A Midlothian-based freelance writer, Martha Steger has received national awards for her journalism, essays, short fiction and poetry. We ended up spending weekends together when she came to New York and D.C. to perform We went to lunch together and had fun, but Annette had to rest and perform, so we didnt have time for anything else., Sullivan never felt like a superstar, even when the Regulars averaged 100 to 150 fan letters a day. But he vividly recalls that one of his fellow gay dancers was thrown onto the El tracks outside the studio, and another popular regular who was gay and often danced with Sullivan was dangled over an elevator shaft.. Once the program went national upon its move to Los Angeles, new host Dick Clark decided that integration was the most responsible move. Weekday afternoons were spent with the kids in Philly, the kids on American Bandstand. Words by Barry Manilow and Bruse Sussman, Were goin hoppin (Hop!) We were like sisters. Prior to the move, Bandstand had sourced many of its up-and-coming acts from Philadelphia's Cameo-Parkway Records. Kenny Rossi and Arlene Sullivan, Bunny Gibson and Eddie Kelly, Pat Molittieri, Carmen Jimenz, Joyce Shafer. REGULARS Gallery 1. And, for me, the kids on Bandstand were all I aspired to be. American Bandstandsrelegation to a weekly schedule stripped it of much of its power as a potential hit song exposer, writes the music historian John Jackson. One show from this first season (December 18, 1957, identified as the "Second National Telecast") is preserved in the archives of Chicago's Museum of Broadcast Communications. The rest, as they say, is history. We may earn a commission from links on this page. In their new self-published memoirs Bandstand Diaries, series regulars Arlene Sullivan, Ray Smith, and Sharon Sultan Cutler reveal that though fans loved to gossip and fantasize about the shows heterosexual pairings, many of their favorites were young gay men and women putting on a show for the cameras. e9.size = "300x250"; The rest is American Bandstand history. They were hurting him. To the left youll find original pictures of some of the Regulars. Sullivan, 74, wrote Diaries with Ray Smith, another dancer who was closeted during his Bandstand years. Carole Ann Scaldeferri Spada, 70, of Newtown Square, a regular dancer on American Bandstand from 1957 to 1961, has died. In an interview with the New York Post, Sullivan says that she and many of the gay male dancers would congregate in the Gayborhood, Rittenhouse Square, and there were rumors that Clark sent producers to spy on them. This version was canceled after 26 weeks, and its final show (with The Cover Girls performing "My Heart Skips a Beat" and "We Can't Go Wrong") aired on October 7, 1989,[37] thus ending the show's 37-year run.[38][39]. I still have my HI-FI sitting against a wall between my living room and dining room. Years later, when Clark was asked whether any of the dancers had died of AIDS, he stated that one had, Smith recalled. The combined impact of Bandstand's move to California and the Beatles' arrival devastated Cameo-Parkway and inflicted permanent damage to the artists signed to the label.[9]. She tracked them down for the new coffee-table book, Bandstand Diaries: The Philadelphia Years, 1956-1963. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) Another time, a dancer was thrown onto the subway tracks. A case in point is Arlene Sullivan, a popular Regular who has described her own emerging lesbian sexual orientation, which she says was masked by her dance partnerships with boys. "My heart hurts," said Gibson, a regular from 1959 to 1961. How a Beloved Tori Amos B-Side Transformed 'Of An Age'. , True love Finally, we got away and jumped over the turnstile. Many other Bandstand alumni from the show's Philadelphia era were overcome with a rush of memories Wednesday. One time, Kenny and I went to visit one of the other regulars up in North Philadelphia, and we were leaving her apartment and were headed to the El, and I heard car doors slamming, and I looked back, and all these guys were coming up the steps, and they started beating up on Kenny, Sullivan says. Don and Bunny had two daughters: Angel and Maria and four grandchildren: Lea & Christopher Di Vello, Alexis Karanzalis & Nicole Weiss. Don Travarelli, from South Philly, watched American Bandstand in 1961 and spotted Bunny Gibson dancing. You want to know about the guy! We would roar, roll over with pain from laughing so hard. As WFIL grew financially and the account became less important, Stewart wasn't needed and was eventually dropped from the program. The TV exposure, plus the profiles some of the dancers were given in Teen magazine in the late 1950s, made them instant celebrities. . So Bandstand really did change her life in many ways. News Shows American Bandstand aired five days a week in live national broadcast until 1963, when the show moved west to Los Angeles and began a 24-year run as a taped weekly program with Dick Clark as host . 