Dick Clark

Clark in 1961

In 1952, Clark moved to Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia, where he took a job as a disc jockey at radio station WFIL, adopting the Dick Clark handle.[13] WFIL had an affiliated television station (now WPVI) with the same call sign, which began broadcasting a show called Bob Horn's Bandstand in 1952. Clark was responsible for a similar program on the company's radio station and served as a regular substitute host when Horn went on vacation.[6] In 1956, Horn was arrested for drunk driving and was subsequently dismissed.[6] On July 9, 1956, Clark became the show's permanent host.[6]

Bandstand was picked up by the ABC television network, renamed American Bandstand, and debuted nationally on August 5, 1957.[14] The show took off, due to Clark's natural rapport with the live teenage audience and dancing participants as well as the "clean-cut, non-threatening image" he projected to television audiences.[15] As a result, many parents were introduced to rock and roll music. According to Hollywood producer Michael Uslan, "he was able to use his unparalleled communication skills to present rock 'n roll in a way that was palatable to parents."[16]

In 1958, The Dick Clark Show was added to ABC's Saturday night lineup.[6] By the end of year, viewership exceeded 20 million, and featured artists were "virtually guaranteed" large sales boosts after appearing.[6] In a surprise television tribute to Clark in 1959 on This Is Your Life, host Ralph Edwards called him "America's youngest starmaker", and estimated the show had an audience of 50 million.

Clark moved the show from Philadelphia to Los Angeles in 1964.[6] The move was related to the popularity of new "surf" groups based in southern California, including The Beach Boys and Jan and Dean. The show ran daily Monday through Friday until 1963, then weekly on Saturdays until 1988. Bandstand was briefly revived in 1989, with David Hirsch taking over hosting duties. By the time of its cancellation, the show had become the longest-running variety show in TV history.[6]

In the 1960s, the show's emphasis changed from merely playing records to including live performers. During this period, many of the leading rock groups of the 1960s had their first exposure to nationwide audiences. A few of the many artists introduced were Ike and Tina Turner, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, The Beach Boys, Stevie Wonder, Prince, Simon and Garfunkel, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, Bobby Fuller, Johnny Cash, Sam Cooke, Fats Domino and Chubby Checker.[17][18]

During an interview with Clark by Henry Schipper of Rolling Stone magazine in 1990, it was noted that "over two-thirds of the people who've been initiated into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame had their television debuts on American Bandstand, and the rest of them probably debuted on other shows [they] produced."[19] During the show's lifetime, it featured over 10,000 live performances, many by artists who were unable to appear anywhere else on TV, as the variety shows during much of this period were "antirock".[19] Schipper points out that Clark's performers were shocking to general audiences:

The music establishment, and the adults in general, really hated rock and roll. Politicians, ministers, older songwriters and musicians foamed at the mouth. Frank Sinatra reportedly called Elvis Presley a "rancid-smelling aphrodisiac".[19]

Clark was therefore considered to have a negative influence on youth and was well aware of that impression held by most adults:

I was roundly criticized for being in and around rock and roll music at its inception. It was the devil's music, it would make your teeth fall out and your hair turn blue, whatever the hell. You get through that.[20]

In 2002, many of the groups he introduced appeared at the 50th anniversary special to celebrate American Bandstand.[21] Clark noted during the special that American Bandstand was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as "the longest-running variety show in TV history." In 2010, American Bandstand and Clark himself were honored at the Daytime Emmy Awards.[22] Hank Ballard, who wrote "The Twist", described Clark's popularity during the early years of American Bandstand:

The man was big. He was the biggest thing in America at that time. He was bigger than the president![23]

As a result of Clark's work on Bandstand, journalist Ann Oldenburg states "he deserves credit for doing something bigger than just putting on a show."[23] Los Angeles Times writer, Geoff Boucher, goes further, stating that "with the exception of Elvis Presley, Clark was considered by many to be the person most responsible for the bonfire spread of rock 'n roll across the country in the late 1950s", making Clark a "household name".[16] He became a "primary force in legitimizing rock 'n' roll", adds Uslan. Clark, however, simplified his contribution:

I played records, the kids danced, and America watched.[24]

Shortly after taking over, Clark also ended the show's all-white policy by featuring black artists such as Chuck Berry. In time, blacks and whites performed on the same stage, and studio seating was desegregated.[17] Beginning in 1959 and continuing into the mid-1960s, Clark produced and hosted the Caravan of Stars, a series of concert tours built upon the success of American Bandstand, which by 1959 had a national audience of 20 million.[23] However, Clark was unable to have the Beatles appear when they came to America.[16]

