"After that, it was history.". As previously mentioned, during the 1978 season of Bandstand, Donna Summer became the only music artist in Bandstand's history to co-host the program. The typical production schedule consisted of videotaping three shows on a Saturday and three shows on a Sunday, every six weeks. Clark decided to pitch the show to ABC president Thomas W. Moore, and after some negotiations the show was picked up nationally, becoming American Bandstand on August 5, 1957. The dancers, as Teen wrote, were the "most famous unknowns on TV today. The 1960 amendments to the 1934 Federal Communications Act put heavy constraints on payola, requiring full public disclosure when a record company or its agent pays a broadcaster to play records on the air. The 1960 amendments criminalized any action that breached the disclosure rule. But if you subscribe and leave a comment you want to see the parade, I will do it.Remember to SUBSCRIBE TO MY FEED AS I UPLOAD MORE FROM MY ARCHIVES! BUT he was out for Clark., Sullivan claims there were four other popular girl dancers on the show whom she knew to be lesbians, and they hung out together. I was truly blessed in my life with wonderful family, friends and fans. Director Goran Stolevski talks assembling his gay indie's stellar soundtrack, from The Cardigans to Nelly Furtado and more. On all the music they play On the Bandstand.! Later, in hindsight, I guessed that made me the first white Rosa Parks. My friends went to church dances every Friday and Saturday night. The reality behind the scenes ofAmerican Bandstandwas quite different than what viewers saw on national television. The show was moved to Los Angeles in 1964. Finally, we got away and jumped over the turnstile. ", California residents do not sell my data request. One night at a party I met a girl who was one of the stars on American Bandstand I was blown away.. Ray Smith was one of the shows secretly gay dancers. Sullivan was raised in a rowhouse in a working-class neighborhood; we surmise from her writing that it was somewhere in Southwest Philly (she attended John Bartram High School), although Sullivan doesnt specify a home address. Despite that sense of community, the show's starsgay and straight alikewere targeted in Philadelphia, and even physically attacked in some cases, just for being dancers. Squeaky clean commercial pitchman and deejay Dick Clark inherited Bob Horns locally broadcastBandstandin July 1956 and revamped it for a national audience of teenage consumers as ABCsAmerican Bandstand, which first aired in August 1957. That really annoyed me because quite a few of the Philadelphia dancers on Bandstand died of AIDS, Smith said. That might have had something to do with the scandal that surrounded the departure of his predecessor, Bob Horn, who faced a drunken-driving arrest and morals charges. , True love Elgart's version was released as a single in March 1954 (Columbia 40180) as well as Curb's theme (by "Mike Curb & The Waterfall") in October 1969 (Forward 124). This more-familiar version of Bandstand debuted on October 7, 1952, in "Studio 'B'", which was located in their just-completed addition to the original 1947 building in West Philadelphia.mw-parser-output .citation{word-wrap:break-word}.mw-parser-output .citation:target{background-color:rgba(0,127,255,0.133)}^ , and was hosted by Horn, with Lee Stewart as co-host until 1955. Wagon Train Website, . Clark was determined to keep the homosexuality of popular Bandstand regulars a secret, Smith said. But I didnt have any crushes on any of the straight girls. A show where well-dressed teens gently bop around to the big hits while maintaining an appropriate distance apart hardly seems like it would be a hot bed of sexual experimentation, but American Bandstand apparently featured a crew of Philadelphia kids who had more than dancing in common. The kids designated as American Bandstand Regulars in some cases struggled with their sexual identity. During the segment, two audience members each ranked two records on a scale of 35 to 98, after which their two opinions were averaged by Clark, who then asked the chosen members to justify their scores. In late spring of 1957, the ABC television network asked their O&O's and affiliates for programming suggestions to fill their 3:30p.m. (ET) time slot (WFIL had been pre-empting the ABC programming with Bandstand). (7/21/2011) I just received this from Bunny Gibson and certainly thought it was appropriate to mention here: Anna Russo, formerly Anna Banani, went to American Bandstand 1963 until AB left Philly for Los Angeles, lost both of her legs to diabetes and is in need. "Two or three times during the show, Clark would introduce singers or groups who would lip-sync their latest hits." 2. Clark was out for Clark, says Brancaccio. It got me out of my shell, but I learned I was a regular teenager who happened to dance on a show that unexpectedly became very popular. She tracked them down for the new coffee-table book, Bandstand Diaries: The Philadelphia Years, 1956-1963. Soul Unlimited was not well-received among its target audience of African-Americans, ostensibly due to its being created by a white man (Clark), and because of its alleged usage of deliberately racial overtones despite this fact. . He would dance on the show until early 1960. My parents were always there for