NATCHEZ — Most of America will probably remember Annette Funicello for her Mouseketeer days or as the queen of the “Beach Party” movies.

But Natchezian Chick Graning remembers Funicello as a “down-to-earth, normal, sweet girl,” despite her movie-star status.

Funicello, 70, died Monday from complications of multiple scelerosis.

Graning met Funicello in 1961 while Funicello was in Atlanta promoting her film “Babes in Toyland.” Graning was a senior football star at Georgia Tech and was pulled out of class with the rest of his teammates for a photo-op with Funicello.

“The rest of the team had heard of her,” Graning said. “I had no idea who she was.”

Graning said he met Funicello, as well as her mother and younger brother.

“They were the nicest people,” he said.

Georgia Tech headed to Birmingham, Ala., for a game against the University of Alabama the next day. During the game, Graning’s upper jaw was broken, skull fractured and three teeth knocked out when he took an elbow under his single-bar facemask.

A few days after the injury, Graning said, Funicello sent him a wire that said she was sorry to hear about his injury.

“Within an hour, I got a phone call from her,” he said. “We talked, and I told her I really appreciated her calling and thought it was so nice of her.”

A few days later Graning received a letter from Funicello.

The letter, which Graning keeps tucked away in an old magazine in which Funicello was featured, is written on stationery from the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver, Colo.

In the letter, Funicello wrote she was sorry to hear about the injury, thanked Graning for the autographs he and his teammates signed for her brother, told him she was stuck in bed with the flu and wrote about where she was headed next.

“We ended up writing for about two or three years,” Graning said.

The Hollywood tabloids back then would have you believe that there was romance between Funicello and Graning, but Graning is quick to say that was not the case.

“It was just a very dear friendship,” he said.

The two went to dinner once and dinner and dancing another time, but Graning said they never really dated.

But Graning said his teammates liked to kid him about his friendship with the movie star.

When Graning arrived in Jacksonville, Fla., for the Gator Bowl, after a magazine article romanticcally linked Graning and Funicello together, Graning said his fellow players met him with a few jokes.

“When I walked in, they were all wearing Mickey Mouse ears,” he said laughing.

The letters exchanged over the years allowed the two to keep up with what was going on in one another’s lives.

“It was nice to know someone in showbiz, and I think it was nice for her to know someone not in showbiz,” he said.

Funicello recorded an album of college fight songs and included Georgia Tech’s song on the record. To get around saying “hell” on the record, someone substituted in heck and rewrote the lyrics to rhyme, Graning said.

“So it said ‘To heck with Georgia Tech,’” he said. “So I wrote her and told her that wasn’t right … and they redid the whole record.”

As Funicello’s career continued and Graning joined the U.S. Army and then went on to play professional football, the letters eventually stopped.

“There was no parting of ways; it was just a friendship that got lost as life goes on,” he said.

Funicello went public with her multiple sclerosis diagnosis in 1992, and after learning of her illness, Graning said he tried to get in touch with her.

“Just well wishes from an old friend,” he said. “But nothing ever reached her.”

Graning said he will always remember Funicello as a very dear friend.

“She was just a down-to-earth, very normal, sweet and pretty young girl,” he said.