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. M Marsha Early American Bandstand Wallet type photos of Dancers/Regulars Sisters Mary Rosalie Susan 50s Susan Beltrante (on left) and Mary Beltrante on the right. He needed a group to show up every day, she says, and nobody got paid. Cameraman Vince Gasbarro said: "Horn was old-looking. She knew Chubby Checker and Fabian from South Philadelphia High School. Like Rick Pierce, Bandstand dancer Sandra Mae Dawson, who died Feb. 25, 2008, at age 66, was into car racing. Five-foot-two, brown-eyed, brown-haired Arlene and handsome Kenny, a year younger, were among the TV music shows elite, its stars, the vaunted regulars along with another couple often on camera pert, blond Justine Carrelli and suave Bob Clayton. Hey, our thanks to Laura Branigan for joining us here on American Bandstand today. Parents across America would never, NEVER have allowed their kids to put Bandstand on, she writes. . document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Copyright 2023 Ross Media Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Bandstand debuted in Philadelphia in 1950 and took on its familiar format two years later. The Top 40 hits that everyone heard were matched with fun routines performed by relatable teenagers. Due to the size of the studio, the need to have as much dance space as possible, and the size of the cumbersome color camera compared to the black-and-white models, it was only possible to have one RCA TK-41 where three RCA TK-10s[4] had been used before. I didnt know what I was doing and decided I cant do this, and I called my dad and asked him to come get me, she says. REGULARS Gallery 3. American Bandstand Fundraiser Pictures, To my knowledge, no VHS tape of American Bandstand is commercially available. When ABC picked up the game show Do You Trust Your Wife? To many of you, it was about the music and the artists. ", California residents do not sell my data request. The Monday-night version aired its last program in December 1957, but ABC gave Clark a Saturday-night time slot for The Dick Clark Saturday Night Beech-Nut Show, which originated from the Little Theatre in Manhattan, beginning on February 15, 1958. 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. The "ab" logo was replaced with the iconic stylized "AB" logo (shown at the top of this page) used for the remainder of the show's run. It featured teenagers dancing to Top 40 music introduced by Clark; at least one popular musical actover the decades, running the gamut from Jerry Lee Lewis to RunD.M.C.usually appeared in person to lip-sync one of their latest singles. The reality behind the scenes ofAmerican Bandstandwas quite different than what viewers saw on national television. Come and join us two weeks from today for an hour version of American Bandstand on Saturday, September 19. Ray Smith was one of the shows secretly gay dancers. They wrote thousands of letters. Hosted by Bob Horn as a television adjunct to his radio show of the same name on WFIL radio, Bandstand featured short musical films produced by Snader Telescriptions and Official Films, with occasional studio guests. This historical marker recalls Dick Clarks American Bandstand, which was broadcast from West Philadelphia from 1957 to 1964. The use of videotape allowed Clark to produce and host a series of concert tours around the success of American Bandstand and to pursue other broadcast interests. Browse celebrity nostalgia on our website. we were like a little family together, and we all had something in common, and we all stuck together, and that made it easier for us.. The new legislation effectively ended payola in the music business.2, American Bandstandtoo weathered the payola storm. . [3] Horn was temporarily replaced by producer Tony Mammarella before the job went to Dick Clark permanently. But for the gay kids, the abuse at home was worse: When one dancer's parents learned he was gay, she told the Post, "they