me. Variety Shows They wrote thousands of letters. She is a Marco Polo member of the Society of American Travel Writers, a past president of Virginia Professional Communicators and a member of the Virginia Communications Hall of Fame. While ABC wasnt in the quiz show business, a congressional subcommittee found another reason to investigate the network. She calls it her one night out.. NEW PAGE! Then it was hosted by Bob Horn and was called Bob Horns Bandstand.On July 9 of 1956 the show got a new host, a clean-cut 26 year old named Dick Clark. Carole made the world a better place," Gibson wrote on a Facebook page called America's Original Bandstand Dancers. Norman passed away on December 6, 1990. Black music and black dances originating in Philadelphia neighborhoods contributed substantially to the success ofAmerican Bandstand; yetAmerican Bandstandsdancefloor and bleachers were racially segregated, and some of the shows most popular dances were adapted without attribution from black neighborhoods. unsold game show pilots). Dick Clark never played either song on American Bandstand. Kelly said he avoided Rittenhouse Square, knowing if he were seen there, theyd be banished, but it was an open secret that most of the boys on the show were gay. To many of you, it was about the music and the artists. However, advertisers do to enable personalized ads. Back in July, I received a most endearing email from Duke which told of his experiences in life. ". Forget that. Dick Clark took over as host in 1956, and the show made its network debut on ABC-TV on Aug. 5, 1957. Clark joined Bandstand in 1956 and moved with the show to Hollywood in 1964. In March of 1970 we moved to New Jersey. American Bandstand premiered locally in late March 1952 as Bandstand on Philadelphia television station WFIL-TV Channel 6 (now WPVI-TV), as a replacement for a weekday movie that had shown predominantly British films. Dick Clark 1929 2012, Dick Clark with Johnny Crawford. The short Snader and Official music films continued in the short term to fill gaps when dancers were changed during the showa necessity, because the studio could not fit more than 200 teenagers. Two of the regulars, Arlene Sullivan and Ray Smith, published the volume asBandstand Diaries: The Philadelphia Years, 1956-1963,with Sharon Sultan Cutler as a non-Bandstand-member co-author. Unlike Smith, she expresses no animosity toward Clark. His name was Dick Clark and in the next year the show was transformed from a local show to a syndicated. A funeral director in Newtown Square confirmed Monday night that Mrs. Spada had died, but declined to divulge the details before meeting with her family. I have a Champion Samoyed show dog. The first syndicated episode aired on the weekend of September 19, 1987[26] but this run was short-lived; The New American Bandstand ran until the weekend of June 4, 1988. "My heart hurts," said Gibson, a regular from 1959 to 1961. She also mentions a gay dancer who was pushed in the train tracks, and another who was dangled over an elevator shaft. Some of the stories I heard are heartbreaking, Sullivan recalls. [42], Bandstand "regulars" from the Philadelphia years, Move from ABC to syndication and the USA Network, AMERICAN BANDSTAND (1987 Closing Credits - ABC Finale), Laura Branigan - Shattered Glass & Interview - AB (1987). This version introduced lyrics written by Manilow and Bruce Sussman, referencing elements of the series. He debuted in Studio 3B at WFIL-TV, near the El train stop in West Philadelphia, in 1956 when he was a 13-year-old junior high school student. All rock'n roll and most owned by Dick Clark himself. My mother thought I was nuts. There were occasional shows that were not hosted by Clark, in which case a substitute host (among them Rick Azar) was brought in.[6]. They werent playing football. Parents across America would never, NEVER have allowed their kids to put Bandstand on, she writes. American Bandstand, abbreviated AB, is an American music-performance and dance television program that aired in various versions that aired regularly from 1952 to 1989,[1] and was hosted from 1956 until its final season by Dick Clark, who also served as the program's producer. Interracial couples were not allowed on camera, so they sat on the sidelines. Last edited on 22 February 2023, at 03:03, The Dick Clark Saturday Night Beech-Nut Show, Top of newscast salutes to Clark deserved, "Did the Beatles kill America's radio stars? I still really didnt know who I was. . Bunny and Duke met several months ago and now are married. Dick Clarks tight control on the sexual expression of his cast extended to a denial years after the show had ended. The one thing that really shocked me was that those boys who were 14 and 15 and 16 were sleeping with each other," Smith told the New York Post. [3] Jackson,American Bandstand, quote from unpaginated photo section. Like the rest of us, the 'Drag Race' Season 15 queen is crushing on Pedro Pascal. She acknowledges that some of the other girls she knew on the show were also gay. Dick Clark was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland, OH, in 1993 as a non-performer. Numerous black and white performers who appeared on American Bandstand during its seven-year heyday in West Philadelphia are also memorialized in this building. 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