By Paul Freeman

[This interview took place in 1994, as the American Music Awards telecast approached]

Generations of American teenagers were introduced to pop music by Dick Clark. A highly influential disc jockey, he hosted TV’s “American Bandstand.” It was the nation’s longest-running variety program, spanning 1957 to 1987. The show established such teen idols as Bobby Darin, Frankie Avalon, James Darren, Bobby Rydell, Fabian and Paul Anka. Clark also introduced black artists, such as Chuck Berry, Tina Turner and the Motown roster, to white America.

By showing an integrated dance crowd on his TV show and promoting mixed black-and-white tours, Clark played a part in advancing the civil rights movement. Such artists as The Supremes’ Mary Wilson have told PCC how important Clark was in breaking through the barriers of segregation and prejudice.

Diverse artists, from Stevie Wonder to Simon & Garfunkel to Talking Heads can thank American Bandstand and Clark for their first national exposure on “American Bandstand.”

Clark set up his own immensely successful production company and became a major player in movies, TV and radio. Remaining popular on camera, he hosted such television hits as “Miss Teen USA,” MIss USA,” “Miss Universe,” “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve,” “The American Music Awards,” “The $100,000 Pyramid” and “TV’s Bloopers And Practical Jokes.”

Even during years of illness, including a 2004 massive stroke, Clark remained a beloved on-air personality.

On April 18, following a medical procedure, Clark suffered a heart attack and passed on. He was 82. His impact will continue to be felt for generations.

POP CULTURE CLASSICS:
You’re about to host the 21st annual American Music Awards. What sorts of changes in the pop scene have you seen over those years?

DICK CLARK:
Well, there are a lot more varieties of massive popular taste. When we started 21 years ago, we had three general areas - pop/rock, country and soul/rhythm & blues. Now we’ve added to it a few other categories over the years. Years ago, we had disco. That came and went. Since that time we have added to the mix hard rock/heavy metal, rap/hip-hop and adult contemporary.

PCC:
Is it a natural flow to keep up with all of this, or is it difficult to keep pace?

DICK CLARK:
It’s fairly easy. The only challenge these days is, what I personally consider to be a misnomer, which is alternative rock. Alternative rock seems to be that which nobody can harness or throw a net over. So it’s an area that has the darnedest conglomeration of musical stylings. We haven’t been able to survey that yet. It’s just a catch-all.

PCC:
And the American Music Awards remains the second highest rated awards show?

DICK CLARK:
Second only to the Oscars. The only year we ever lost to the Grammys was when we were interrupted by a Presidential State of the Union address, which was far more significant, obviously, but not what you would call a popular audience gatherer.

PCC:
I remember when you started, it seemed like an upstart thing to do, to challenge the Grammys. Did it seem like a daring move to you?

DICK CLARK:
It was all at ABC’s behest. They wanted something other than an industry awards show, because they were going to lose the Grammys. They refused to take it, when it came from Nashville. And the Academy assigned it to CBS at that point. ABC was left without anything. And they said, ‘What different sort of thing can we do?’ I said, ‘Well, everything else is an industry poll. Nobody ever asked the people. Why don’t you find out the actual people who buy records and run a popularity poll? It’ll be very significant from that standpoint.’

It’s always real nice to have your colleagues pat you on the back. I got a Grammy. It pleased the daylights out of me. And it’s a great honor. But, on the other hand, if you’re in the business, as most recording people are, of trying to make a living from that medium, it’s nice to know what the general public thinks of you. They’re the ones that pay the bills.

PCC:
It seems like the American Music Awards has had a profound effect on the Grammys, in terms of it not being quite as conservative as it had been.

DICK CLARK:
Oh, it’s taken 20-some-odd years to drag them into the 20th century, but you can see the results, because the Grammys are far more contemporary than they ever used to be. The Old Guard has relinquished some of its control and acknowledged some newcomers and new faces and what have you. And if you go over historically, they didn’t award a rock ‘n ‘roll record for years. I don’t make a point of criticizing them. It was just an old-fashioned thing at one point. Nowadays, it’s quite modern.

PCC:
Was it baffling to you? I know some of the artists of those days were frustrated that there was no recognition for rock music.

DICK CLARK:
Oh, yeah. I mean, that’s a whole article unto itself. If you were of such a mind, you might want to undertake that. I wouldn’t want to be the guy to start up that hassle. I try not to get into a shouting match with these people. What we say is, we are synergistic. We are adjuncts to one another. They are the professional awards. We are the popularity awards.

PCC:
What about all the other awards shows that have cropped up in your wake? Is that annoying? Flattering?

DICK CLARK:
It doesn’t make any difference. The only way they can survive is if somebody watches. As long as they have an audience large enough to sell advertising money to or get somebody to pay the bills, they’ll be in business.

PCC:
Who’s getting the Award Emeritus this year?

DICK CLARK:
It’ll be Whitney Houston.

PCC:
And the talent lineup for performing, is that set yet?

DICK CLARK:
Let’s see, we have Meat Loaf, Reba McEntire, Rod Stewart, Aerosmith, Brooks & Dunn, there’ll be 12 or 13 by the time we’re down with the list.

