LITTLE ROCK — Dancer on The Mickey Mouse Club
INDIANAPOLIS - Former Mouseketeer
Bonita Lynn Fields Elder, an agile dancer who showcased those skills on the 1950s children’s show The Mickey Mouse Club and later performed on Broadway, has died in Indiana at age 68.
Her cousin Robbin Myers said Tuesday that Elder died Saturday at a Richmond hospital after a two-year battle with throat cancer. Elder had smoked for decades but quit after her diagnosis, Myers said.
Elder had been living in Winchester after moving back to eastern Indiana a few years ago to care for her ailing, nowdeceased mother.
She was 12 in 1957, when her dancing abilities helped her win a slot on the third season of The Mickey Mouse Club. She auditioned in California, where her family hadmoved from Indiana when she was 9.
Elder always went by the name Lynn, but she adopted the stage name “Bonnie” - a shortened version of her real first name - at the suggestion of the show’s producers because there was already a cast member, a boy, with the first name Lynn, her cousin said.
After the original Mickey Mouse Club show ended, Elder continued performing at California’s Disneyland.
According to Elder’s obituary posted online by Doan & Mills Funeral Home in Richmond, she landed bit parts in several 1960s movies, including Kissin’ Cousins with Elvis Presley and Bye Bye Birdie with Ann-Margret. She later appeared as a dancer on television shows and on Broadway before opening a dance studio in Santa Monica, Calif.
Arkansas, Pages 12 on 11/21/2012