Bandstand Days

You Are you tired of watching television on a small postage damn size screen? Are you? What are you watching right now? Seven-inch, ten-inch, twelve-inch? How would you like to see bigger than life? Sixteen-inch television of brand new 1957 once TV Welcome back once again to part number two of American bandstand before we get the activity started once again

The next time you have a thirst in the bullring, here's a man who's got some sound to fight a man How you can be an instant superstar and still just be a kid and have really nothing other than your dancing ability and a look on television That was the instant celebrity they had They were famous, they were as famous as a lot of the television personalities on network television at that time They were the stars of the show, they really were more than the celebrities who came to perform, more than Dick Clark, the kids were the show In those records, let's go show and here goes the Theike GOT to another show Okay, it was 1956 and I was on the air from seven to midnight playing people like Frank Sinatra, Dara's Day, Paddy Page, etc.

And I was hearing about this guy named Alan Fried out of Cleveland who was doing things with a strange kind of music. Hi everybody, how y'all? This is yours truly Alan Fried welcoming you to the big beat once again on radio. And a couple of the record distributors who I was rather friendly with brought me some of these records. In fact, they brought me this kid I had never heard of Elvis Presley on the Sun label long before he got to RCA. And also with the Chuck Berries, the Fat Stomachos, all of these unknown names. I would occasionally take one of these people and sandwich them between Frank Sinatra and Dara's Day. And an amazing reaction to a place. The phone would not stop ringing and it was kids of 14 and 15 and 16 saying, who is that? Where can I buy that record? You are tuned to the 950 Club records and transcriptions and interviews and requests and everything else from the studios of WPEN. Joe Grady had a concept that turned out to be the forerunner of American bandstand and all the dance party shows.

What we did, we would invite kids from high school to come into the studio to dance and be part of the program after school. We were on from three until six at that time and we were in an office building, 22 floors high in the sky. And the kids would come in and dance and we'd have all the name artists there and that was the forerunner. Well, a guy named Bob Horn was here at the WPEN while the 950 Club was going strong. And he saw the crowds of high school kids come in each and every day and dance and have a good time. And he figured these guys are on to something meaning Grady and Hurst. Well, he then went to sell a bill of goods to Channel 6, which was then WFIL TV. He sold the bill of goods that he could play records on television and get kids to dance and that would be the entertainment. For bandstand, it was a perfect setup to turn down because we had these kids right around the corner because of our geographic location.

We had West Catholic High and West Philly High within a five or six minute walking distance to the studio. So we knew that we would get these kids coming in when we publicized the show and that's what happened when the kids started coming in. And this was exciting to see kids that you may know from your own neighborhood dancing on that little screen. And it was the music that the kids liked. Dick Clark was a booth announcer at WFIL radio in Philadelphia. And Dick took over in the summer and he was successful, of course. Now, not to say that Bob Horn was not successful, but there was a difference between the two. Bob Horn, first of all, was older looking. He looked more like big brother, you know. What made Dick Clark successful was he looked like one of them. I mean, he looked like a teenager and I think they identified with him and they considered him as one of us. Rock and roll is here to stay.

Bandstand was the original MTV because it was musical films and it evolved into music for kids. At that time, you get to remember there wasn't any such thing as a teenager. We didn't even have a name for them. And when this came along, it was the focal spot for older people to look in on those kids and see what was going on. And, of course, every kid in the world watched. It was big. When Dick took over the show and the rules were laid down, they made it from 15 to 18. I believe they didn't want anybody too young. And they didn't want the older kids because anything over 18, for instance, were in uniform in those days, sailors and soldiers. And any person at home, the parents would see their 15-year-old daughter dancing with a sailor. It was tough back then. They didn't like that idea at all.

I think they liked Dick. They liked Dick because he'd never looked down on them. He always spoke as if he were one of them. He spoke to them and liked they were adults. We had been trying for a number of years to get ABC to give Bandstand a trial on the network. And they were very reluctant. They just kind of looked down at the idea of a group of kids dancing to records as being a network program. It doesn't sound like a very big production. And in terms of production values, it really wasn't. Again, it was the kids. We got such a response from around the country that Bandstand became a national phenomenon in just that period of time. And what it shows is that television can create a brand name. We were very afraid when we first went on that we would just be a Philadelphia show. And maybe it wouldn't. That was what all the cynics said, who'd want to watch kids dancing to records in Philadelphia?

