Who’s Still Alive From the Original ‘Mickey Mouse Club’ Mouseketeers?
“Come along and sing a song / And join the jamboree! / M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!” Between 1955 and 1959, a group of teens joined Disney’s famous mouse on ABC’s The Mickey Mouse Club, making their first public appearance on July 17, 1955, at the opening day of Disneyland.
Of the dozens of young performers who appeared on the variety show, the “Red Team” comprised the most popular. Many members of the 1955 season’s Red Team are still alive; many others are no longer with us. Get updates on them all below.
Sharon Baird (81)
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After The Mickey Mouse Club, Baird continued working in children’s TV, reuniting with Annette Funicello in Annette and taking roles in Sid and Marty Krofft’s puppet shows H.R. Pufnstuf, The Bugaloos, and Sigmund and the Sea Monsters. She also worked on the 1978 animated film The Lord of the Rings.
Bobby Burgess (84)
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Burgess’ post-Mouseketeer work includes The Lawrence Welk Show, on which his fancy footwork with dancing partner Barbara Boylan got them both regular work. He later married Kristie Floren, the daughter of the show’s accordionist. Now he teaches young dance students through his Burgess Cotillion Program in Long Beach, California.
Lonnie Burr (82)
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Burr racked up dozens of TV acting credits until 2000, with guest roles in The Beverly Hillbillies, Hill Street Blues, Falcon Crest, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Chicago Hope, and Homicide: Life on the Street. He also shared the screen with Funicello in the 1985 TV movie Lots of Love.
Tommy Cole (83)
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These days, the makeup of Cole’s filmography is, well, makeup. He was a makeup artist in Hollywood for more than four decades, working on more than 100 episodes of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and more than 150 of Wings. He earned six Primetime Emmy Award nominations and one win (for the 1979 miniseries Backstairs at the White House).
Darlene Gillespie (84)
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Gillespie continued singing after the show, releasing singles like “Touch and Go” and “April Is the Month for Loving” in the 1970s. She unfortunately faced legal trouble later in life: she served a two-year federal prison sentence in 1999 for buying investments with bad checks and lying about it to the Securities and Exchange Commission, and being convicted on a dozen counts of conspiracy, securities fraud, mail fraud, obstruction of justice, and perjury, The New York Times reported.
Cubby O’Brien (78)
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After taking off his mouse ears, O’Brien became a drummer for The Carol Burnett Show, The Jim Nabors Show, the film Grease, and The Carpenters’ backing band. He has also provided percussion on the Great White Way, having served as drummer for the Broadway musicals Annie Get Your Gun, The Producers, and Gypsy.
Nancy Caldwell (73)
Caldwell left the show at age 13 to go to high school, and after personal setbacks — including the death of her husband in a train accident — she became a dancer and cocktail waitress in Las Vegas. She later opened a dance studio in Vista, California.
Don Underhill (83)
After his Mickey Mouse Club exit, Underhill left the spotlight, and it wasn’t until a 1980 nationwide search for missing ex-Mouseketeers that fans learned he had become a credit manager for a company in Orange County, California. In the 1990s, he ran a resort in Summerhaven, Arizona, that burned down in a fire, and he currently lives in Tucson, Arizona, according to his IMDb biography.
What happened to the other cast members?
Jimmie Dodd, a singer-songwriter whose boyish charm got him the role of The Mickey Mouse Club’s chief Mouseketeer, died of an undisclosed illness at age 54 in 1964.
Roy Williams, the animation artist and entertainer known on the show as “Big Roy” who designed the mouse-ear hat, died at age 69 in 1976, following a heart attack.
Annette Funicello, a teen pop star who joined Frankie Avalon in a series of “beach party” films in the 1960s, died of complications from multiple sclerosis at age 70 in 2013.
Doreen Tracey, the self-described Mousketeers “black sheep” who infamously posed nude in her mouse ears in her adult years, died at age 74 in 2018 after being hospitalized for pneumonia.
Karen Pendleton, who left showbiz after The Mickey Mouse Club and became a board member for the California Association of the Physically Handicapped, died from a heart attack at age 73 in 2019.
Dennis Day, who directed Renaissance and Dickens-themed fairs later in life, disappeared in 2018 at age 76. After his body was found, a live-in handyman pled guilty to criminally negligent homicide, according to the Associated Press.
Johnny Crawford, who moved on from The Mickey Mouse Club with an Emmy-nominated role in The Rifleman, died at age 75 in 2021 after an Alzheimer’s diagnosis.
Mike Smith, who started a home design career in his adult years, died at age 37 in 1982, according to his IMDb biography, which does not list a cause of death.