It was almost a maxim in American rock music during American Bandstand's Philadelphia years: If you wanted to go anywhere in the business, you had to be on the show.
Dick Clark's star-making potential was widely known. His business associates were also aware of his skills as a "cunning capitalist," a term he often used to describe himself. Less well-known is how, in Clark's later years, he showed some genuine compassion for the artists on whose shoulders he had built his career.
For Clark, the motivation was quite personal. On September 29, 1975, Clark was emceeing one of his Good Ol' Rock and Roll Revue shows at the Latin Casino in Cherry Hill, N.J. One of the headliners that night, Jackie Wilson, was in the middle of Lonely Teardrops when he collapsed onstage. Although he was rushed to the hospital, Wilson lapsed into a coma from which he would not recover. He died nearly nine years later in a New Jersey nursing home.
Singer Joey Dee believed old rock & rollers deserved better, especially those who rose to fame in the 1950s when there was always someone around to pat them on the back while picking their pocket with their other hand. Dee mentioned his concern for older rockers to a couple from Philadelphia that also lived in Clearwater, Fla., Dr. Allen Haimes and his wife, Judith.
Allen Haimes was a graduate of the Temple School of Dentistry and Judith, who danced on American Bandstand as a teen, was a well-known psychic. Most of Judith's notoriety came from the lawsuit the couple had filed against Temple University Hospital in 1986 alleging that a CT scan had robbed her of her psychic abilities. In a jury trial, she was awarded $986,000, an amount thrown out as excessive by the judge. A retrial was ordered and the Haimeses lost. Still, the case was political fodder in the 1988 presidential race when Vice President Dan Quayle cited it as a case of litigation gone amok.
The Haimes' love of rock & roll led them to join forces with Dee and his wife in forming the Starlite Starbrite Foundation in October 1987. The name was soon changed to the Foundation for the Love of Rock & Roll and fund-raising efforts were begun.
In March 1988, more than a dozen musicians - including Dee, Little Anthony, Hank Ballard, Lou Christie and Bobby Rydell - gathered at Delta Recording Studio in New York City to record a song co-written by Allen Haimes and Dee, For the Love of Rock 'n' Roll. The session went so well, the group planned to get together a month later to work on an album.
But, three years later, things were stalled. The Foundation's name was changed again, to the National Music Foundation, and Dick Clark was brought in as chairman of the board. Clark promptly announced that the Foundation would expand its aims to include school grants, education programs and a music museum. Clark lured Gloria Pennington away from Juvenile Diabetes Foundation International to become CEO.
Pennington raised more than $500,000 in her first 60 days on the job and Clark-hyped benefit concerts by Michael Jackson, James Brown, Whitney Houston, the Beach Boys and Tony Bennett brought in more cash. Even Dick St. John (of Dick & Dee Dee fame) and his wife donated profits from their Rock & Roll Cookbook to the cause. It was time to buy some land.
Nearly 20 communities from California to Florida to Massachusetts bid for the honor of becoming the Foundation's home. On Jan. 24, 1993, Clark made the announcement at a dinner for the American Music Awards that the Foundation would pay $2.1 million for 63 acres of land just down the road from the Tanglewood Music Center in Lenox, Mass. The purchase price included a 1,200-seat theater and about two dozen dormitories, remnants from the property's earlier role as a boys school.
Clark was clearly the Foundation's driving force. Besides pledging $1 million of his own money, he hosted numerous events on its behalf, including a gala fundraiser in New York to mark Billboard magazine's 100th anniversary. He named as many as 300 people in the music business to an "advisory board" in an effort to drum up interest in the project. He pushed to have a major record label buy naming rights to a proposed recording studio on the property.
When the Foundation promised to break ground on the retirement facility by 1995, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts kicked in a $2.5 million grant. The facility was to be completed by 1998, but when nary a spade had been overturned by 1999, the Massachusetts state auditor decided to take a look. Its report was scathing, alleging mismanagement and misappropriation of state funds. Massachusetts wanted its money back.
Dick Clark resigned his position, the property was sold, Pennington moved back to Florida where she continued to run the Foundation from her home and the retirement home was never built.
Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand -- Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. Go here to learn the story behind the writing of Bandstandland or here to listen to the Pennsylvania Cable Network's interview with author Larry Lehmer.
Larry Lehmer's book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died -- is available at Amazon.
