TV Radio Mirror (Jan - Jun 1958)

for a friend." Dick smiles and continues. "Somehow, she found out and let me know, but she didn't raise the roof. To the contrary, she said that, in the future, there would be money in the drawer and I was to take it as I needed. That's the way it went through high school. In college, they gave me a checking account. Because of their confidence, I never abused my privilege. As a matter of fact, in college, I worked as a Fuller Brush salesman, a hash-slinger and at other odd jobs to help pay for extras." The girl Dick married, Barbara Mallery, was his high-school sweetheart. When they first began to date, she was fourteen and Dick was fifteen. Barbara, a lovely gal with blue eyes and brown hair, recalls that the early years of their romance were less than ideal: "We were going together for about ten months. I was a sophomore and Dick was a junior. Well, there were parental objections to our going steady. Bob and I had a long, serious talk and tried to convince ourselves that we were both missing too much in not dating others, so we broke up. That was an evening in May and, after he went home, I had a wonderful cry. I cried for seven days. We didn't date again until October, when Dick invited me to the circus at Madison Square Garden. After that, we gave in to the inevitable and began going together again." It was five years later that they married. Neither ever considered getting married until they finished school. Dick stresses this because, so often now, teenagers come to him and ask his advice about quitting school. "Even after I graduated from Syracuse University," Dick says, "we put off our marriage for another year. I believed then, as I do now, that a man must have a job and a little savings before he gets married. And Bobbie had another year to go before she got her degree." Barbara explains: "My father died when 1 was a youngster, and Mother had to work. I knew it was important that a woman be qualified to hold a job, in case of an emergency, or just to help out her husband." And, during the first two years of their marriage, Barbara taught second-grade in Philadelphia. 1 hey were married June 29, 1952, in Salisbury, Maryland, where Barbara's mother makes her home. Dick was then working in Philadelphia and couldn't get away to make any of the arrangements. Barbara bought the ring and made reservations for the honeymoon. "He promised he would make it up to me, and he did. About a year-and-a-half later, he took me on a second honeymoon to New Orleans. And, when the baby was born, he surprised me with a second wedding ring." They have been happily married almost six years, but there are things about having a radio-TV performer as a husband which make marital life a little difficult. Most of these years, Dick has had to work nights. Even now, though Bandstand is on weekday afternoons, Dick is making personal appearances at night. Saturday, of course, he is in New York with the evening version of Bandstand. On most days, he sleeps to the last minute, leaving for his office about ten A.M. He seldom gets home before midnight. "Usually," says Barbara, "he wakes me, when he comes in, to ask if I've let the dog out." With the dog, a dachshund named "Looie," the family numbers four. Their baby, Dickie, was born January » 9, 1957. They live comfortably in a ' three-bedroom apartment in Drexel Hills, ' a suburb of Philadelphia. Their living room is furnished in modern, and the dining room in American colonial. The carpeting and most of the upholstering is in various shades of gray. Barbara calls the walls "battleship gray." "Now let me explain that," Dick says. "I had left the choice of wall colors to Bobbie. I should have known better. I remember, before we were married, she once wrote me a romantic-type letter in which she referred to my wonderful blue eyes. The sentiment was very nice — except that my eyes are brown. So, anyway, two days before me moved into oxuapartment, I went over to take a look and found the walls were kind of a 'funhouse blue' with rose-colored doors. I couldn't take it. With my brother-inlaw, I repainted the walls gray." Among Dick's fondest possessions is his high-fidelity set. He has a collection of 15,000 records. His tastes are broad and include everything but opera. He particularly likes jazz, if it is not too progressive. He has been collecting records since he was in his early teens. Remorsefully, he notes: "I had about six hundred 78's that were really collectors' items. But Bobbie did the moving and, when I got into the new apartment at two in the morning, the first thing I checked on were the 78's. They weren't there." Barbara remembers: "He woke me and I had to explain that I'd left them behind. Well, Dick hadn't played them in years, so I thought he didn't want them. You have to understand that Dick is a 'saver.' For example, we have a sixyear collection of old Life magazines. His grandmother has ten or fifteen preceding years that she's been keeping for him." At home, Dick is a very informal guy. He relishes wearing slacks and a sports shirt, because most of the time he must be in a tie and dress shirt. "When we go out to visit," Barbara says, "the first thing I hear from him is: 'I guess this means I have to get