Cheryl Holdridge, one of the original Mouseketeers on The Mickey Mouse Club TV show in the 1950s, dead at 64.
Doreen Tracy, another Mouseketeer, announced to the LA Times that the popular Cheryl passed after a two year battle with lung cancer.
Cheryl was selected by George Balanchine to perform for the New York City Ballet Company in The Nutcracker Suite at age nine.
Her first screen appearance was in the 1956 musical Carousel.
Then Cheryl joined the Mickey Mouse Club for their 2nd season in 1956, becoming part of the core group whose faces graced millions of TV sets five times a week.
"She was a good technical dancer, but I think she was picked mostly because she had this angelic look and a great smile; she’s known for her smile," Doreen recalled fondly.
Cheryl also played Wally Cleaver’s GF on Leave it to Beaver and guested on many 60s TV shows including Dick Van Dyke, Bewitched and Hawaiian Eye.
Cheryl retired from TV in 1964 after marrying Lance Reventlow, the son of Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton, who died in a plane crash in 1972.
"She’d walk into the room and this ray of sunshine would happen every time she smiled," Tommy Cole, another Mouseketeer legend, remembered his friend.
M-i-c…Cheryl….C ya real soon…