But so we tried to make sure everybody had something to relate to. The regulars that came, the group was about a group of 30. They would take a few. It changed every once in a while. But the main group was 30. And the reason that they were made regulars was because during the winter and other bad weather a lot of the kids wouldn't come to the show. Dick wanted to be guaranteed that he had some dancers on the floor. So by making these regulars, so to speak, he would be almost guaranteed he would have some kids there no matter what the weather. Because that was the deal it was made. You got to show up. You got to come. I first went to American bandstand, put some girlfriends of mine had gone the day before. And they came into the girls' locker room very excited about this show and what a good time they had. And she would like to go.

And I said, well, I thought you had to be 14 to get in there. And they said, well, you do. And I said, can you make me look 14? And she said, sure. So we messed with my hair and blackened my eyes a little bit and all that. And I still got turned away at the door and went home and cried, why me, for me. And then mother said, well, if you want to get in that bed, you go tomorrow and you take your sister's birth certificate. So that's what I did. Once I was in, I was in. I remember seeing her dance past the screen and I just thought, God, she's just terrific looking. And that was my reason for coming to Philadelphia. And people, if they know this area at the time to get from Wilmick to the Philadelphia, you had to go back up the back end of Chester, which was a truck route. And I was crazy because I would leave my house.

And I think I'd be in Philadelphia in 30 minutes, which it was like an hour and a half ride at the time. And weaving in and out of trucks and everything else to get up there. But that was my main reason to come up and dance with her. I just thought she was the sweetest thing I'd ever seen. And once I got in the studio and saw her face to face, I was convinced that she was the girl I wanted. And I was going to do whatever it took to do that. I was 14 years old. And there was a party in the neighborhood, local kids, and just seeing was there. And I talked to her and I said, Oh, God, I would love to go down there. And I was really shy. But it goes back to when I used to come home from school. My mother would be sitting there. And I'd walk by the TV and she'd say, Oh, look at so and so and look at her and look at this one. And she knew them all by name. And I was amazed. I mean, she didn't even look at me, but she was looking at all these kids. And she knew every one of them.

So I said, Oh, wow. Boy, if I went there, she would really give me a lot of attention that I needed because I was such a shy kid. And I never even danced at the little parties that we had in the neighborhood. I wouldn't get up. I was too shy to get up and dance. I really didn't consider myself a spectacular dancer or any special person. I never thought about being a regular. I went to gawk. I went to watch. And I wanted to see Arlene and Justine and Bob and the regulars that I was watching. And the next thing I knew, I was there every day and became a regular. I got to Bandstand. I used to have this crush on Rosalie Beltranti. And there were three sisters, Mary Susan and Rosalie. And the first day I went to Bandstand, when I actually saw Rosalie in person, it was like she was like this movie star to me. And I just sat frozen for the first couple of days. And then finally, Arlene pulled me out of the bleachers and said, dance with Mary and cough.

And then from there on, I started to become a regular. Well, because when I know when I was a little girl, no matter what I went on in my house, and I would go to sleep, I would dream that there was more out there. I always dreamed that there was more. And whatever that was, the dreams, the hope, the vision pulled me to that show to go and find it. You know, I'd open those doors and it was a wonderful world of fun and happiness and dancing and joy. And I think that there was a part of all of us that all the regulars that had that, something inside of us that we wanted to, the acceptance, the belonging. You're filming. How do you spell your lines? F-D-A-A-P-F-E-R-R-R-O. Brown eyes. How tall are you? Five girls.

You know short? Yeah, about 40 inches. Well, my first year of West Catholic high school was right around the corner from Bandstand. So I thought, I'm going to really work at this. You know, getting in. What do you have to do to get in? So getting out of school at 12.30, I brought my clothes and I stayed in line for two hours, I guess the first couple months. And then someone wrote a letter about me and somehow within six month period I became a regular. I was 13 when I went in, I said I was 14 and I was there until I was 18 years old. So I have one of the longest runs of any of the original American bandstanders. Well, obviously it was important to get along with the people that ran the show, but really in the end it was the audience that made the people, the stars that they were, that the celebrities, that the regulars became. And what it was was showing up every day. Remember, this was a program that was on network television five days a week every afternoon, live. So if you went there five days a week and you went there for three or four years, I mean, it was just like a soap opera. You became part of people's teenage life.

And they, that persistence was a part of it. Yeah, I think a lot of the kids out there who thought they looked just like them, that if these kids who looked like this could be celebrities, at least in the minds of the kids who were watching them, why couldn't they? The ones who were watching, right? It's a total identification. We tried to look like them. We tried to copy them. The girls had a rough time because there was so many West Catholic girls. And they couldn't really come up with the West Catholic collar and the look because the whole thing was the school outfit, but they tried and hair. They copied the hair and Eddie Kelly had this high boo font. I used to use a ton of burl cream and try to look like Eddie Kelly, you know, and then flick it down in front almost like I'll listen. We copied the kids and we copied the dance steps and it was a neat thing because especially where I lived, there wasn't anything around and you'd come home from school and that was like your whole new set of friends. Bandstand goes to American Bandstand like two weeks or three weeks after we met and all we had to do was dance once across the screen and we were tagged America Sweethearts, give mail from 13-year-olds, 18-year-olds, 20-year-olds, grandmothers, great-grandmothers.

