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- 500 Attend Wedding of BobbyRydell
- 1000 Wait Outside
- By CLIFFORD LINEDE~KER
Philadelphia Inquirer Staff
Thc kids in front of the Stella
Maris School Saturday were singing bits from "The River Is White" and talking
about the novie "Bye Bye Birdie."
Inside, an the church at the rear of the school at 10th and Biglcr Sts., the South Philadel.phia singer who recorded the song --and
starred in the movie was being married.
Bobby Rydell, 26, better known to his family and
friends as Robert L. Ridarelli, was marrying Camille Quattrone, 25, a pretty. dark
haired payroll clerk at Oscar Meyer & Co.
PREDICTION TRUE
True to a prediction he made in a 1961 interview when he wai an 18 year.old rock and roll sing er, his bride Is "a
South Philadelphia girl who can cook Italia! rood."
The bride,
whom he describas his childhood sweetheart and her
parents, Daniel anc Helen Quattrone, live at 2536 S 10th St., "just around the cor
ner" from the former home of his parenti, Adrio and Jennie Ridareili. His parents now
live at 917 Bryn Mawr Ave., Penn Valley.
- 1000 WAITNG
The people of South Philadelphia—those who know the hanc some
blond singer as Robert Ridarelli and those who know him only as Bobby Rydell—were at the church Saturday morning. About
1000 of them—children, sub-teens, women
in slacks and bouses, dresses and a few~men in open-neck shirts—were waiting outside
Maeys 10 A. M.. Then the bridegroom drove by .with best man, Joseph Sapienza, cousin; .bis bride's brother lel, Jr.: and Joseph Diaco and IDavid Piscitella,
friends.
- CROWD AVOIDED
- The party drove to the back door of the school and entered
throug~ a rear door, leaving people like Tom Garmley waiting. Goi*nley who lives in the
Walnut Hotel was there with his camera tr ‘get a picture of Rydell becausi he
is a celebrity.
"She's lovely . . so much prettier than her pictures." cooed a woman in hair curlers pedal
pushers and a flopp~ ~blouse. to a friend as police pushed back the crowd and helped
the bride from the car. "So pretty." said the friend.
- LUCK PRAISED
- "She's lucky," muttered a teenager
with pimples an I, straight shoulder length hair "Bobby
's so skinny and
cute/."
Police helped the bride, in aIull.lenzth gown with long point I ed
sleeves and a-line skirt. and her attendants, gowned in irnperial green chiffon with long sleeves, high necks, fitted bod ices, and
full skirts, through the crowd.
- The bride
's
attendants wee Mrs. Joseph Bettridge, a sister ‘matron of honor; and Mrs. Richard
Gianni, a cousin of the bridegroom: Mrs. Patricia Oaii~ and Mise Connie Diaco,
friends of the bride, bridesmaids.
The crowd was growing.] More than 500 people. masly of them women and
little glrls with imnprnmtu covers of tissue paper stuck to their hair with bobby pins,
jammed Into the cburch. More than 1000 waited outside as Monsignor Edward 3. McLaughlin
conducted the ceremony.
- END IS QUICK
- Then it was over. The bri6e and bridegroom emerged from the church, squeezed througti
the crowd and were off in the Rolls Royce for a reception at the Warwick Hotel and later a
two-week honeymoon in Hawaii.
The crowd b~a~n to break up and police turned to the job of getting a
second couple —Lawrence McGovern, Jr., a field manager for a computer firm, and Jane
Reyer, a secretary, and their party into the church.
"What happened?" asked a. member of the wedding party.
"Did someone get married?"
‘Yes," bubbled a teenager, nearby. "A famous singerFrankie Avalon."
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