Darlene Gillespie

Darlene Gillespie (born April 8, 1941) When Gillespie was less than a year old, her family moved to Los Angeles, California. Gillespie has three sisters. Her younger sister Gina Gillespie was a child actress in television and film who eventually became a lawyer.

At age ten, Gillespie started singing lessons with Glen Raikes, She was the leading female singer of the Mouseketeers (opposite the leading male singer Tommy Cole), and appeared on the program for all three seasons of its original run.

As a Mouseketeer, Gillespie was described as being "a vibrant, freckle-faced youngster with more bounce to the ounce than a bottle of soda pop". The 17-episode serial introduced Gillespie as the female teenage heroine Corky Brady, accompanied by a white German Shepherd. A number of songs were incorporated into the plot to showcase young Gillespie's singing talents, most notably "My Pa" and "Uncle Dan".

The second season opened with The Amusement Park showpiece, featuring Gillespie and Bobby Burgess. It was considered a surprise for touching on teen romance and even more so for celebrating a non-Disney amusement park. During the second season of the show, Gillespie shared a Talent Round-Up Day with her three sisters, and was also given her own special feature in the Fun With Music Day episodes Day's End and An Evening with Darlene. In the Fun With Music Day episode Blind Date, Gillespie stars in a comedic role as a geeky teenager waiting for her date. During the third season, Gillespie appeared in the serial The New Adventures of Spin and Marty (1957) with Tim Considine and David Stollery, and was cast in a secondary role as Annette's friend.

Gillespie was cast as Dorothy Gale in a musical number from the proposed live-action Disney film The Rainbow Road to Oz on an episode of the Disneyland television series in September 1957; however, the movie was never made. The serial Annette (1958), starring Funicello, was originally titled Annette and Darlene and co-starred Gillespie. For reasons unknown, the serial was retitled, and Gillespie was replaced by Judy Nugent as Annette's friend Jet. She also did a noteworthy rendition of Elvis' "Love Me Tender".

Legal battle In the late 1980s, Gillespie began a legal battle against Disney and the Screen Actors Guild for royalties and residual payments for record sales and reruns of The Mickey Mouse Club. Gillespie had previously sustained a back injury from a fall that ended her medical career as a nurse. This legal battle strained her relationship with her former Mouseketeers castmates.

Arrests In 1997, she was charged with petty theft for helping her then-fiancé Jerry Fraschilla shoplift four women's shirts. She was found guilty and sentenced to three days in jail and three years' probation. Gillespie, then 56 years old, denied the charges and filed preliminary papers to appeal. The disposition is unclear.

In December 1998, she was convicted in federal court of aiding her, by then, third husband, Fraschilla, to purchase securities using a check-kiting scheme. She was sentenced to two years in prison, 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. The charges were subsequently dropped. Fraschilla died in 2008.

Discography

Disney

Walt Disney's Corky and White Shadow (Official Mickey Mouse Club, 1955) Mouskemusicals (Official Mickey Mouse Club, 1956) I Am Not Now and Never Have Been in Love / Do Mi So (1956) Four Songs From Walt Disney's Cinderella (Official Mickey Mouse Club, 1957) Walt Disney's Perri (Official Mickey Mouse Club, 1957) Walt Disney's Alice In Wonderland (Disneyland, 1957) Darlene Of The Teens (Disneyland, 1957) Four Songs From Walt Disney's Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (Official Mickey Mouse Club, 1958) Songs From Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty (Official Mickey Mouse Club, 1959) Walt Disney's Most Beloved Songs From His Great Motion Pictures (Disneyland, 1964)

Solo

I Loved, I Laughed, I Cried / Ring The Bell, Beat The Drum (Coral, 1960) April Is The Month Of Loving / Grass Grows Round My Feet (Alva, 1973) - "Darlene Valentine" Touch And Go / Both Feet On The Ground (Alva, 1974) - "Darlene Valentine"