The thing of it is if you couldn't get to a dance party in person, yourself, you could attend it in your living room. You know, it just was a great soap opera and the people would see what they saw on camera and make their own perception of it. Sometimes you'd get letters like, well, why did you dance with that other boy last Tuesday on the third dance instead of Bob or something like that, like were you fighting? I think they all identified with us because we were just like them. We weren't professional dancers. We were amateurs. I believe we were just like them. They were going steady with their boyfriends and they identified with us because we were like them. One time I was down the shore, I was about 16 years old and I had sprayed my hair with this red color spray because I wanted to change my appearance and I went in the ocean and my hair turned green.

And I had to go back to the show the next day and ironically I got a letter with these feather earrings. So I was the girl with the green hair and the feathers in her ear and you should see all the bandail I got. It was like a fluke and it was so humorous. It made for such a good copy and Dick Clark made a big deal out of it. When bandstain went national, there were so many teenagers who could relate to us. Who maybe their mom gave them a perm and it came too curly. Some of us showed up like that. Or maybe they were too short. Like I was or they were taller, like Pat Militaire. But you could relate because we weren't these perfectly shaped teenage girls and boys. We were average teenage girls and boys. You know, we got blemishes. We got sometimes crazy haircuts that didn't turn out the way that they should.

We were exploring with makeup, we were exploring with fashion. All these areas that were unknown. We were just going into adolescence. So here's all these other adolescence that are watching a mere reflection of themselves. My fan mail used to get a lot of letters asking me if I was a quaker because they'd never wore makeup. And just didn't have time to put it on. It was too lazy, I guess. But I never wore it and they asked me if I was a quaker. So I think my mother wrote back and said no, we're good Catholics. That was that. My, our famous blonde streaks, actually, I think in the beginning it was black and white. So when we had the streaks, they were really yellow because we had black, black, black hair. And they were yellow, but they showed up white on TV. And that hurt. You know, the bleaching, it hurt a lot. But we had, we had it done in Binghamton, New York where my sister, my oldest sister lived. And once a day, we would do a rating of a record and Dick Clark would pick a new record. And there would be four people that would rate there.

There would actually be three people rating a record. Then one would do the math. And that was the funny part as well. And we would rate it. Well, it was good to dance too. It had a good beat. And that's how we rate a record. We go from zero to 100. Most of them got 85, 90s. But I remember one instance where we did it, three of us agreed on 90. And then the person doing the math came up with 95. And Dick would always look at it because you knew we were never good at math. And he said, how did you guys come up with 95 when there's three 90s? That was before calculators. But actually we didn't make the record. We broke or made a record. And I guess it was marketing them. We didn't even realize it because guess what? If the kids didn't like it, the record doesn't sell. So whether Dick Clark liked the record or Joe Nagar, it was not the issue. It was that whether the kids can dance to it and they liked the beat. This is the spot where the steps are started. The maternity BVM auditorium. That's bustled and avenue and well-trolled. I want to see your face in the place. The music I'll tell you was wonderful to dance to. I certainly got my rhythm out of it. You know, the cha cha, the jitterbug. It was easy to dance to. It was romantic. It was just fun to dance to.

The attraction was the dancing. I loved to dance. And I guess I'm just like everybody else I'd like to be in front of the camera. We used to jockey around to get in front of the camera a lot. And I used to enjoy the people. We were like a family. We started the kids going to dances. We started the new dances. We started the jitterbug, the cha cha, the Bob.

We didn't create the dances. The kids did that or they copied them from another source. The only thing I ever tried to teach him was the Bob. The Bob was something you did with your feet and remind me of a puppet. We did it for maybe about two weeks and then we dropped it. Sometimes we were put into a dressing room or whatever and somebody would show us the newest dances. But usually one person would make some of the dances up and we would all follow suit. And I think they watched the show to see what the new steps were in Philadelphia because they followed Philadelphia. Whatever became big in Philadelphia would spread throughout the entire country. We had this little scrawny television. It was really neat because all of a sudden it was like wow, there's other teenagers out there. So bandstand was on and you'd watch that and you could relate to these other teenagers.

