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Doreen Tracey

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Doreen Tracey
Tracey in Mickey Mouse Club (1957)
Born
Doreen Isabelle Tracey

(1943-04-03)April 3, 1943
St Pancras, London, England, UK
DiedJanuary 10, 2018(2018-01-10) (aged 74)
Thousand Oaks, California, U.S.
NationalityBritish–American
Occupation(s)Actress, performer
Years active1953–2018
Spouse
Robert Washburn
​
​
(m. 1961; div. 1962)​
Children1

Doreen Isabelle Tracey (April 13, 1943 – January 10, 2018) was a British-born American performer who appeared on the original Mickey Mouse Club television show from 1955 to 1959.

Early life

Tracey was born in St Pancras, London, England.[1] Her parents, Sidney Tracey and Bessie Hay, were an American vaudeville dance team that performed for Allied soldiers during World War II.[2] Her father's original name was Murray Katzelnick. He emigrated to the United States from Russia with his Jewish parents as an infant.[2]

Career

When Doreen was four, her family returned to the United States, where her father first ran a nightclub, then opened a dance studio in Hollywood, California.[3] She learned to dance and sing at an early age, courtesy of the many instructors and performers who worked out at her father's studio.[4] Her first professional work was an uncredited singing and dancing bit in the musical film The Farmer Takes a Wife (1953).[4] At age twelve she auditioned for the Disney's Mickey Mouse Club and was hired. She appeared for all three seasons of the show's original run.[1]

In 1956, Tracey was featured in the Disney western Westward Ho, the Wagons!, and in the third season of the Mickey Mouse Club, had a role in the serial Annette.[4] She was cast as Scraps, the Patchwork Girl, in a musical number from the proposed live-action Disney film Rainbow Road to Oz on an episode of the Disneyland television show in September 1957.[3] The movie was never made, and when the Mickey Mouse Club was cancelled in 1958, Tracey switched to singing live at concerts and teen nightclubs.[5]

Tracey appeared on several television programs, including the episode "April Fool" (April 1, 1959), of ABC's The Donna Reed Show, with James Darren in a guest-starring role as well.[5] She ended her career as a performer by touring American military bases in South Vietnam and Thailand and performing lead vocals for a rock group called "Doreen and the Invaders".[6]

Tracey later worked as a publicist at Warner Bros. Records where she promoted acts including Frank Zappa and the Doobie Brothers. For awhile, she was also an amateur weightlifter.[4] Tracey twice posed nude for the sex magazine Gallery in 1976, and again, in 1979; as a result, she was excluded from Mouseketeer reunions and official Disney functions for several years thereafter. She later reconciled with Disney and expressed regret at having posed for the photos. [6] In 2001, an excerpt from her memoirs, Confessions of a Mouseketeer, was published in the NPR anthology I Thought My Father Was God.[6]

Personal life

Tracey married Robert Washburn and had a son, but the marriage ended in divorce.[2] In 2018, after having cancer for two years, Tracey died of pneumonia at a hospital in Thousand Oaks, California at the age of 74.[3]

References

  1. ^ a b "Doreen Tracey, one of the original Disney Mouseketeers, dead at 74". CBS. January 13, 2018. Retrieved January 15, 2018.
  2. ^ a b c "Doreen Tracey Profile". The Original Mickey Mouse Club Show. Archived from the original on January 12, 2018. Retrieved January 12, 2018.
  3. ^ a b c Barnes, Mike (January 11, 2018). "Doreen Tracey, an Original Mouseketeer, Dies at 74". The Hollywood Reporter. ISSN 0018-3660.
  4. ^ a b c d "Doreen Tracey, Disney Mouseketeer, Dies at 74". Time. January 13, 2018. Archived from the original on January 13, 2018. Retrieved January 15, 2018.
  5. ^ a b "Doreen Tracey, an original Disney Mouseketeer, Dies at 74". Lima, Ohio. Retrieved January 14, 2018.
  6. ^ a b c Marble, Steve (January 11, 2018). "Doreen Tracey, original Mouseketeer who found a second career with Frank Zappa, dies at 74". Los Angeles Times.
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