Doreen Tracey

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 1955-59.

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

(1943-04-13)April 13, 1943
St Pancras, London, England, UK
DiedJanuary 10, 2018(2018-01-10) (aged 74)
Thousand Oaks, California, U.S.
NationalityBritish–American
OccupationActress, performer
Years active1953–2018
Spouse(s)
Robert Washburn
​
​
(m. 1961; div. 1962)​
Children1

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, she 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]

She 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 official Disney functions and Mouseketeer reunions for several years thereafter.[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

She married Robert Washburn and had a son, but the marriage ended in divorce.[2] Tracey died of pneumonia as a result of a two-year battle with cancer, at the age of 74.[3]

References
  1. "Doreen Tracey, one of the original Disney Mouseketeers, dead at 74". CBS. January 13, 2018. Retrieved January 15, 2018.
  2. "Doreen Tracey Profile". The Original Mickey Mouse Club Show. Retrieved January 12, 2018.
  3. Barnes, Mike (January 11, 2018). "Doreen Tracey, an Original Mouseketeer, Dies at 74". The Hollywood Reporter. ISSN 0018-3660.
  4. "Doreen Tracey, Disney Mouseketeer, Dies at 74". Time. January 13, 2018. Retrieved January 15, 2018.
  5. "Doreen Tracey, an original Disney Mouseketeer, Dies at 74". Lima, Ohio. Retrieved January 14, 2018.
  6. 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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