Confessions of an Accidental Mouseketeer
Lonnie Burr
2010
BearManor Media
460 pages
$26.95
I purchased the book through Amazon.
Lonnie Burr will always be known as one of the original Mouseketeers and lasted through all three seasons. His autobiography is the story of how his unwilling participation on the Mickey Mouse Club has been a benefit and a curse throughout his entire life. Even though Lonnie really didn’t want this job (he had his heart set on another series) as an experienced professional actor he knew when he didn’t have a choice. So he took the role or face being blackballed by a nasty casting director.
We learn that Lonnie was frustrated at times because there were only two professional actors out of twenty-four that were signed to the first year of the Mickey Mouse Club. He was one of them. The others were amateurs that were selected specifically for this show.
Lonnie had been performing professionally on television, in movies, and on stage for years. He was waiting to hear if he scored the staring role in My Friend Flicka when he was cast in the Mickey Mouse Club. It started as just another gig. He was hired to provide vocals for some recordings. Lonnie always considered himself an actor first, then a dancer and singer. The Mickey Mouse Club producers like what they saw and offered Lonnie the role. He tried to pass until a run in with a casting director. So he signed the 7-year contract. He didn’t know what this Mouseketeer thing was going to be and he felt it would hurt his future career as a serious actor.
Lonnie felt he was much smarter than most entertainers and moved through school very quickly. He was in 11th grade by age 13 and his SAT score was just under 1600. He graduated from high school at age 14 and got his M.A. at 20. He would have gotten his M.A. a year earlier but got in a fight with the head of the UCLA Theatre Department. Both of his parents tried show business. His mother figured if she couldn’t make it in show business her son could certainly become a star. His mother became his agent.
He really had a thing about being called Precocious, which was often. As defined, Precocious means “Unusually advanced or mature in development, especially, mental development.”
He even tried to commit suicide by the age of 20.
Since he left Disney, he had produced and written plays, published books on poetry and comedy, performed on Broadway, and had his Mouse Ears placed in the Smithsonian Museum of American History.
Lonnie describes himself as quite the ladies man and the book chronicles his many relationships. He even went steady with Annette from November 1955 through part of January 1956 before she moved on to one of the cameramen and then Guy Williams who played Zorro. On the occasion of Lonnie loosing his virginity, at that special moment, his lover yelled out “Oh, oh, Mike!” This devastated Lonnie.
Working on the Mickey Mouse Club was hard. He describes the average workday as 8 hours a day for 6 days per week. You worked for four hours performing, rehearsing, recording, costumes, and make up with three hours for school. One hour for lunch. The school was located in a famous red trailer set up next to Studio 1.
Lonnie really didn’t appreciate the Disney experience until the surge in popularity caused by the series being rerun on the Disney Channel in the 1980s. He worked on the 1980 Mickey Mouse reunion special in front of the camera and behind the scenes. But he always seems to be consistently at battle with Disney over pay and expectations. He is very critical about a number of Disney-related folks including fellow Mouseketeers.
By Lonnie’s own description, he felt he was the only Mouseketeer Mensch. He defines this as “a decent, mature and responsible person.” As one of the only real professionals, he felt the other Mouseketeers were unsophisticated in show business finances and were often taken advantage of by Disney. He claims that it was only because of his actions that the other Mouseketeers got certain benefits and payments. Because he stood up to the Company he was frequently not invited to participate in MMC activities.
He has run into trouble with “over-zealous” Disney security on two occasions. The first experience was in the 1970s and he had paid his own way into the park. It was a very hot day and a female security guard who claimed his shirt was unbuttoned to low accosted him. He pointed out that she was being was arbitrary and unfair and noted that a young woman in line just in front of him was exposing much more. This did not go well and he paid a visit to the backstage jail.
In the 1980s, he was doing a show along with Cubby and he tried to enter through the Ball Street gate as instructed. They were denied entry. Lonnie He felt they were singled out because they had long hair and beards. They inevitably made it through after a bunch of phone calls had been made.
The book spends more time on Lonnie’s life before and beyond Disney than on his Mickey Mouse Club experience. This book is a no-holds barred take on his life, his loves, and his opinion’s about everything from religion to politics. If somebody did him wrong in the past he uses the book to set the record straight.
Of course, I was most interested events and impressions related to the Mickey Mouse Club television show. The book goes well beyond those experiences, as it should since it represents some 60 years of performing professionally. With this in mind, the book gives a unique perspective on one of the most influential television shows in history.
