This is an IHeart podcast.

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people.

And to search for the Our American Stories podcast, go to the Iheart Radio app to Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts.

Not many teen idols are able to carve a successful career for themselves as they mature,

but Frankie Avalon is one of those exceptions.

Avalon had 31 charting U.S. Billboard singles from 1958 to late 1962,

including number one hits Venus and Y in 1959.

Avalon is also well known for his role in the 1970s musical film Greece as Teen Angel, in which he sings Beauty School Dropout to Frenchie.

Without any further ado, here's Frankie Avalon with his story.

As a young man, young boy, really, growing up in South Philadelphia,

I really started into this business of show business,

unaware of trying to be in show business,

but I became a part of show business at the age of probably,

I don't know, I think about

eight or nine, because in the neighborhood where I lived, was a great neighborhood, a melting

pot for all kinds of nationalities and great friends, and growing up as a boy, boy, it was really

just terrific.

There used to be a movie theater called the Point Breeze Theater.

It was in South Philadelphia, and on a Saturday afternoon,

a lot of the moms used to pack a little lunch and put us in the theater there

so we could watch the cartoons and everything for the part of the day.

...