Richard Wagstaff Clark was born November 30, 1929 in Mount Vernon, New York. His parents are Julia Fuller and Richard Augustus Clark. He had one older brother named Bradley; sadly Bradley was killed in World War II. Clark was an average student until he reached the 10th grade when he discovered radio, and at that time he decided radio would be his career. Taking after his father who was also in the radio business.
The summer after high school Clark was given a job at WRUN-AM radio. The station was owned by his uncle and ran by his father. His first job there was simply an office boy, but the station manager knew there was more to this Clark kid. So he decided to let Clark fill in for the vacationing weatherman on the new WRUN’S FM station. By the end of this summer Clark had advanced from a simple office boy to doing station breaks.
Clark attended Syracuse University where he majored in advertising with a minor in radio. In his senior year he received a job with WOLF, a country station in Syracuse. Shortly after this job Clark returned to WRUN, with a new name of “ Richard Clark”. This new name helped him land a television job as a newscaster at WKTA.
Then in 1952 Clark changed his name to Dick Clark and went to work for the WFIL radio station. WFIL decided that the announcers needed to play records over the air, which then led to the same format on television called “ Bandstand”. This show was hosted by Bob Horn would deejay for the teenagers that came on the show to dance and just have a fun time. Clark took over this show on July 9, 1956.
August 5, 1957 was the first national broadcast of American Bandstand with Clark as the host. Clark also starred in “ The Dick Clark Show” which was also very popular at the time. As the host on “ America Bandstand” Clark had to pick songs to play. With the large number of viewers having a new song played on the show virtually guaranteed that thousands of the record would be sold in the next week. A.
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