dressed up.' " But Sundays he relaxes. He gives Barbara a break by getting up with Dickie. Says Dick, "We have a ball. The kid doesn't say much yet, but he's an expert at ripping books and magazines. Don't get me wrong. He's a good baby. I just think he takes after Bobbie and resents my saving things!" Dick has two hobbies besides his record collection. He likes to garden and he likes to cook. In spring, he is out in the back yard with a spade. He has planted a willow tree and honeysuckle bushes. "During the war," he explains, "Dad and I had a victory garden. That got me on the green-thumb kick." And sometimes he must satisfy a subconscious urge to cook. "I'm not much of a cook. But last summer, I turned out some good bread. It was a hot night with nothing to do, and I saw this recipe in a magazine. I had to borrow ingredients from neighbors. When I got started, I found that it took a couple of hours for the bread to rise. Well, it was about one-thirty in the morning that I had two loaves baked, but the neighbors had waited up. The bread was good — what I tasted of it. I don't know why I do this cooking bit, although it does seem to be some kind of a tradition with the men in my family. They always go out to the kitchen on holidays to help. I think they just get in the way." This is kidding, for Dick doesn't belittle his father. His father, Richard A. Clark, is station manager of WRUN in upper New York state. Dick says, "I think I told you that Dad was in the cosmetic business most of his life. He went into radio mostly because of me, because of my interest. You see, I'd made up my mind that I wanted to be in radio when I was a kid. It was about the time my parents took me to a studio to see a Durante-Moore broadcast. Well, when I got to Syracuse University, I auditioned for the campus station. During high school, I had done imitations of a radio announcer and so I did an imitation at the audition and got the job. During summers, Dad let me work in the mail room at his station. At college, I worked part-time on WOLF in Syracuse. When I was graduated, I spent a year at WKTV in Utica, before I went to Philadelphia. I've been with WFIL since 1952." Dick has worked on many shows, but Bandstand fits him like a cozy glove. His great interest in music is important — and so is his sensitivity. As he says, "I learned from being self-conscious and shy that there are a lot of people around who have the same feeling." Many of the teenagers on Bandstand are club members. They know Dick well. Their attitude toward Dick is a healthy one, a feeling of fellowship, rather than a superficial idolization. Sometimes, they come to Dick with personal problems. A girl may ask whether she should dye her hair. Dick says, "I tell her to talk that over with her mother." Once in a while, it is a serious problem. A youngster told Dick that she was quitting school because her mother complained so about her grades. That was not lightly passed off. Dick and producer Tony Mammarella took the girl back to the office and spent considerable time going deeply into the matter. The girl continued at school, brought up her grades, and everyone was happy. "I'm sure teenagers are a problem to parents, but that's what parents are for," Dick says. "I was a problem to mine. There are those times when you know you've failed them. My grades in high school weren't bad, but they weren't good enough to get me into Yale, where Dad wanted me to go. My first year in Syracuse, I had excellent grades and knew then that I could have done better in high school if I had worked at it. "And there are other ways we disappoint our parents. I remember the time I had the family car until three or four in the morning. I wasn't getting into any kind of trouble. I took it on myself to drive someone a long way home. Well, when I got back, I found my parents both waiting at the door. All they said was, 'We're awfully glad to see you.' But I knew from their faces how much I'd worried them. It seemed to me that I'd disillusioned them in that I didn't have the foresight to call them." Dick is gratified that Bandstand gives so much pleasure to teenagers. "These are the kids' best years. Pretty soon they will be on jobs and tied up with family responsibilities. These are their days for fun. If I were to offer them a philosophy, it would be to live as fully as possible, but just remember that those around you, friends and parents, are sensitive, too, and nothing should be gained at their expense." A revealing fact about Bandstand's Trendex rating is that it indicates half of the many millions watching the show are adults. "We are pleased that adults enjoy watching us," Dick says, "but, even more, it means that the adult population is beginning to see for itself that the music and dancing of teenagers is good, clean fun. The people who started this bugaboo about rock 'n' roll being immoral did the country a disservice. I know these kids intimately. Most of them are already thinking about the job they will get when school is over. The girls want to work until the 'right guy' comes along, and then have a family. These kids are just as straight and honest as any generation. We should feel nothing but pride about our teen-age population. Why spoil their fun?"