Actor and singer Frankie Avalon, 84, is opening up about his iconic role as Teen Angel in the 1978 film, Grease.
While speaking to ReMind Magazine for a June 16 interview, Avalon said he wasn't interested in starring in the movie, which originated as a stage musical. According to Avalon, he was familiar with the Broadway musical when his manager approached him to appear in the film.
"I had seen the play on Broadway. I was playing at the Copa Cabana and the production company of Grease that was on Broadway asked me to do a promotional thing because it was about the 1950s. I went to see the play, and I enjoyed it very much," said Avalon. "[Later] I was playing golf, and I came off the golf course and my manager at the time, he said to me, 'I’ve got a script here for you. Paramount wants you in this picture.' I said, 'What’s the picture?' He said, 'Grease.' I said, 'OK, what role?' And he said, 'Teen Angel.' And I thought about it, and I remembered, I said, 'pass.' And he said, 'OK.'"
Avalon said his manager eventually let him know that Paramount didn't want him to pass on the role.
"I came back after the second nine holes, and he was still there. He said, 'They won’t take no. They said they would like to have a meeting with you to discuss it.' I said, 'OK, I’ll go to Paramount,'" said Avalon during the interview. "And I went and had a meeting with Alan Carr [one of the writers] and Randal Kleiser [the director] and Patty Birch [choreographer], and they said, 'Why don’t you want to do this?'"
Avalon said that he let Carr, Kleiser, and Birch know he wasn't interested in doing an impression of Elvis Presley like Teen Angel was presented in the original stage musical.
"I explained how I remembered the play, and it’s an extension of Presley, and I love Elvis Presley, but I’m not Presley with those long sideburns, dressed in black, and so forth. And they said, 'We’ll change it. We’ll put you all in white and we’ll do this and do your style.' I said, 'OK, let’s do it,'" said Avalon to the publication.
Avalon also said his fear of heights caused some issues while filming the scene for "Beauty School Dropout."
"Well, I was up about 25, 30 feet up. There was no railing, and I don’t like heights. Anyway, when they took out the pole in the middle of the top stair, I felt really uneasy, and I yelled, 'Cut. I can’t do this, Randal,'" said Avalon. "I said, 'I’m supposed to be this cool Teen Angel guy and when I walked out, my legs are wobbling.' So he got an idea to put all of these white mattresses all along the side. So if I did fall, I’d fall and go to sleep on a mattress."
The former teen idol also shared his thoughts about his Grease castmates.
"A lot of the people who knew of me, of course, they were younger than I was, but they knew from the Beach Party pictures and all that other stuff. So it was an admiration. It was wonderful," said Avalon while speaking to ReMind. "It was a great feeling, and I think that’s why the character worked. Frenchy was Frenchy (Didi Conn). She was a fan, and I got to know Olivia [John Newton] and [John] Travolta, the whole cast. It was very nice. I was on the set for about six days, rehearsing, and then two days of filming, and that was it."
Conn discussed her experience filming Grease on a 2019 episode of This Morning. According to Conn, she and her castmates "would stay in character all day long, which is great." She also said that her co-stars were afraid of Stockard Channing, who played the abrasive Rizzo, for this very reason.
"We were scared of her," quipped Conn during the interview.
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