The reason for Clark's impact on popular culture has been partially explained by Paul Anka, a singer who appeared on the show early in his career: "This was a time when there was no youth culture — he created it. And the impact of the show on people was enormous."[25] In 1990, a few years after the show had been off the air, Clark considered his personal contribution to the music he helped introduce:

My talent is bringing out the best in other talent, organizing people to showcase them and being able to survive the ordeal. I hope someday that somebody will say that in the beginning stages of the birth of the music of the fifties, though I didn't contribute in terms of creativity, I helped keep it alive.[19]

In 1960, the United States Senate investigated payola, the practice of music-producing companies paying broadcasting companies to favor their product. As a result, Clark's personal investments in music publishing and recording companies were considered a conflict of interest, and he sold his shares in those companies.[26]

When asked about some of the causes for the hearings, Clark speculated about some of the contributing factors not mentioned by the press:

Politicians . . . did their damnedest to respond to the pressures they were getting from parents and publishing companies and people who were being driven out of business [by rock]. . . . It hit a responsive chord with the electorate, the older people. . . . they full-out hated the music. [But] it stayed alive. It could've been nipped in the bud, because they could've stopped it from being on television and radio.[19]

As reported by a New York Times Magazine interview with Dick Clark, Gene Shalit was Clark's press agent in the early 1960s. Shalit reportedly "stopped representing" Clark during the Congressional investigation of payola. Clark never spoke to Shalit again, and referred to him as a "jellyfish".[27]

Beginning in late 1963, Clark branched out into hosting game shows, presiding over The Object Is.[28] The show was cancelled in 1964 and replaced by Missing Links, which had moved from NBC. Clark took over as host, replacing Ed McMahon.[28]

Clark became the first host of The $10,000 Pyramid, which premiered on CBS March 26, 1973.[29] The show — a word-association game created and produced by daytime television producer Bob Stewart — moved to ABC in 1974. Over the coming years, the top prize changed several times (and with it the name of the show), and several primetime spinoffs were created.[29]

As the program moved back to CBS in September 1982, Clark continued to host the daytime version through most of its history, winning three Emmy Awards for best game show host.[30] In total, Pyramid won nine Emmy Awards for best game show during his run, a mark that is eclipsed only by the twelve won by the syndicated version of Jeopardy!.[31] Clark's final Pyramid hosting gig, The $100,000 Pyramid, ended in 1988.[32]

Clark subsequently returned to Pyramid as a guest in later incarnations. During the premiere of the John Davidson version in 1991, Clark sent a pre-recorded message wishing Davidson well in hosting the show. In 2002, Clark played as a celebrity guest for three days on the Donny Osmond version. Earlier, he was also a guest during the Bill Cullen version of The $25,000 Pyramid, which aired simultaneously with Clark's daytime version of the show.[33]

Entertainment Weekly credited Clark's "quietly commanding presence" as a major factor in the game show's success.[29]

Clark hosted the syndicated television game show The Challengers, during its only season (1990–91). The Challengers was a co-production between the production companies of Dick Clark and Ron Greenberg. During the 1990–91 season, Clark and Greenberg also co-produced a revival of Let's Make a Deal for NBC with Bob Hilton as the host. Hilton was later replaced by original host Monty Hall. Clark later hosted Scattergories on NBC in 1993; and The Family Channel's version of It Takes Two in 1997. In 1999, along with Bob Boden, he was one of the executive producers of Fox's TV game show Greed, which ran from November 5, 1999, to July 14, 2000, and was hosted by Chuck Woolery. At the same time, Clark also hosted the Stone-Stanley-created Winning Lines, which ran for six weeks on CBS from January 8 through February 12, 2000.[34]

In 1972, Dick Clark first produced New Year's Rockin' Eve, a New Year's Eve music special for NBC which included coverage of the ball drop festivities in New York City. Clark aimed to challenge the dominance of Guy Lombardo's New Year's specials on CBS, as he believed its big band music skewed too old. After two years on NBC, and being hosted by Three Dog Night and George Carlin respectively, the program moved to ABC and Clark assumed hosting duties. Following Lombardo's death in 1977, Rockin' Eve experienced a surge in popularity and later became the most watched annual New Year's Eve broadcast. Clark also served as a special correspondent for ABC News's ABC 2000 Today broadcast, covering the arrival of 2000.[35][36][37]

Following his stroke (which prevented him from appearing at all on the 2004–05 edition),[38] Clark returned to make brief appearances on the 2005–06 edition while ceding the majority of hosting duties to Ryan Seacrest. Reaction to Clark's appearance was mixed. While some TV critics (including Tom Shales of The Washington Post, in an interview with the CBS Radio Network) felt that he was not in good enough shape to do the broadcast, stroke survivors and many of Clark's fans praised him for being a role model for people dealing with post-stroke recovery.[36][39] Seacrest remained host and an executive producer of the special, taking over full duties after Clark's death.[40]

Clark's first love was radio and, in 1963, he began hosting a radio program called The Dick Clark Radio Show. It was produced by Mars Broadcasting of Stamford. Despite Clark's enormous popularity on American Bandstand, the show was only picked up by a few dozen stations and lasted less than a year.[41]

Photo of Clark in 1963, pictured with the iconic RCA 77-DX microphone. Clark's ABC radio show was called Dick Clark Reports.