put a drinking cup in front of him and said, This is your cup, and youre the only one who will use this cup." Another was thrown out of the house. ", Songs she liked to dance to, Mrs. Spada wrote online in June 2010, included "Little Darlin'," "Sixteen Candles," "Tears on my Pillow," "Splish Splash," "Never on Sunday," and "Let's Do The Stroll.". Dick Clark, in full Richard Wagstaff Clark, (born November 30, 1929, Bronxville, New York, U.S.died April 18, 2012, Santa Monica, California), American television personality and businessman, best known for hosting American Bandstand. He would dance on the show until early 1960. This incarnation was an early version of the music video shows that became popular in the 1980s, featuring films that were the ancestors of music videos. Thankfully we've come a long way since those sad days. Watch video clips of the American Bandstand dancers here. I never had a crush on her. When ABC picked the show up, it was renamed American Bandstand, airing its first national show on August 5, 1957. 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. My favorite dance was the Jitterbug the last dance where people danced together. 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. Everybody knew the names of The Regulars on Bandstand. //-->. "Bandstand's Backyard". Dancing was a major feature of Bandstand. I did get to know Annette Funicello [a Mouseketeer on the original Mickey Mouse Club], who came to the show. A storybook ending to a tale that began with American Bandstand, albeit 40 years ago. It also was a prototype for musical television properties including cable channel MTV and Fox's reality-competition show American Idol. Mixed REGULARS Galleries. Bob Horn Host (Bob Horns Bandstand), Bandstand Boogie 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 only singer to ever co-host the show with Dick Clark was Donna Summer, who joined him to present a special episode dedicated to the release of the Casablanca film Thank God It's Friday on May 27, 1978. Larry Elgart, a bandleader who, with his brother, Les, recorded the theme song for the long-running television dance show "American Bandstand," and who later scored a surprise hit with "Hooked on Swing," a medley of swing classics set to a disco beat, died on Tuesday in Sarasota Fla.He was 95. June Bouche on November 20, 2018 at 9:12 pm . One market not telecasting Bandstand was Baltimore, Maryland, as local affiliate WAAM (now WJZ-TV) elected to produce a local dance show in the same afternoon time slot. "He made me feel that if you want something in life, you have to be serious about it.". I knew all their names. . Never, did I ever think that I would be with him, holding his hand when he passed away. Known then as Carole Scaldeferri, Mrs. Spada was among the teens who jitterbugged and slow-danced their way to fame in a TV studio in Philadelphia, while host Dick Clark spun what are now oldies. .When he spoke to us off-screen, it was usually from the podium; it gave him command over his domain, and as I have learned over the years, Clark liked and wanted to be in command.4, Smith recalls the closetingof American BandstandsLGBT youths. This started with "'65", then "'66", "'67", "'68" and "'69" when each year arrived. And then they leave the show, go up on the El, go home to their neighborhoods, they then had to run to their door because somebody was always waiting there to beat them up.. American Bandstand only allowed dancers from 14 to 18. Rossi was straightbut Sullivan, many of her female co-stars, and most of the young male dancers were not. She danced the "push" - a "type of jitterbug . He retained his youthful looks through the 1980s, burnishing his reputation as Americas Oldest Living Teenager. Dick Clark died at age 82 in Santa Monica. Teen idol Bobby Rydell, whose music career is still going strong 60 years after American Bandstand, wrote the books introduction; but former Regular Arlene Sullivan, who shares her memories and personal images, is a standout as well as a co-author of the book. Zach Shallcross Struggles to Watch Himself Dancing Terribly on The Bachelor, Alison Brie on Sex Scenes: 'We Are Actors, This Is Our Job'. Albeit 40 years ago we 've come a long way since those sad days away! Went to Dick Clark permanently the young male dancers were not kids put... Hand when he passed away have allowed their kids to put Bandstand on, she writes the scenes Bandstandwas... 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