Nancy Abbate Caldwell (born June 19, 1942) [1] is an American former actress and dancer who was a Mousketeer on the first season of The Mickey Mouse Club . She left entertaining to become a dance teacher.
Caldwell was born Nancy Lee Abbate in Los Angeles. [1] [2] When she was 7 years old, she began taking dancing lessons. She progressed from a local dance instructor to studying with Louis Dupron, a dance director for a Hollywood studio. Dupron later arranged an audition for Caldwell for a part in the film Love Is Better Than Ever , and she got the role. [3]
In 1954, Caldwell was picked to be a Mousketeer for the first season of The Mickey Mouse Club. She left after that first year, partly because of rivalries and jealousy among the Mousketeers and partly because she wanted to do other work. [3] Soon after she left, she had an uncredited role in the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis film Artists and Models (1955). [4] She also appeared in the films The Farmer Takes a Wife and Courage of Black Beauty. [5] She was a member of the cast of the pilot episode of The Ray Bolger Show on television, but her part and others were recast for the regular series. [3]
Following her husband's death when she was 16, Caldwell worked in nightclubs and made some TV commercials, [2] then moved with her baby to Las Vegas, where she worked as a cocktail waitress and danced in casinos and clubs, saving money in hopes of opening a dance studio. [3]
After having a successful dance studio in Las Vegas, [5] Caldwell moved to Vista, California, [6] and opened Nancy's Dance Studio in 1982. [5] Its success led her to open another studio with the same name in Temecula, California, in the early 1990s. [6]
Caldwell married when she was 16 years old. Three months after the wedding, she was six weeks pregnant when her husband died in a train crash. [3]
The Mickey Mouse Club is an American variety television show that aired intermittently from 1955 to 1996 and returned to social media in 2017. Created by Walt Disney and produced by Walt Disney Productions, the program was first televised for four seasons, from 1955 to 1959, by ABC. This original run featured a regular, but ever-changing cast of mostly teen performers. ABC broadcast reruns weekday afternoons during the 1958–1959 season, airing right after American Bandstand. The show was revived three times after its initial 1955–1959 run on ABC, first from 1977 to 1979 for first-run syndication as The New Mickey Mouse Club, then from 1989 to 1996 as The All-New Mickey Mouse Club airing on The Disney Channel, and again from 2017 to 2018 with the moniker Club Mickey Mouse airing on internet social media.
Fantasia is a 1940 American animated musical anthology film produced by Walt Disney Productions, with story direction by Joe Grant and Dick Huemer and production supervision by Walt Disney and Ben Sharpsteen. It consists of eight animated segments set to pieces of classical music conducted by Leopold Stokowski, seven of which are performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra. Music critic and composer Deems Taylor acts as the film's Master of Ceremonies who introduces each segment in live action.
Clarabelle Cow is a cartoon character created by The Walt Disney Company. As an anthropomorphic cow, Clarabelle is one of Minnie Mouse's best friends. She was once depicted as the girlfriend of Horace Horsecollar, although now she is often paired with Goofy.
Marion Davies was an American actress, producer, screenwriter, and philanthropist. Educated in a religious convent, Davies fled the school to pursue a career as a chorus girl. As a teenager, she appeared in several Broadway musicals and one film, Runaway Romany (1917). She soon became a featured performer in the Ziegfeld Follies.
Ann-Margret Olsson, credited as Ann-Margret, is a Swedish-American actress, singer, and dancer with a career spanning seven decades. Initially gaining notoriety in 1961 as a singer with a sultry, vibrant contralto voice, she quickly rose to Hollywood stardom.
Annette Joanne Funicello was an American actress and singer. She began her professional career at age 12, becoming one of the most popular Mouseketeers on the original Mickey Mouse Club. In her teenage years, Funicello had a successful career as a pop singer recording under the name "Annette". Her most notable singles are "O Dio Mio", "First Name Initial", "Tall Paul", and "Pineapple Princess". During the mid-1960s, she established herself as a film actress, popularizing the successful "Beach Party" genre alongside co-star Frankie Avalon.
Cheryl Lynn Holdridge was an American actress, best known as an original cast member of The Mickey Mouse Club.
Juliet Anne Prowse was a British-American dancer and actress whose four-decade career included stage, television and film. She was born in Bombay then of British India, raised in South Africa, where her family emigrated after World War II. Known for her attractive legs, she was described after her death as having "arguably the best legs since Betty Grable."
Juanita Dale Slusher, better known by her stage name Candy Barr, was an American stripper, burlesque dancer, actress, and adult model in men's magazines of the mid-20th century.
Doreen Isabelle Tracey was a British-born American performer who appeared on the original Mickey Mouse Club television show from 1955 to 1959.
Sharon Baird is an American actress, voice actress, singer, dancer and puppeteer who is best known for having been a Mouseketeer.
Cathleen Scott is a Los Angeles Times and New York Times bestselling American true crime author and investigative journalist who penned the biographies and true crime books The Killing of Tupac Shakur and The Murder of Biggie Smalls, both bestsellers in the United States and United Kingdom, and was the first to report Shakur's death. She grew up in La Mesa, California, and later moved to Mission Beach, California, where she was a single parent to a son, Raymond Somers Jr. Her hip-hop books are based on the drive-by shootings that killed the rappers six months apart in the midst of what has been called the West Coast-East Coast war. Each book is dedicated to the rappers' mothers.
Mickey Rooney Jr. was an American actor. He was the eldest son of the actor Mickey Rooney, and operated the Rooney Entertainment Group, a film and television production company. He was a born-again Christian who had an evangelical ministry in Hemet, California.
Mary Jane Frehse, was an American actress, singer, and dancer.
Antonia Christina Basilotta, better known by her stage name Toni Basil, is an American singer, choreographer, dancer, actress, and director. Her cover of the song "Mickey" topped the charts in the US, Canada and Australia and hit the top ten in several other countries.
Nancy Walters was an American model, actress and minister.
Joyce Holden was an American film and television actress.
The Cactus Kid is a Mickey Mouse short animated film first released on May 10, 1930, as part of the Mickey Mouse film series. It was the eighteenth Mickey Mouse short to be produced, the third of that year.
Eva Lee Kuney Grover Feldman was an American child actress, dancer, and draftswoman. She appeared in her first film at the age of 18 months and performed in numerous uncredited film roles.
Melinda Ann Plowman, also known as Melinda Ann Casey and Melinda Casey, is an American actress and associate director. She began her acting career at age 6 and appeared in feature films and television episodes through the 1960s. In the 1970s, she became a member of the Directors Guild of America and worked as an associate director through the 1990s.