On March 25, 1972, Clark hosted American Top 40, filling in for Casey Kasem.[42] In 1981, he created The Dick Clark National Music Survey for the Mutual Broadcasting System.[30] The program counted down the top 30 contemporary hits of the week in direct competition with American Top 40. Clark left Mutual in October 1985, and Bill St. James (and later Charlie Tuna) took over the National Music Survey.[30] Clark's United Stations purchased RKO Radio Network in 1985 and, when Clark left Mutual, he began hosting USRN's "Countdown America" which continued until 1995.

In 1982, Clark launched his own radio syndication group with partners Nick Verbitsky and Ed Salamon called the United Stations Radio Network. That company later merged with the Transtar Network to become Unistar. In 1994, Unistar was sold to Westwood One Radio. The following year, Clark and Verbitsky started over with a new version of the USRN, bringing into the fold Dick Clark's Rock, Roll & Remember, written and produced by Pam Miller (who also came up with the line used in the show and later around the world: "the soundtrack of our lives"), and a new countdown show: The U.S. Music Survey, produced by Jim Zoller. Clark served as its host until his 2004 stroke.[30] United Stations Radio Networks continues in operation as of 2020.

Dick Clark's longest-running radio show began on February 14, 1982. Dick Clark's Rock, Roll & Remember was a four-hour oldies show named after Clark's 1976 autobiography. The first year, it was hosted by veteran Los Angeles disc jockey Gene Weed. Then in 1983, voiceover talent Mark Elliot co-hosted with Clark. By 1985, Clark hosted the entire show. Pam Miller wrote the program and Frank Furino served as producer. Each week, Clark profiled a different artist from the rock and roll era and counted down the top four songs that week from a certain year in the 1950s, 1960s or early 1970s. The show ended production when Clark suffered his 2004 stroke. Reruns from the 1995–2004 era continued to air in syndication until USRN withdrew the show in 2020.

Clark in 1990

At the peak of his American Bandstand fame, Clark also hosted a 30-minute Saturday night program called The Dick Clark Show (aka The Dick Clark Saturday Night Beech-Nut Show). It aired from February 15, 1958, until September 10, 1960, on the ABC television network. It was broadcast live from the "Little Theater" in New York City and was sponsored by Beech-Nut gum. It featured the rock and roll stars of the day lip-synching their hits, just as on American Bandstand. However, unlike the afternoon Bandstand program, which focused on the dance floor with the teenage audience demonstrating the latest dance steps, the audience of The Dick Clark Show sat in a traditional theater setting. While some of the musical numbers were presented simply, others were major production numbers. The high point of the show was Clark's unveiling, with great fanfare at the end of each program, of the top ten records of the previous week.[43] This ritual became so embedded in American culture that it was imitated in many media and contexts, which in turn were satirized nightly by David Letterman on his own Top Ten lists.

From September 27 to December 20, 1959, Clark hosted a 30-minute weekly talent/variety series entitled Dick Clark's World of Talent at 10:30 p.m. Sundays on ABC. A variation of producer Irving Mansfield's earlier CBS series, This Is Show Business (1949–1956), it featured three celebrity panelists, including comedian Jack E. Leonard, judging and offering advice to amateur and semi-professional performers. While this show was not a success during its nearly three-month duration, Clark was one of the few personalities in television history on the air nationwide seven days a week.[43]

One of Clark's best-known guest appearances was in the final episode ("The Case of the Final Fade-Out") of the original Perry Mason TV series, in which Clark was revealed to be the killer of both murder victims in that episode : an egomaniacal actor during the production of a television show, and later, the producer of that same filmed television show in order to cover up the first murder.[44][45] He appeared as a drag-racing-strip owner in a 1973 episode of the procedural drama series Adam-12.

Clark's most humorous appearance was on an episode ("Testimony of Evil") of Police Squad! in which he asks an informant about ska and borrows his skin cream to keep himself looking young, a parody of the fact that Clark was known for his perennial youthful appearance.