So I would come home, get off the school bus and zoom. I was in the house and the TV was turned on and that's where I stayed. And we got the bandstand till 5 or 530. So I didn't do my homework until the show went off. Good or bad TV, whether the weather was bad and you had bad reception, you watched it anyway. You didn't want to miss number two of American bandstands. I had a babysitter that used to dance with me and she loved bandstands so we would dance together and this was like wow, this is the greatest thing in the world but babysitter that dances. It helped dances to become more popular on the weekends. More and more dances involved, whether they be school dances or publicly held dances. And I think it created an environment a dancing hour for at least three or four years.

And the kids always were so creative. They came up with new and different steps and they gave them names. And sooner or later it rubbed off on you and you brought it and broadcast the thing on the air. And then it rubbed off all over town and eventually spread all over the country. Here we go. Here we go. So the major things I remember when I was on American bandstand was the first dance contest. And the way I remember it, although I didn't know it at the time, ABC television was a little skeptical about how successful the show was going to become so they formed a dance contest on a bandstand to measure the audience response.

It was a jitterbug contest and what they did was they picked a different couple every day. And the first day my daughter and I won and they picked ten couples. And then after that, ten couples were put in place. Everybody got a number every day. We danced every day on the show. After we danced to I think it was rock and roll music by Chuck Berry. We would go up and we would be interviewed and they asked your name and everything and you turn around and show your number. And then the audience would vote for you. At the end of a period of time, it must have been a month or six weeks. It was an extended period of time. The votes came in and there were just millions of them. And which obviously said that this show was just a fantastic success, which it became. There were a lot of the dance contests that were won by these people, by mail invotes. They used to have them where you had a mail in your vote, or popularity contests.

And I think the ones that were most popular won. And I guess that was good for them and bad for us that didn't really have a steady partner to dance with. I used to dance with everybody. I mean I had no special partner, just like to dance. And people would back away to give you room to dance in a place where nobody would ever do that. All the fraternity brothers and their dates would all stand back and give us the entire floor. And if there was prize money involved, hands down. And there was many times I said, I'm not the best dancer here. And I know we're not the best dancers here. But because of the popularity, whatever the prize was, they gave it to you. The kids themselves that were the regulars developed a television sense. They watched the cameras. They knew the tally lights when the tally lights were on the camera was on the air. They would dance towards the tally lights. They developed a unique sense of how to play to the cameras. And when they became celebrities, they developed it even to a higher degree.

And it was quite a spectacle to see these kids dancing around the cameras. We would move to the right. They would move to the right. We would move to the left. They would move to the left. They would circle around the back of us. We would go in. They would come up behind us. So we never, I remember at one time, another cameraman, Ralph D. Cook, going, I developed a system whereby we would form a pincer movement. We would move our cameras in close together. And the couples that were in between were forced to move to the rear because there was no space. After a while, they learned how to get out of that too. First of all, they didn't want to give you a hard time because they wanted to be seen on camera. So it worked both ways. The camera and God love their souls who used to do just magical things to try and get from running us over. And Dick would be at the podium when the music was on. And if you were viewing it, you would see the kids dancing. You would hear the music. What you didn't hear would be Dick would be on the microphone. Betty, get to the back of the studio and get away from the line. And he would just go down the line. Joe, back of the line. Arlene, back of the line. And I mean, that was a given. And the next dance we would do to the front of the line. And Dick would say, get to the back. I mean, that went on every day.

I was an only child. You were an only child. So I guess we just connected in a certain, comforting way. And we probably projected that. We were like a family to each other. Because it was always adding and bunny, adding and bunny, bunting, adding and bunny. You agree? Yeah. No matter who else we dance with, it was always adding and bunny. It was adding and bunny. And now American band stands. This portion brought to you by Crystal Clear sparkling seven up for a fresh, clean taste. Nothing does it like seven up. Welcome back once again to part number two of American band stand before we get the activity started once again. The next time you have a thirst in the bull ring, here's the man who's got some sound advice, a man who knows. They did their own mating game, whether or not they liked one another when they danced with. I think a lot of the kids dance together because they made a good couple.

There's a great story that I won't repeat about two who became very famous who probably didn't care too much for each other, but they were a perfect match. There was a lot of romance on the show Kenny and Arlene, Justin and Bob and before Bob there was Justin and Tex. Now we were very much in love and they came across on the screen. I think that was part of the fascination with us that people would look at us and they could see we were in love at the time. I don't think a dancing partner would bite your neck in this series. The fact in the playfulness of it was different than just kids dancing with kids. If the teenage viewing audience would associate you with a guy or a girl, you know, you were a couple and you know, for some reason they loved that and kids got a lot of a lot of family.

