The world’s oldest teenager died today. Consummate host/producer/television and radio personality Dick Clark passed away today at the age of 82 from what TMZ is reporting as a “massive heart attack.”
My first thought was “He was only 82?” It seems as if he packed twice as many years of living into that time.
Clark began working right out of high school as an office worker at a radio station in NY owned by his uncle and managed by his father. He quickly fell into replacing the vacationing weatherman and doing station breaks. He bounced around radio and television stations until he landed the show that would become synonymous with his name – “American Bandstand.”
“American Bandstand” started in 1952 as a radio show and started as a television show in 1957. In his first on air interview, Clark spoke with Elvis Presley. That iconic interview would set the tone for most of Clark’s career.
Rock-n-roll was new and teenagers would clamber to see the newest acts on “American Bandstand.” Clark’s image, youthful and rather squeaky clean, also drew in parents who still weren’t too sure about this new music genre. The acts that appeared on “American Bandstand” reads like a Who’s Who of music – Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, The Beach Boys, Ike and Tina Turner, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, Simon and Garfunkel, Run-DMC, Michael Jackson, James Brown, Blondie, Patsy Cline, Bon Jovi, Peter, Paul & Mary – the list just goes on and on.
Clark would go on to work Dick Clark Productions and host the game show “Pyramid” and “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.”
Although he was on television since before I was born, Clark never seemed to age. But, eventually his age caught up with him and he suffered a debilitating stroke in 2004. He sort of passed his entertainment torch to Ryan Seacrest, who took up hosting “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.”
Clark was married three times. He divorced his first wife Barbara in 1961. The couple had one child, son Richard. He divorced second wife Loretta in 1971. The couple had two children, son Duane and daughter Cindy. He was still married to third wife Kari at the time of his death.