[ WEEKEND ]

PHOENIX PRODUCTIONS Two hit songs from the movie "Grease" -- "Hopelessly Devoted to You" and "You're The One That I Want" -- were not part of the "Grease" stage shows. This touring company got the rights to use the songs so audience members can sing along to those hits. Above, Frankie Avalon doing "Beauty School Dropout."

‘Grease’ is word
for Avalon

Danny Zuko a nerd? Most "Grease" fans may disagree, particularly those who've grown up watching John Travolta play the role in the 1978 blockbuster film.

But Frankie Avalon, who'll be reprising his film role of Teen Angel when "Grease" starts its holiday run at the Blaisdell Concert Hall Monday, says that Zuko isn't as hard and cool as he looks.

'Grease' With Frankie Avalon Where: Blaisdell Concert Hall When: 7:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 4 and 8 p.m. Dec. 31, 2 and 8 p.m. Jan. 1, and 2 and 7:30 p.m. Jan. 2 Tickets: $54 and $74, $44 and $64 weeknight and Sunday night performances Call: 591-2211 Note: A 10 percent discount is available to group sales of 20 or more. Call 732-7733.

"As cool as he is, he's really not that cool. That's the fun of the character, I think," Avalon said recently, sounding exactly like, well, the Frankie Avalon who was a teen idol and film actor of the '50s and early '60s. For the past three years, Avalon has been appearing part-time with the national touring company of "Grease," the ever-popular parody of teen flicks fueled by classic rock 'n' roll music. Avalon does "about 12 to 15 cities in the course of a whole year," and, luckily for us, Honolulu is one of those tour stops.

Playing Hawaii during the winter might seem like a no-brainer, but Avalon volunteered that there's more to it than that.

"I've always had a wonderful following in Hawaii. They've always been so kind to me every time I've worked Hawaii. I have a lot of fans there. Hopefully, they'll come and see this show because it's a show for everybody."

Some fans who know "Grease" only as a movie don't know that three of the hit songs most people associate with the musical weren't part of the original stage show but were written exclusively for the film: the title song, "Hopelessly Devoted to You" and "You're the One That I Want." Because of that, they've never been inserted in previous stage productions here.

But starting Monday, this upcoming production will include those three Top 5 hits.

"(Those songwriters) finally let loose and now the songs that you want to hear from the film are in the stage play. ... People who do see this show now are just absolutely satisfied, and (along with) the credibility of me doing 'Beauty School Dropout' (in the show), and doing my post-show (performance), it's just a wonderful evening of entertainment."

PHOENIX PRODUCTIONS The Pink Ladies hit the stage next week in Phoenix Productions' musical "Grease."

THE TOURING CAST stars Derek Keeling and Tiana Checchia as Danny Zuko and Sandy Dumbrowski, with Joe Carney as Kenickie, Bambi Noltimer as Frenchy, Justin Jutras as Doody and Lauren Tartaglia as Rizzo. William Hubscher provides the pre-show entertainment as Vince Fontaine, and Avalon wraps it up with a special solo performance that "takes the audience through my career, from 'Beach Blanket Bingo,' to 'Venus,' to 'Why.'

"I'm going into my third year (of touring with the show), and I don't do it all the time, but what's great about the show is that as soon as you walk into the show, it's happening. As soon as you walk in, you get right into the feel of the '50s."

Avalon's debut single, "De De Dinah," peaked at number 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in 1958. The follow-up, "You Excite Me," apparently didn't excite enough people, as it only got higher than 49. But his third single, the whimsically named "Ginger Bread," reached the number 9 spot, and was followed by a series of hits that included "Bobby Sox to Stockings," "Why" and his all-time biggie, "Venus."

"Venus" topped the chart for five consecutive weeks in 1959, was certified a gold record with sales of over a million copies, and continued to be hugely popular in Hawaii for years afterward. Avalon names it as his favorite as well.

"I know it's the biggest song I had, but still, even to this day, when ... I sing it to any audience, I enjoy the song. It's a wonderful song. It's very melodic, lyrically the message is wonderful, so that's gotta be my favorite."

PHOENIX PRODUCTIONS Danny Zuko sings about his heartache at the drive-in.

UNLIKE OTHER early teen idols like Paul Anka, Ricky Nelson and Fabian, Avalon grew up as a normal teenager, even though he enjoyed music, performed on radio and local television, and played in a band, Rocco & His Saints, with future fellow teen idol Bobby Rydell.

"I went through all the dating and all that other stuff in high school and junior high because I was about 18 or so when I started recording ... I was very serious about music. I studied with the first trumpeter of the Philadelphia Orchestra and really became very serious as a musician. I was first trumpet in (the) All-City (orchestra) and had a scholarship to the Eastman School of Music. I mean, that was my plan, but playing rock 'n' roll in the summertime to make a few bucks is where it all changed."

Avalon and recording session arranger Pete DeAngelis were a successful team for three years. Avalon's star power was big enough for him to do movies. One of them would become something of a cult classic, 1962's "Panic In Year Zero," about a nuclear attack on Los Angeles that has a family fleeing to their usual vacation spot, only to encounter a group of hoodlums.

"Ray Milland was the star, and when they released it, it became a very successful little film. I was talking to the writer and he told me he had an idea for another story. I told him I was interested and he came with a script called 'Beach Party.' And that was it."

"Beach Party" launched the '60s California fun 'n' sun surf genre. A teen-oriented reworking of the successful Rock Hudson-Doris Day romantic comedy format, the movie paired Avalon with grown-up Mousketeer Annette Funicello, and was the first of a series of teen film hits for the stars and B-movie studio American International Pictures.

The two were perfectly matched as the G-rated romantic leads, but Avalon credits AIP with making the movies fun -- for the cast as well as teenage fans.

"We had all seasoned actors, Harvey Lembeck, Robert Cummings, Dorothy Malone, Morey Amsterdam ... and they just let us go. We just had fun. And we had the best director, Bill Asher, he was a boy wonder when he was 22 or 23 years old directing 'I Love Lucy,' so we had great people to work with."

Twenty-five years after "Beach Party," Avalon was on both sides of the camera when he produced and starred in the final sequel to the series, "Back to the Beach," in 1987. It took much longer than he expected to get the film into production. A lucky meeting got things rolling 18 months after he first pitched the project to Paramount.

"Back to the Beach" could've remained in "development hell" until a chance meeting happened. "I went into a restaurant and the restaurant owner came to me and he said, 'Frankie, do you know who's sitting in that booth?' I didn't, and he said it was (studio head) Frank Mancuso, and that his wife was a big fan of mine. ... His wife wants to say hello, so I go over to the booth and I say hello, and in a five-minute conversation ... I said, 'You know, Mr. Mancuso, I'm in business with you ... we're in development with a picture called 'Back to the Beach.' His wife asked what it was about, and I said it's Annette and I and we have a couple of kids, and she said 'I think it's a wonderful idea.'

"Three months later, we were shooting. That's the kind of business I'm in."

COURTESY OF PHOENIX PRODUCTIONS On the cover: "Grease" production.

GETTING BACK to "Grease," Avalon says a lot of what happens in the story -- particularly in the familiar film version -- seems to reflect more of the '50s as experienced by teens in the Midwest or California than from what he saw on the East Coast. The characters, however, "are a lot of the same kind of characters that I knew in high school."

And as for Danny Zuko, Avalon puts it this way: "He tries to be the coolest, but he's really very vulnerable. Yeah, he's got his buddies, and they love cars and they love chicks and all that stuff, but he's really not a cool guy. He's kind of a nerd. He tries to be so cool and he really isn't. He's really a nice fellow."