Because of that, Justin and Arlene and a lot of a lot of family. One day I was looking for a dance partner. I was a brazen little girl. I started to get a little brazen and I got popular and I saw this cute little boy in the stands and he was sitting all alone by himself and he was so adorable. And he came down and he danced with me and we kind of like clicked. I liked the way he danced and we could follow one another and we became partners. Sweethearts, like Bob and Justin and I liked him and he was a gentleman and he was the kind of boy that if you had a daughter you would want her to bring Kenny Rossi home at that time. Because he was such a warm, gentle guy.

A lot of people dance with other people, do you agree? It just so happened when you and I danced together, apparently we made an impression to people watching the show. And that's how we became a couple, I guess because both of us were tall and we look good together. You know, we just, it just worked for us, I think. We became people thought of us as a couple wanted to think of us as that and we were really like that but we were a couple of his friends. We were such good friends. My husband watched American bandstaff from his home in Middletown, Connecticut. He was the same age as I and he was fascinated with the show, particularly me. But I never answered fear mail and I didn't, the only reason why I remembered his name is because he did this picture he drew of me. So a lot of years went by, he could never get in touch with me. My phone was never listed, I'm a very private person, I'm very hard to get in touch with. And his mother used to say, that's crazy, why do you think you could, you could end up with a girl? And his grandmother used to say, you never know, you know, God can do it, you never know, it's possible. I was little row because I was small and there was Rosalie Beltrante and she was called Big Row. And she was very popular, she was very pretty and I was going out with Nino Bambino at the time.

And unfortunately he liked Big Row better and he left me for her. Well, tell me a story when you stand with all the guys. Getting in front of the camera, I was the biggest camera hog. I found a way to push everybody out, always in front of the line. I danced with Eddie Kelly, Bob Kelly, Frankie Baca, they were my regular partners, and Alan Durbin. At one time, the host of the show was having a New Jersey party which was on live TV and I was supposed to get out of a lima with my date.

And I only been dating him maybe a week or two and the mic was in front of me and they said, what is your date's name? And I couldn't remember his name. I was more than five. If you give your heart to somebody and you're that much in love with them and you see nothing and you're just blinded, and that's how I was with him. And then all of a sudden, you know, he wants to have fun when I would never look at anybody, when given the time of day. I thought, well, now's the time that I start dating because I really hadn't dated anybody.

You didn't hit me then, you won't hit me now. Wait and read my speech. No, you're very colorful. But I don't want you to get sick when you read it, Bobby. But it just lays it all right out there about how colorful he actually was. Oh, when I'm the type of guy who will never settle down, where pretty girls are. Well, you know that I'm around. You just went through every day. You danced every day. They had contests. They had spotlight dances. And of course, you know, Dick Clark would pick if you wanted you on a spotlight dance. He would pick you and you would pick a partner. And you would be on a spotlight dance. They had contests. I happened to love the cha-cha, and the Jitterbug, which were my two favorite dances. And without sounding pregnant, so I'm hoping I'm not that I did win two cha-cha contests and a Jitterbug contest.

So I guess that helps your popularity, too. I want to trip to California and a TV and a small portable radio. And that's how you became popular around. This is the one you do not get enough of. Now I've got a guy and his name is Julie. He's my guy, and I love him truly. And there used to be hundreds and hundreds of kids waiting to get in. And you just went in and showed your committee card. And you got in. That means you were, quote, in. You are all in the committee. The ones who were in the regulars, they dressed a little differently. They dressed a little better than the other kids. And of course, they wouldn't wear their uniforms from the Catholic schools. And the ones who didn't go to Catholic school, the others, would come in dressed up. Some came in jackets and ties.

The fellas and the girls were very nice clothes. And I think they came a lot earlier if I remember correctly and left last. Well, we have the Jimenez sisters who wore bleach blonde streak in the hair. And to this day, people said, What happened to the girl with the blonde streak? The Catholic girls came in and the nuns screamed out of me. You can't wear your uniform. So they wore a sweater and let the little dickie collar stick out. Every girl in the country ran the five-intensive store to get a Philadelphia dickie collar. They didn't realize part of the Catholic school uniform. The guys were required to wear coats and ties. I mean, they didn't own a coat. Maybe they had one. But they would come in and wear that just to give us the degree of respectability. But whatever they were into in Philadelphia was copied everywhere. I mean, kids in Arizona were wearing wool clothes and hot temperatures. That's what the Philly Kids wore. It never really went to my head. I only know my father was annoyed a lot of times because when I was coming home, six o'clock there would be maybe 15, 20 girls outside and he couldn't get into his door. So he would say,

