DICK CLARK:DICK CLARK, who has died aged 82 following a heart attack, used the fledgling mediums of rock'n'roll and television to make himself a household name in the US – and a vast fortune.
Never one to shy away from the public eye, he continued to make appearances on his New Year’s Rockin’ Eve countdown celebration even after suffering a stroke in 2004.
He had produced and presented the show from Times Square since 1972, and took pride in supplying what the mainstream audience wanted. His promotion of music that appealed to teenagers went back to the 1950s, with the start of American Bandstand.
Clark was born in Bronxville, New York, and grew up in Mount Vernon. His uncle owned the radio station WRUN-AM, which his father ran. Clark loved radio and worked at the station as a teenager, and after gaining a business degree from Syracuse University he returned there. Though at first Clark had no interest in rock’n’roll, he realised there was money to be made so he found out what was happening in youth culture. The first national broadcast of the renamed American Bandstand came in August 1957, on ABC.
Clark presented a clean-cut, non-threatening image and succeeded in taking rock’n’roll into the living rooms of middle America.
He enforced strong standards on Bandstand. Girls were not allowed to wear slacks or tight sweaters, and the boys had to wear a jacket and tie. Smoking and chewing gum were not allowed. When the programme went national, Clark ended its “whites only” policy and included black youngsters among those dancing. Clark and ABC were surprised when nothing was said about this move towards integration, and Bandstand introduced many black artists to a pop audience.
In February 1958, the Dick Clark Show received a slot in ABC’s Saturday night line-up. It featured established and new acts and was broadcast live from New York before going to other cities.
The following year a US Senate subcommittee began investigating payola. Investigators found Clark had partial copyrights to 150 songs, many of them played on Bandstand. There were also ties to 33 related businesses, including publishers, recording companies and pressing plants.
Clark admitted accepting a fur stole and jewellery from a record company president. Although he was only admonished for this transgression, ABC told Clark to give up his outside businesses or leave the network. Clark sold up and continued presenting Bandstand, helping bring everything from new dances to the Supremes and Temptations to a pop audience.
Rock culture eventually outgrew Clark and, while continuing to host Bandstand, by the 1970s essentially a pop programme, he began producing hit TV shows, enjoying great success as host for the 1970s game show that started as $10,000 Pyramid. Dick Clark’s TV Bloopers and Practical Jokes, various music awards shows and a range of TV and film productions helped make him one of the richest men in entertainment.
In 1993 Clark was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. His wife, Kari, and two sons and a daughter from his first two marriages, which had ended in divorce, survive him. – (Guardian service)
Richard Wagstaff Clark, entrepreneur and television presenter, born November 30th, 1929; died April 18th, 2012