That follows shortly.
Los Angeles (CNN) -- Annette Funicello, one of the best-known members of the original 1950s "Mickey Mouse Club" and a star of numerous 1960s "beach party" films, died Monday at a California hospital, the Walt Disney Co. said.
Funicello, who was 70, "died peacefully from complications due to multiple sclerosis, a disease she battled for over 25 years," the Disney statement said.
"We are so sorry to lose Mother," her three children said in a statement. "She is no longer suffering anymore and is now dancing in heaven. We love and will miss her terribly."
Funicello was just 13 when she was selected by Walt Disney himself to be one of the original Mouseketeers of the "Mickey Mouse Club," the 1950s television variety show aimed at children.
Funicello, who had a background in dance, quickly became one of the most popular Mouseketeers.
She "was and always will be a cherished member of the Disney family, synonymous with the word Mouseketeer, and a true Disney Legend," Disney chairman and CEO Bob Iger said.
She remained with Disney after leaving the "Mickey Mouse Club," appearing in TV shows including "Zorro" (1957), "The Nine Lives of Elfego Baca" (1958) and starring in the Disney feature films "The Shaggy Dog" (1959), "Babes in Toyland" (1961), "The Misadventures of Merlin Jones" (1964) and "The Monkey's Uncle" (1965).
The most enduring images of Funicello, though, may be of her in a swimsuit, her primary wardrobe when she co-starred with teen idol Frankie Avalon in beach party movies in the early 1960s. These included "Beach Party" (1963), "Muscle Beach Party" (1964), "Bikini Beach" (1964), "Beach Blanket Bingo" (1965), and "How to Stuff a Wild Bikini" (1965).
Although she started out in a more modest version, each movie revealed a bit more, leading eventually to Funicello in a bikini.
The movies helped sell her music. Funicello had Top-40 hits including "Tall Paul," "First Name Initial," "How Will I Know My Love," and "Pineapple Princess." Along with the singles, she recorded several successful albums, including "Hawaiiannette" (1960), "Italiannette" (1960) and "Dance Annette" (1961).
Funicello reunited with Avalon in 1987 to star in "Back to the Beach," in which the two former teen idols played as parents of a pair of troublesome teenagers. Avalon and Funicello followed the movie with a nostalgic concert tour in 1989 and 1990, singing their hits from the 1960s.
"We have lost one of America's sweethearts for generations upon generations," Avalon said of her death. "I am fortunate enough to have been friends with Annette as well as appear in many films, TV and appearances with her. She will live on forever, I will miss her and the world will miss her."
"She will forever hold a place in our hearts as one of Walt Disney's brightest stars, delighting an entire generation of baby boomers with her jubilant personality and endless talent," Iger said in a statement released Monday. "Annette was well-known for being as beautiful inside as she was on the outside, and she faced her physical challenges with dignity, bravery and grace. All of us at Disney join with family, friends, and fans around the world in celebrating her extraordinary life."
Funicello moved with her family from her birthplace of Utica, New York, to Los Angeles when she was 4.
Walt Disney saw her dancing the lead in "Swan Lake" at the Starlight Bowl in Burbank when she was 13. Disney asked her to audition for a new children's TV series he was developing called "The Mickey Mouse Club." She was hired on the spot to become a Mouseketeer, Disney's statement said.
She became the viewers' favorite soon after the show debuted in October 1955. Although only three original seasons were produced, the show continued to be see in reruns for another four decades.
Doctors diagnosed Funicello with multiple sclerosis, a degenerative neurological disease, in 1987. She kept the illness a secret until 1992, the year she established The Annette Funicello Research Fund for Neurological Diseases. The charity, which is still active, supports research into the cause, treatment and cure of multiple sclerosis and other neurological diseases.
Funicello made few public appearances by the late 1990s as she became more debilitated by the disease. She lived under the care of her second husband Glen Holt, a rancher she married in 1986.
She had three children -- Gina, Jack Jr. and Jason -- from her first marriage to Jack Gilardi, which ended in 1981.
"It hurts me deeply in the passing of Annette," Jack Gilardi said. "She was such an important love in my life and blessed me with three beautiful children. I will remember her always and she will live in my heart forever."
Tributes and accolades for Annette, as well as Margaret Thatcher and Roger Ebert, are both deserved and inevitable, given their "celebrity".
Celebrity, though, like any status has a shelf life.
Put another way, those of us who grew up listening and watching Roger, witnessing Mrs. Thatcher's service to country and world and watching Annette and Cubby and Karen and Jimmie and Roy and company feel the myriad emotions that result from both experiencing the loss of someone familiar and feeling that nudge that unfailingly accompanies these kinds of passings, the nudge of awareness that our own finish line is just a little bit closer than it was yesterday.
But, those who know of Mr. Ebert and Mrs. Thatcher and Ms. Funicello only from archival footage or parental chit chat or whatever news they've heard in the last couple of days will be aware only that three people who were, at one time, well known, have died.
And while they can easily comprehend those passing intellectually, there is, obviously, no reason for them to feel any emotional connection.
Understandable. And totally fair.
I didn't really spend much time mourning the loss of Marilyn Monroe when she died in 1962.
I was eleven.
That said, it occurred to me today that the passing of Annette Funicello, in particular, was worthy of more than just a predictable obit sprinkled with a respectful and loving dose of tribute and accolade.
Because there is something both noteworthy, and ironic, about this particular shuffle off the mortal coil.
For pretty much her entire life, Annette Funicello was not only a celebrity, but a role model for young women, first, as a child entertainer who brilliantly walked the fine line between wholesome and lame, then, as a young actress whose movies are, in fairness, relics of their time, but whose personal presentation always managed to walk the fine line between sexy and slutty and then, in the third act, as an inspiration to anyone and everyone who find themselves living a life wearing the yoke of physical challenge.
And in each, and every case, for the duration of her life, she lived that life with style, grace, class and a spirit that only the most cynical would think unworthy of aspiration.
In a world of celebrity that today offers up Lohans and Hiltons and Kardashians or even second generation Mouseketeers like Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera as the standard of style and, God forbid, role modeling, only those of us who grew up listening and watching Annette can fully appreciate the difference.
And those of us old enough to remember the funny hat with the big round black ears that we simply had to have feel both a special kinship with the lady who just left us...
...and a little extra melancholy at the caliber of celebrity that remains.
Oh...and the irony?
The accolades and tributes being offered up in honor of Annette Funicello will, at least in so far as today's young celebrity watchers are concerned, fall pretty much on deaf ears.
While those of us who know better will think fondly, and wish Godspeed, to the lady who first inspired us to hurry home every afternoon to put our ears on.
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