Why is everybody out here? So, you know, I'd come home and have to sign an autograph and that kind of thing. So, again, it never really went to her. I don't think any of the kids heads. They all kept normal. We really didn't look at ourselves as really celebrities. We just went there, really the dance. Have fun. We love music. And again, Philadelphia was the cutting edge because the kids from Philadelphia really dressed sharp. They were the best dressers and they were the best dancers. We didn't realize we were a role model. I remember I had to wear glasses. For reading, I don't know exactly what for. And I wore them on television and I received letters saying, Oh, I'm so clear. I'm so clear, you wear glasses. Now I can wear them and not be afraid. And at that time, we didn't understand. I mean, now I do, of course. The family came in. It was overbearing. I mean, it was so much that I... There was no way I could answer it all. And I really didn't have any help. My partner, Kenny, he used to come home every night with his male and he had his two aunts, his mother, his father, his brother.

And they would all sit around at the dining room table and answer every letter and keep a record of everyone that ever wrote to him. I was a smart Alec. Sign up for your classes. There was a 2 to 245 study hall which I never signed up for. I'd run off to Philadelphia to be on dance dance. So we had this dance contest where the first prize was a jukebox of peace. And when the contest started, I guess everybody gets in and it's semi-finals then you're down the finals. The day they had the finals, the principal of school gets on the intercom at about one o'clock. He said, I guess you all know that Bob Clayton, one of our students, is in this dance contest in Philadelphia and we all want to wish him well. And I only have one thing to say. If you don't win it, don't come back. So they knew sort of that I was slipping out of school at 2 o'clock every day to go to the show. But overall, very, very well received by people at my school. That was a year.

I was very well received at my school except for a few select people. They're like an enemy camp if that's what you want to call it. And if he didn't come pick me up and drive me to the show, if I had to take public transportation, there was many times that I was pushed around and shoved around in my books knocked down. And who do you think you are? And my lunch was sold many times and knocked around lockers. But I think when you grow up in Philadelphia, you just get to be tough. You take the bitter with the better. And the better was so much more than the bitter that it just couldn't determine. There was nothing that could keep me from getting there. It was very difficult coming from the school to the show because some of my hours weren't the same hours that they show us. So sometimes I would cut classes. But then I would get caught because my teacher would watch dancing. Well, if they didn't know that they saw the West Catholic emblem, nothing was said.

However, it was popularly known that you were a regular bandstander. So you weren't popular with the nuns or the faculty or the rest of the student body. If you were a Catholic and a Catholic or on high school, you had to separate the two things. Which was real difficult because if you truly loved music and wanted to get into the rhythm of the music, your body kind of moved with it. And then you'd find yourself back in religion class. The next day in school and all of a sudden you'd feel like you were going to the den of a niquity or something. If you didn't understand something and you asked in class and you said, I don't understand that or I quite don't get that. The automatic assumption would be that you weren't paying attention. That you couldn't be a serious student and also enjoyed dancing at the same time. So the response you would get is if you didn't go to bandstand, you would know what we were talking about. Every day you had to do a chore like a clean the rooms or something in a Catholic school. And they would keep me every day so I would clean the room so I wouldn't go to bandstand.

But I'd always sneak out and go. To dance and to move your body and everything was something that was really not looked properly upon with the schools. And in my Catholic school, I had a terrible time. They would single me out. I ate lunch by myself. No one would even talk with me. And I had to leave also. I had to leave one high school. Thank you for a high school because they threatened to beat me up. I mean, big time. I knew how popular we were but I didn't think people would be violent to us. And the only thing that ever happened to Kenny and I is we were walking towards the L. And we were walking up the steps and all of a sudden I heard bandstand and I heard doors slamming from the cars as we were walking up the steps. I said, oh, that's strange. So we turned around and there was these four boys running after us. They wanted to beat him up. And they got him and they started punching him.

And I'll never forget it night. And I'm hitting my pocketbook. Leave him alone. Leave him alone. There's one kid I'll never forget this. This is hell. He had glasses on. And I was so mad. I pulled his glasses off. And I wanted to throw them on the ground and I wanted to step on them. But I didn't. And I handed them back to him. I think it was jealousy and envy that the people had because we were popular. Well, I transferred from West Philadelphia High School to Bartram High. And I couldn't make any friends there. It was just good to lunch by myself and I had no friends. And it was because of bandstand. And I had to make a choice whether I wanted to be popular in school or popular on bandstand. It was very difficult for me at school. Very difficult. I used to actually, when I would get off the L, I would more or less take back streets to my house because you would never know who would be waiting for you to, you know, to beat you up and things like that. And it really, you know, became a problem.

