Happy 80th birthday to Shelley Fabares (Michele Ann Marie Fabares, b. 1944).
For reasons of age (youth for once) my fandom for this star of film, television and the recording arts went backwards — I liked her a great deal on the sit-com Coach (1989-1997), one of her very last credits, without knowing of her extensive show biz pedigree.
The niece of Nanette Fabray, she was already taking tap lessons at age three, and was a professional actress and model in films and TV by her tweens. She’s one of the kids in The Bad Seed (1956), plays a girl named Twink in Rock, Pretty Baby (1956) with Sal Mineo, and was one of the main cast members on The Donna Reed Show (1958-64).
In 1962 she had a major #1 hit single with “Johnny Angel” which changed her profile considerably. For a good hunk of the ’60s she starred in youth oriented films like Ride the Wild Surf (1964) with Fabian, Hold On! (1966) with Peter Noone of Herman’s Hermits, and three movies with Elvis: Girl Happy (1965), Spinout (1966) and Clambake (1967). In 1964 she married Lou Adler, producer of The Mamas and the Papas, The Grass Roots, Cheech and Chong, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Starting in the late ’60s, most of her roles were in television. Among her scores of tv credits some notable ones include the weepy classic Brian’s Song (1971, presaging the football setting of Coach), and regular roles on the series The Little People (1972-74) with Brian Keith, The Practice (1976) with Danny Thomas and Didi Conn, Highcliffe Manor (1979), and One Day at a Time (1978-84). In 1980 she divorced Adler. Four years later, at age 40 she married Mike Farrell of M*A*S*H.
A couple of years after Coach went off the air, Fabares contracted a severe case of hepatitis requiring a liver transplant. She has been mostly retired in the years since.