RIP Dick Clark

Hondo: I think you are missing a point, which I'll explain at the end. I firmly (but hopefully respectfully) disagree with you. Here's why:

Dick Clark, according to news reports, was working pretty much to the end. I'm pretty sure he didn't need the money, and it probably was physically difficult in his last seven years. I would guess he kept doing it because he liked working with people and enjoyed what he did.

There has not been any indication that Dick Clark Productions had suffered because of his disability. There weren't any absurd decisions, the radio productions continued normally, and the business didn't seem to suffer anything more than the normal ups and downs of television production.

I remember conducting a meeting with a man who ran a business with his with his wife. He had suffered a stroke. The words didn't come quickly and it looked a little different, but within 10 minutes I could tell his mind was still sharp and he remembered some things better than his wife.

I didn't see my father for three years because I lived cross country and it was difficult for me to travel with kids and difficult for him because, for a lot of people over 75, having to use the bathroom frequently makes it difficult on a cross-country flight. It was tough to see him and it upset me at first (I hope it didn't show), but after the first 30 or 45 minutes, I just decided to enjoy the time we had and enjoy his kindness.

Here is what you don't understand - the problem isn't with Dick Clark or his family. The problem is with you, your feelings, and your memory. I don't mean that to be perjorative - I mean it is tough to see somebody as old. I think it is really best to accept it because, obviously, Dick Clark accepted it and he kept going. He knew what he looked like and how he talked after the stroke, but he kept on going. I think that might have been one of the most important contributions he made to American culture.

 

Greg Ham of Men At Work would be the third. Died Thursday at age 58.

He's making Vegemite sandwiches in heaven.

 

Me, too. I remember Bandstand a little bit, but I mostly knew Clark from Pyramid and TV's Bloopers and Practical Jokes with Ed McMahon.

 

One thing not to forget about Dick Clark: he, unlike Alan Freed, had the smarts and charm to survive the 1960 Congressional hearings on payola. It's payola when a record company pays you to play a song. It's not when you own the record company and the song royalties.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/dick-clark-survives-the-payola-scandal

At the Payola hearings, Clark would testify to holding an ownership stake in a total of 33 different record labels, distributors and manufacturers that all profited handsomely from the rise of Clark-anointed stars like Danny and the Juniors and Frankie Avalon. One of the companies in which Clark had a financial interest was Jamie Records, the label that made Duane Eddy famous and returned a tidy profit of $31,700 to Clark on an initial $125 investment. "Believe me this is not as unusual as it may seem," Clark told the Payola committee. "I think the crime I have committed, if any, is that I made a great deal of money in a short time on little investment. But that is the record business."

More important than any denials issued by Dick Clark during his Payola testimony was the fact that over the preceding months, he had—at the direction of his network, ABC—divested himself of all of his ownership interest in music-related businesses and in the roughly 150 pop songs from which he earned royalties as a credited "songwriter." This action, in combination, perhaps, with his good looks and famously ingratiating demeanor—the New York Times called the then-30-year-old Clark "smooth, slim and youthful on the witness stand"—led Congress to give Clark a pass while encouraging prosecution of the uncooperative Alan Freed.

 

Thanks for your reasoned response and the realization (which escaped others with reading comprehension problems) that watching a guy who was a smooth and polished as he was, whether it was AB, the Pyramid or Bloopers, struggle to count down from 10, was painful to watch for a Dick Clark fan. I simply didn't want to see him that way. This was perhaps the most likable guy in show business (Johnny Carson, maybe) and a big part of the youth for a lot of people who were kids in the 50s and 60s.
I still await the same backlash over posting Dick Clark's head in a cryogenic tank.

 

Hondo:

I understand your feelings, but with me, it is the opposite. I feel a little sad when I see films transferred to video of deceased people, such as grandparents and a granduncle (it probably should be greatuncle in terms of style, but you get the idea), I knew as a young person. It is not hard for me to see still pictures of those people, but when I see films which show them moving and being alive, that makes me a bit sad.

One comforting thought - shortly after Marvin Gaye died in the 1980s (83 or 84), I heard a Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell song on the radio. It made me sad to think that both of these artists who died before they were 50 were no longer around. But after thinking about it, I realized that the song and their work will last forever.

 

Another former employee checks in via newsgroups and isn't nearly as gracious:

<i>I've had a few of my Facebook friends message me and tell me I could be
handling Dick's death with greater civility. About half a dozen of my
Facebook friends are also survivors of dcpi (now dcp, still lowercase
spelling). Over the years we have bonded over the experience, and over the
years their memories have clearly softened.

I've written about this here before, but I find it disingenuous when people
are more reverential towards the dead. I freely concede all the points made
about Dick Clark by those who did not work with him. He was a pioneer in
the industry. He was the go-to guy for musicology for decades. He was an
affable host of game shows, talk shows, and more. But the ones who worked
with the man knew he was a cheap bastard. The joke was that he'd cut donuts
into fourths before setting them on the craft service table. He once had
someone fired because they dared to make microwave popcorn in the
kitchenette next door to his office (Dick objected to the aroma of any
strong food, you see). The story of how his wife Kari (who should be
nominated for sainthood, by the way) managed to remain married to him when
his other marriages ended with affairs is the most telling of his
character, but isn't worth mentioning here. In other words, if all you knew
of Dick was his public persona, you don't know Dick -- but I could
understand how someone under those conditions would feel sad at his
parting. Make no mistake, I'm not rejoicing in his death. I'm largely
indifferent towards it -- he was alive and now he's not. Living or dead,
I'm still short money I could have used then AND now. And that's the thing:
He died as one of the richest entertainers of his generation. And where is
the prize in that? All the pennies he pinched, all the nickel and diming he
did, and for what? So his body can rot away in a slightly more expensive
casket?

That's the part of his character I can't reconcile, even after his death.
PGage needn't have apologized for being critical of the shows I worked on.
As stated, they were well produced crap. We did the best with what we were
given. One of the shows I worked on for Dick featured the director of the
Elvis comeback special, the coproducer of Live Aid, the wardrobe designer
behind many of Cher's and Elvis' designs, etc... but it was still crap. If
Dick had given the show the budget mitigated purely because of the names
backing it, it would have been more popular than American Idol. So he died
a rich old bastard. And it would be disingenuous for me to say otherwise.</i>

 

I had also read that the Congressmen grilling Clark couldn't go too hard on him because they were collecting his autograph for their teenage daughters.

 

I was just typing something about how I had vague recollections of reading stories of how Clark could be a not nice man.

 

Well, Mr. Newsgrouper could be anyone on earth, so that story must be taken with a grain of salt. I have no doubt Clark pinched a penny or a million; not many businessmen who have been as successful as him haven't. For example, I'm sure he saved a bunch of money having singers lip-synch

 

No, it's legitimate. I just don't know the guy's full name, otherwise I'd post it. His identity and background are well known within the group, and he's written before about being shorted $3,000 in his time with Dick Clark Productions.

 

That post isn't about Dick Clark, it's about the poster.

He chose to sell out, and now he's mad he didn't earn more doing it.