Annette Funicello succumbs to Multiple Sclerosis

In the midst of a year long penny campaign to raise awareness of and funds for research into causes and treatments of progressive Multiple Sclerosis (MS) former Mouseketeer and popular singer/ actor Annette Funicello succumbed to the illness.

She turned 70 in October and that's when the campaign began on her behalf.

Funicello was diagnosed with MS at the age of 37 and recently underwent an experimental procedure to try to slow the progression of the disease.

Not long after receiving her initial diagnosis of the chronic, often-debilitating disease of the central nervous system, Funicello founded the Annette Funicello Fund for Nerological Diseases research foundation and became an active spokesperson and advocate for MS research.

She died this morning at Mercy Southwest Hospital in Bakersfield, Walt Disney Co. spokesman Howard Green said.

Her many fans will remember her as one of the original child actors on the popular TV program The Mickey Mouse Club in the 1950s and for the series of beach movies she starred in opposite Frankie Avalon in the 1960s.