Clark attempted to branch into the realm of soul music with the series Soul Unlimited in 1973. The series, hosted by Buster Jones, was a more risqué and controversial imitator of the popular series Soul Train and alternated in the Bandstand time slot. The series lasted for only a few episodes.[46] Despite a feud between Clark and Soul Train creator and host Don Cornelius, the two men later collaborated on several specials featuring black artists.

Clark hosted the short-lived Dick Clark's Live Wednesday in 1978 for NBC.[47] In 1980, Clark served as host of the short-lived series The Big Show, an unsuccessful attempt by NBC to revive the variety show format of the 1950s/60s. In 1984, Clark produced and hosted the NBC series TV's Bloopers & Practical Jokes with co-host Ed McMahon. Clark and McMahon were longtime Philadelphia acquaintances, and McMahon praised Clark for first bringing him together with future TV partner Johnny Carson when all three worked at ABC in the late 1950s. The Bloopers franchise stemmed from the Clark-hosted (and produced) NBC Bloopers specials of the early 1980s, inspired by the books, record albums and appearances of Kermit Schafer, a radio and TV producer who first popularized outtakes of broadcasts.[45] For a period of several years in the 1980s, Clark simultaneously hosted regular programs on all three major American television networks – ABC (Bandstand), CBS (Pyramid), and NBC (Bloopers).[48]

In July 1985, Clark hosted the ABC primetime portion of the historic Live Aid concert, an all star concert designed by Bob Geldof to end world hunger.[49] During the 1988 Writers Guild of America strike, Clark (as host and producer) filled in a void on CBS' fall schedule with Live! Dick Clark Presents.[50]

Clark also hosted various pageants from 1988 to 1993 on CBS. He did a brief stint as announcer on The Jon Stewart Show in 1995.[51] Two years later, he hosted the Pennsylvania Lottery 25th Anniversary Game Show special with then-Miss Pennsylvania Gigi Gordon for Jonathan Goodson Productions. He also created and hosted two Fox television specials in 2000 called Challenge of the Child Geniuses,[52] the last game show he hosted.

From 2001 to 2003, Clark was a co-host of The Other Half with Mario Lopez, Danny Bonaduce and Dorian Gregory, a syndicated daytime talk show intended to be the male equivalent of The View. Clark also produced the television series American Dreams about a Philadelphia family in the early 1960s whose daughter is a regular on American Bandstand. The series ran from 2002 to 2005.[45]

Clark wrote, produced and starred in the 1968 film Killers Three, a Western drama that served as a promotional vehicle for Bakersfield country musicians Merle Haggard and Bonnie Owens.

Clark also appears in interview segments of another 2002 film, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, which was based on the "unauthorized autobiography" of Chuck Barris. (Barris had worked at ABC as a standards-and-practices executive during American Bandstand's run on that network.)[53]

In the 2002 Dharma and Greg episode "Mission: Implausible", Greg is the victim of a college prank, and he devises an elaborate plan to retaliate, part of which involves his use of a disguise kit; the first disguise chosen is that of Dick Clark. During a fantasy sequence that portrays the unfolding of the plan, the real Clark plays Greg wearing his disguise.[54]

He also made brief cameos in two episodes of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. In one episode he plays himself at a Philadelphia diner, and in the other he helps Will Smith's character host bloopers from past episodes of that sitcom.[55]

With Ed McMahon, Clark was a pitch man for American Family Sweepstakes until he quit over controversy from the company regarding their sales techniques.[56] Though McMahon briefly continued until the company went out of business, Clark's previous issues managing to escape the Payola scandal motivated him to be very sensitive about his public image.

Clark was noteworthy for giving an award to Cyndi Lauper in WWF's The War to Settle the Score event that appeared MTV with Hulk Hogan, Lou Albano, and Roddy Piper. Piper appeared to disagree with Lauper's award, assaulted Albano and Lauper appeared to get caught up in it trying to defend Albano, a real life personal friend. Fortunately, Clark had left the ring at that point.[57]

During an interview on Larry King Live in April 2004, Clark revealed that he had type 2 diabetes.[64][65] His death certificate noted that Clark had coronary artery disease at the time of his death.[66]

In December 2004, the 75-year-old Clark was hospitalized in Los Angeles after suffering what was initially termed a minor stroke. Although he was expected to be fine, it was later announced that Clark would be unable to host his annual New Year's Rockin' Eve broadcast, with Regis Philbin filling in for him. Clark returned to the series the following year, but the dysarthria that resulted from the stroke rendered him unable to speak clearly for the remainder of his life.

On April 18, 2012, Clark died from a heart attack at a hospital in Santa Monica, California, aged 82, shortly after undergoing a transurethral resection procedure to treat an enlarged prostate.[66][42] After his estate obtained the necessary environmental permits, he was cremated on April 20, and his ashes were scattered over the Pacific Ocean.[67]