The DA announced his indictment of Horn and Allison at the same press conference, in October of 1956. ABC Photo Archives/ABC via Getty Images. Although Clark was relatively new at his job, he took a strong stand and told the affiliates that hed make no changes to meet their objections and so blacks did appear, but infrequently. If Clipp couldnt get those people, he nevertheless could steal their format. These kids invented new dance steps and made The Bunny Hop and The Bristol Stomp popular. Black kids were turned back at the entrance without any explanation. I danced there until 1972 and the policy remained the same. 3 Who were the original dancers on American Bandstand? In this part of the story well see what Bob Horn did that ended his career and also caused the ABC network and its Philadelphia affiliate to ignore the 50th anniversary of the programs start. Four months later, Horn was arrested on morals charges. On Thursday, for the first time in a quarter century, 27 of the original Bandstand dancers, including Joe, Kenny, Arlene, Carole, Flossie and Jim, reunited to rehearse their steps for a rock n roll celebration over Labor Day weekend in Philadelphia. Any place theres dancing, Ill still go, said Joe Fusco, who was 15 when he joined the show. Some of the kids would jitterbug in an impromptu fashion while Grady and Hurst played popular records on the air. According to show-business contemporaries of his, Horn was a free-swinging, hard-drinking man who smoked several packs of cigarettes a day. This show debuted on television from 2:45 to 5 p.m. on October 7, 1952. The Inquirers publisher supported the work of the House Un-American Activities committee and its crusade against Communist sympathizers in the entertainment field. When questioned as to why a married man would do this, Horn responded by saying that Lois knew many of his friends and drifted into the same pattern as I did. Because of the sex accusations, the drunk-driving and a jail term, there was no chance hed get another chance on the air in Philadelphia. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". Dick Clark took over as host in 1956, and the show made its network debut on ABC-TV on Aug. 5, 1957. Original Bandstand Members Back In Philadelphia To Boogie Well, Blanc won his election, and that was the reason for all this, wasnt it? Famous Hooks had known Clark for 40 years and says he never saw the man so upset. Horn didnt act like a star, he says. Theres a new kid working in the record library, he told his listeners, and listen to the junk he picked for me. Then Menefee came into the record room and said he hoped I wasnt angry with him for making me the butt of his joke. When Horn was arrested for drunk-driving on June 21, 1956, hardly anyone aside from station staffers and music industry insiders knew about his sexual life, and it didnt come to light even then. When the TV program American Bandstand passed its 50th anniversary, there was no commemoration. One singer who appeared on his show says Horn was a loud-mouth smart-ass with an appetite for girls. Other acquaintances use words like arrogant and self-centered. American Bandstand: West Philadelphia's Seven-Year Wonder This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Recalling the days when a secretary handled her fan mail, Arlene Sullivan of Washington Township, N.J., said, They still remember, they still remember.. Horn led a double life that included activities his virginal dancers never dreamed of. Of course it never was. Some blacks complained that these cards were sent mainly to all-white parochial schools, but I cant find evidence of that. The show gave many new music artists their first exposure to national audiences, including Iggy Pop, Ike & Tina Turner, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Stevie Wonder, Prince, Talking Heads , Simon & Garfunkel and Madonna. For example, Bernie Jacobs, the man who ran the modeling agency and set Steve Allison up with his accuser, also arranged modeling jobs for Lois, Horns accuser. Who created the TV show American Bandstand? Barbara Marcen, a white regular, remembers a day when one black teenager tried to slow-dance with a white girl. But he was an ambitious politician. David Bowie. For my After you got a committee card you didnt have to wait in line to get into the show. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent. Horn asked his dancers to recommend new songs. The engineers and announcers looked on with a mixture of envy and horror, and none of them reported what they saw to management. Several wore miniskirts, others donned sneakers and pedal pushers. I was so innocent that I thought they wouldnt stand in our way. American Bandstand 1961 4th Anniversary Show (Partial 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. Watch for Part Two of our copyrighted story, which involves an election for District Attorney and the campaigns emphasis on teenage sex with radio and TV personalities. If ABC had not been the poorest of the networks, unable to provide daytime programs to its affiliates, Bandstand would never have been born. He also came up with the idea of a teenage committee, because Horn wanted to insure that a core group of good dancers would show up every afternoon. But they werent there. I used to see Horn with the young girl, Lois, when she accompanied him to the station for his 11-to-midnight radio show. Original Bandstand Whose Culture? I just wanted it to feel timeless: I dont want to look back in like 20 years and be like, Shes a glamazon. Her beauty came courtesy of makeup artist to the stars Pati Dubroff. He later became a Hollywood screenwriter. Soon after the show went on the air, Horn met a 13-year-old girl at the station and they began a sexual relationship. ET. But when I got closer to the aisle, I looked up and thought:Is that Stephen Sanchez? With Clark, the program became more popular than ever. List of acts who appeared on American Bandstand - Wikipedia Lois testified that Horn took her to apartments where she willingly had sex with him, and she specified four dates starting in 1953 when she was 13. My dad, Elliots dad, and Elliots best friend, Jack, gave incredible speeches. WebAmerican Bandstand 1957 & 1968 - The Stroll, The Diamonds YouCanDanceToit! Horns radio program was called. I dont think anyone kept them out; they just didnt come., Bunny Gibson was a dancer on the show for two-and-a-half years in the mid-50s. Clark revamped Horns show for national broadcast by ABC. 