Lonnie Burr - 76th pick as a Disney Legend

My 76th pick is former Mousketeer Lonnie Burr. The following was taken from his Wikipedia page and from the website The Original Mickey Mouse Club Show. In 1955 he was signed to a seven-year contract by Walt Disney Studios as one of twenty-four original Mouseketeers. He was made a member of the show's first string unit, the Red Team, and appeared in the show's Roll Call and Alma Mater segments daily for the first two seasons. (A facial injury suffered during rehearsal kept him off-camera during the filming of Roll Call and Alma Mater for the third season). While on the show Lonnie performed in skits and musical variety numbers, both as a soloist and with others. He was generally acknowledged to be one of the show's three top dancers and his slightly husky singing voice caused other Mouseketeers to nickname him "The Velvet Smog" for at twelve he also resembled "The Velvet Fog", singer Mel Tormé.

Lonnie was a smart, confident kid, and that persona projected to the audience. He was the only male Mouseketeer that kids at home considered cool. Annette also felt this way about him, and the two were an item (a real couple, not one of the studio arranged matches) for a brief time.

Lonnie has his own web site, on which visitors can learn about the details of his long pre- and post-MMC careers. He also has given more published interviews than anyone but Annette on the subject of the Mickey Mouse Club, in most of which he has been quite frank. You can read more in his 2009 memoir, Confessions of an Accidental Mouseketeer. This sometimes brutally candid work has engendered more than a bit of controversy since it was published.