For me, it was so difficult for me that I ended up leaving Catholic High School and I attended a business school. The downside to it was it did isolate you to some degree because you couldn't really be one of the guys or one of the standard group because you were different because you were on this show because you were a celebrity of sorts. So it tended toward a lonely existence. You ended up hanging out with the people on the show because you had a common interest with them. But it did take you a little bit out on the mainstream. And at that time, I know that I really wasn't prepared for that. One hard hit and heavyweight after another. Coming in to Bandstam was really a privilege. And there were thousands and thousands of letters received every week requesting tickets from all over the country.

There were kids who were coming with their high school classes and there were kids on vacation or over holidays. They were coming from all of the states. And they wanted to be on Bandstam. So the local kids who were on Bandstam knew that it was something special to be able to come on Bandstam. And they knew that they had to behave. They had to dress properly. They had to have good manners. They had to be polite. And if they didn't, they weren't invited back again. There were rules on the show. And every day when you would come in, whether you'd been there a hundred times or once, they were repeated by Tony Marmerler, who was the producer at that time in the late 1950s. Tony was the, not only the producer, but he was the disciplinarian too. And he would very firmly tell him. You couldn't shoot gum. You had to act like a lady or a gentleman. Of course, everybody on the show had a coat and tie.

It was on purpose because they were very sensitive to, at that time, in the 1950s, everybody looking neat, not looking like a juvenile delinquent. The kids were basically good and cooperative at all times. Because they, for the simple reason, they knew they didn't want to do anything wrong because they didn't want to be banned from the show. It's really much like an old schoolteacher's story. Everything in the world happened to me there that happened to schoolteachers because when you're around 150 kids every day, they throw up. They have emergencies, it's part of life. I remember that if you weren't in school, one of Dick's rules was that you had to actively be going to school and also keeping your grades up. If you were failing, there was a time when we brought our report cards in. When Dick would ask us to see our reports. And if you were failing, you had time off from the show until you brought your grades up. And if you were not in school, if you had quit school, which there were a couple, I think that, you know, that had quit school.

And Dick found out you could not come to the show if you were not in school. It was very difficult for me when I was asked to leave the show. It was in April 61. I went to the show and they told me that I was no longer able to attend the show because I was going to a business school. That was the reason for me being barred. The term we used back then was being barred from the show. And it was because of the fact that I did not attend a credited high school. That was the reason I was given at that time. And you couldn't come to the show if, again, you had crossed that line into the professional reading, you know, and you were accepting money. I remember when Pat Molotary was in Teen Magazine. She was on the cover. She was told to leave the show before her time, before her age time. The Bob Justine, I believe, made a record and they were told to leave. Kenny Rossi made a record and he was told to leave.

One of the rules was that you were not allowed to accept any money, any money at all as a result of your association with bandstand. And if you did, then you were no longer a regular. And it was much more important to be able to continue to go to the show and make money. Okay, I think one of the saddest days in my entire life was when I was called into the back office and told that I could no longer come on to the show, that because I had made a record and decided to go professional, that I couldn't dance among the regular kids. And I was just floored. I told them had I known that this would have happened. I would have never made that record because dance dance my life. And I had to think of what I was going to do with my life, because I had got up in the morning to go dance. When we had to stop, I was really upset. I was maybe one of the last ones to leave before he had, he completed a new set of regulars. And I don't remember exactly the year, I think it was like 1962-63.

I didn't heard because I enjoyed dancing every day, but at that age you get over it. I didn't leave the show when I was 18, I left when I was 15. I had an argument outside of the studio in the parking lot with an ex-boyfriend who came and we had some words together. And the next day when I went back to the show, I was called into the office and I was asked to leave because of it. And I said to them, I don't understand. I said, I nobody in the TV land saw it. It's, you know, that guy's never going to come back. But they said, no, I'm sorry, it can't come back anymore. And it wasn't until about five years ago that I ran across some old magazines and I'm looking through and there I see this article, band from bandstand. And I realized it wasn't me or it just wasn't you. It was like a group of us.

One by one we were all band from bandstand. So finally I didn't think that there was just something particularly wrong with me and that's why I got like pulled off from everything that I loved. There was a girl I was dancing with and it was another guy who liked her and he was mad because I was dancing with her and he and I exchanged a few words and it was picked up on camera. And Tony Marmerella immediately took a society for the song and told us that it would never happen again. But there were very strict rules that were given everybody and it obviously made sense why they had them. Bandstand was really important to all of us in school and all that and then certain regulars would turn 18 and puff. They were gone with the next one. When it was like, oh my goodness, you felt like you lost all your friends because you were so used to seeing all of them. But it was a big void. Now are you ready? Let's do it. Let's go back. Further back. A little right there.