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. WebAmerican Bandstand (TV Series 19521989) cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more. That belief is persuasively challenged by recent scholarship:American BandstandThe Philadelphia Way not only excluded black teens from the show but also represented black dances as having originated on the show with its white dancers. Bourgeois Tagg. The makeup for the entire weekend is super-simple and clean, Sofia says. Still, within hours after his DUI arrest, Horn was suspended from, Channel 6, WFIL, was owned by Walter Annenberg, whose newspaper, the, Horn described his pattern of hanging at a bar with song-pluggers and music publishers every evening after. This, however, was basically a talent show and dancing was secondary. These happenings would never have become known if one man had just listened to Maxines restrictive instruction. They surprised me with balloons and all of my favorite breakfast foodswe were like giddy little girls getting excited for the day to come.. One example is Bob Menefee, the top-paid disc jockey at WIP. It was similar to Philadelphia's American Bandstand. After awhile, the producers decided that they wanted to change the image of the show, so they created a new policy. Harris replaced the Kefauver footage with a new opening that he shot with Vic Blanc talking into the camera and warning the public of the dangers of sex. Horn usually brought an entourage of men with him to the studio, and sometimes additional girls. Blanc boasted that he had smashed the ring in local aspects and the FBI would clean up the interstate angles. Bow Wow Wow. On the day that Allison was indicted, he was about to receive an award for public service from the City of Philadelphia. In the course of his probe Blanc discovered connections between many disparate people. See production, box office & company info, Bandstand Boogie (The Theme of 'American Bandstand'). WebAmerican Bandstand (1952-89) was a massively popular music television program with strong Philadelphia roots, storied national success, and the power to shape the music For seven years kids had been coming to WPEN at 1522 Walnut Street and riding the elevator to spend a couple of hours at their club, which was a small studio without windows. 6 Who were the first guests on American Bandstand? Now, older and a little less svelte, theyre back in the city where it all began to recapture their glory days. Breakfast ended at around 11 a.m., and the group went straight into hair and makeup. Every day after school, we would head for the TV studio which was near my high school , For those of you that question or challenge this please try and recall a scene from the shows in Philadelphia where the girls were not wearing Catholic school uniform dresses and the boys were not wearing the white shirt and tie Catholic school boys uniform. Before long there were black kids dancing as regulars and American Bandstand was one of the few television shows where I would get to see black people as artists. By coincidence, on Saturday afternoon February 8, 1964, the day before the Beatles first appearance on Ed Sullivan, American Bandstand had its inaugural broadcast from Walter Annenberg, who owned WFIL and the Philadelphia Inquirer and TV Guide, asked his station manager, Roger Clipp, in the summer of 1952 to try a dance program aimed at teenagers. The show would air immediately after school when kids were home without parental supervision. The district attorney phoned Klein as a personal courtesy, and to serve the public interest. Yet, as the third and fourth stories in this collection show, there was a downside toAmerican BandstandsPhiladelphia years., The longstanding popular belief aboutAmerican Bandstand, promoted by Dick Clark in the later years of his career, is that the Philadelphia version of the show racially integrated the Studio B dancefloor and bleachers. And two, a scandal at another Philadelphia station. All the brides other jewelry pieces were by Fred Leighton. Horn signed some of them to his own record label which he started with the help of a group of businessmen and musicians including Nat Segall, Artie Singer, Bernie Lowe and Harry Chipetz. The Beach Boys were already the kings of (Harris is the man who, in the western suburbs of Philadelphia, produced the film The Blob one year later.) Off-camera his personality was abrasive, egotistical and aggressive. Public high schools were more integrated 72% white when Bandstand started, according to Philadelphia School District statistics, while blacks were 28% while Asians and Latinos were less than 1%. 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 Tele On one of those jobs Lois gave oral sex to one of the Allison crowd for $40 and on another job had sex with a man for a hundred dollars, all this when she was 15 and in the midst of her relationship with Horn. 'American Bandstand' Couple Justine Carrelli and Bob And the blacks were in the back and by the time we were about to get in, it was full. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Horn ended his career working in Texas using a pseudonym. In the course of his probe Blanc discovered connections between many disparate people. So Horn, in a way, was the good guy who had no ethnic prejudice and who had blacks and whites in equal numbers in the early days of Bandstand. Clarks daily afternoon program pioneered in musical television by showcasing a range of black and white pop music performers, including R&B, rock n roll, and country. It is entirely hand-beaded, Sofia says. Vogue may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. American Bandstand: West Philadelphia's Seven-Year Wonder Now Dick Clark It said that his guests that night were movie star Denise Darcel and crooner Johnny Desmond and that he went home immediately after the broadcast. With 37 continuous years on the air, this was the longest-running weekly popular music showcase TV program in the world. He was very friendly. This show debuted on television from 2:45 to 5 p.m. on October 7, 1952.
