started singing lessons with Glen Raikes, and at age eleven, dance lessons with Burch Mann, founder of the American Folk Ballet company. She auditioned for the Mickey Mouse Club in March 1955, was hired, and appeared on the show for all three seasons of its original run. She was the show's leading female singer, and starred in the serial Corky and White Shadow during the first season. In the third season, she appeared in the serial The New Adventures of Spin and Marty. She was cast as Dorothy in a musical number from the proposed live-action Disney film, Rainbow Road to Oz, on an episode of the Disneyland television show in September 1957. The movie was never made, and after Mickey Mouse Club stopped filming in 1958, her short career in television was over.

While still with Disney, she made many recordings under the various Disney labels, including an album of fifties rock and roll standards called Darlene of the Teens (1957). She also recorded albums of songs from Disney animated films, such as Alice in Wonderland and Sleeping Beauty. In 1975, she released a 45 rpm record of country songs under the name Darlene Valentine.

Controversy

In December 1998, she was convicted in federal court of aiding her third husband, Jerry Fraschilla, to purchase securities using a check-kiting scheme.^[1] She was sentenced to two years in prison,^[2] but was released after serving only three months. In 2005, she and her husband were indicted on federal charges of filing multiple fraudulent claims in the settlement of a class-action lawsuit.^[3]

References

1. ^ http://www.cnn.com/US/9812/11/mouseketeer.conviction/ CNN.com^{[dead link]}
2. ^ http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B07EEDA143EF931A25750C0A96F958260 Query.nytimes.com
3. ^ http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=entertainment&id=3611739 ABClocal.go.com

• Ex-Mouseketeer could go to P-R-I, S-O-N, CNN.com, December 11, 1998, retrieved August 15, 2006^{[dead link]}
• Former Mouseketeer Will Be Jailed for Fraud, nytimes.com, published March 12, 1999, retrieved August 15, 2006
• Former Mouseketeer Arrested, 6abc.com, November 7, 2005, retrieved August 15, 2006

External links

• Darlene Gillespie at the Internet Movie Database
• Darlene Gillespie profile
• Darlene Gillespie: Walt Disney's Bad Seed Tribute to Darlene Gillespie at Confessions of a Pop Culture Addict

Persondata
Name	Gillespie, Darlene
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	April 8, 1941
Place of birth	Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Date of death
Place of death