After a while when Bandstand moved to the West Coast, I think you had some broken-hearted kids in the Greater Philadelphia area. We had mixed reactions when the show left. We were sorry and at the same time, glad. The glad part comes in because we were pressed to get it on every day and it was quite stressful. Quite stressful to get that show on the year five days a week. And when it went, we all breathed a sigh of relief. Except that we felt that we had lost part of our beginnings in television. We lost part of the thing that we grew up within the industry. And then I think we all felt that, sorry, sorry it left, sorry he went. The irony is Bandstand was on in Philadelphia from 1952 to 64. Is that I believe 12 years? 12 out of almost 40.

The majority of the show 28 years was in California. But it'll never ever be anything but a Philadelphia creation. When the show was in Philadelphia, I think the kids watched because they had a rapport with the kids. They watched the dance steps and copied them. When the show went to California, it lost that, I believe. I believe the kids watched the show in California for the acts themselves. I don't think teenagers at that time had anything else in their life. I mean, other than, of course, in their school, their parents. But they didn't have anything else and they related to this. They just related to the show. And so phenomenally that, again, I hate to sound repetitious, but it's not going to happen again. Really, it's like the first man on the moon. People say, why was Elvis so popular? Why was there never anybody that had that what Elvis had for the world? He had a charisma. Well, that place, at that time, had an unexplicable charisma. But I don't know was ever recaptured again,

but during those few special years, it was high and it was hot. And it was the number one soap opera in America. Everybody watched Ben Stan. We regulars and the fans that watched us, we all helped bring rock and roll in, where it wasn't considered like the doubles music. And at that time, Congress was trying to ban it. Can you imagine? So I think we were like the role models to help the teenagers around the country to be able to do that. It was like a huge movement. And then when we brought rock and roll to America, America brought it to the world. It was a phenomenal thing that happened at that time. We didn't realize it was a phenomenal thing. And then looking back, the people remember you after almost 40 years or so. It's an amazing thing. That boat places and you tell them about Ben Stan. And everybody relates to Ben Stan. It's a most amazing thing. And I'm talking about people in their 20s, as well in their 30s, as well in their 40s. So it's really an American tradition, really. And it's part of history.

It's part of American history. It felt like you were a millionaire, you know? But only not in the financial sense. We were rich as people. We had experiences that other teenagers never had, or maybe would never have. I mean, we met people from all over the country. I call on people today. And they say, aren't you that guy that used to be on Ben Stan? Or are you the same Bob Clay who was on Ben Stan? We traveled once in a while. I've been St. Martin on a vacation. Walk in the beach. The lady comes up, knocks on my, aren't you that guy that was on Ben Stan? You're on an airplane, you know? Aren't you that guy that was on Ben? I mean, it'll never, never, never leave. I have never lived this down. Never. No matter where I go, there's someone who's told someone. Not that they recognize me. Because, surely, I don't look for a team. But I, someone knows. And someone will tell someone else. And they come up and they want to know all these things. I find that amazing.

I really do. It's 37 years. You currently work for the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau's Immersion Dice Manager. We do a lot of special events. One of them is the Yo Philadelphia Festival. Every Labor Day weekend. And we have the Band Stan Dancers reunion. It's about 20 to 22 of the bandstanders. And we dance at Penn's Landing. Philadelphia loves us. The audience loves us. And it's very well received. And it's like a reunion with the bandstanders. We all get to see each other and have a great time. I still get recognized. And it makes me feel a little funny. Like, we have where I work. We have clients who are in a home. And they actually come to work. And know me. And I do get embarrassed by it. You know, and I enjoyed it when I was young. And now I'm embarrassed by it. My children are very thrilled by it. They tell everybody. And I could just crawl in a hole. I had many great memories. But I still find it difficult today to wait in lines.

Because going to Band Stan, you didn't have to wait in this line. That was on time. You knew three blocks long because we were on the committee. Television was really new then. Television was special. If you were on television, it was really a big deal. Also, it was a more innocent time. And for teenagers, there was less to do. And it was less sophistication. So I think it was really unique to its period. The timing was absolutely right for it. And that's why it still has a lot of special memories for people that grew up watching that show every day after school. It was part of a teenager's life that I don't think you could ever duplicate again. I am. And that good people does put the top on an edition of American Band Stan for a Wednesday. You can own a copy of this program for 24.95 plus shipping and applicable tax.

Call 215-351-0511 or visit the WHYY online store at WHYY.org. You can also download the link in the description. You can also use the link in the description box below. You can also download the link in the description box below. Thank you very much. You

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