PPC:
Just from those you mentioned, it seems like you’re accomplishing what radio no longer does, offering a broad range of popular music.

DICK CLARK:
Well, the most amazing thing about this whole extravaganza, it pleases me, it’s been pleasing me for years along these lines, first of all, you get all these divergent people in one room, 6,000 people in the room, it’s a big room, but you’ve got all kinds of talent. A country artist once said to me, ‘I’ve been going to country music awards for years, but I’ve never seen such an array of people that I’ve heard of. I might not be that familiar with them. I may not know the most about hip-hop music. But I know that this guy sold 800,000 copies in a week and I’m impressed.’

There’s a lot of respect in the room. And it’s amazing thing when you turn to an audience, that is a broad audience, demographically, it’s very appealing to advertisers, but it still encompasses a lot of different kinds of people. And they sit through three hours of music that maybe isn’t all their taste. What I think is the answer to mystery is, that it’s the one time of year, when you can look in on the whole world of music and say, ‘Uh-huh, this is what it’s all about. I’ve heard of these guys Brooks & Dunn. I’m not a country fan. Now I know. I see Dr. Dre. Oh, that’s what they’re talking about.’

It doesn’t matter what your taste is, you’re going to be served. And then you’ll also find out what everybody else is talking about.

PCC:
The fact that people can be entertained that way, do you think there’s room for radio that will not categorize so neatly and tightly?

DICK CLARK:
No. Radio is the precursor of television. Someday, we’ll all be doing the same thing in television. We are doing it now, with the 50 some-odd channels available. When we get to 500, we’ll be down to the basket-weaving hour and God only knows. I’ve said for the last 12 years to my television contemporaries, if you want to know what the crystal ball shows, look at radio. Radio is a splintered medium. The only way it can survive is to select somebody that’ll listen and then turn around and say, ‘Hey, we’ve got all of the... ‘ whatever it is ‘and you can now buy this audience by now purchasing our signal.’

PCC:
But do you not long for the days, like in the late ‘50s, early ‘60s, where you’d hear a pop song, then jazz, then country, then rockabilly, all on one station?

DICK CLARK:
That’s like longing for the horse-and-buggy days, Paul. It ain’t gonna come back. If somebody does it, it’ll be some year-end look or some special occasion or whatever. You can’t run a format that way. The audience won’t stay with you.

PCC:
I noticed among the American Music Awards nominees, Michael Jackson is up again. Are you worried that that could cast some sort of pall over the show?

DICK CLARK:
No. People in radio still play Michael Jackson records. If he wins an award, that audience will give him a round, sound ovation. And that will have nothing to do with whatever is going on in the rest of his life.

PCC:
Do you think more so today, than in past years, the music artists are scrutinized and there’s an unfair attention to private lives?

DICK CLARK:
Anybody who lives in the fishbowl is going to get the heat, because what you’ve got now is all these tabloid television shows and tabloid newspapers and tabloid magazines. We have become an English and Australian society in that regard. Americans now freely admit they love gossip. And a lot of the media is appealing to that sort of listenership, viewership, readership.

PCC:
You’ve had to much success over the years, incredible success. What still drives you?

DICK CLARK:
It’s invigorating. There’s so many different new things to do. Something cropped up last Friday that we’d never done before. I don’t think we’re going to pull it off, because I think the buyer has gotten cold feet and ducked out of it. But it was a whole brand new challenge. We worked on it all weekend. We came up with a premise they’d never heard of. It’s one of the four networks. They examined internally their own suggestions. They said, ‘We never heard as good an idea, but we’re afraid. We may not do it.’ That’s the sort of thing that’s fun to do. Something that you haven’t done before. At the same time [chuckles], keep doing that which you are recognized for, so you can make a living.

PCC:
Do you ever envision a time when you might want to just take it easy and enjoy the rewards you’ve reaped?

DICK CLARK:
I’ve tried to explain this to my own family - all of whom are in the entertainment business, so they’re beginning to understand it - the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do is be involved in broadcasting. It started out being radio, then it got to be television, motion pictures, nightclubs, racetracks, nine million other says to entertain people. It is a fun way to be in business. And, if you can keep body and soul together and make money doing that which you enjoy, God, what greater job could there be?

PCC:
When you started as a deejay, was that the top goal, initially?

DICK CLARK:
When I started, I wanted to be in the business end of broadcasting. I ended up being on the air, because it was the only thing I could get a job doing. I had done it all through school. And the irony was, it paid a little better than the office job. So I stayed with it. But I began to prepare, in 1956, for the time they might boot me out of that. and force me into the background, which wouldn’t destroy me, as long as I was still involved.

The dumb luck thing is I’m in my 60s and they’re still giving me work in front of a camera and behind the microphone. I’m on the radio seven hours a week nationally, on two different shows. I’m doing an international television show this weekend from Las Vegas that’ll be seen by 650 million people all over the world for the World Cup soccer people. And this New Year’s will be our 22nd year. You’ll probably catch me in Times Square again. I keep getting job offers [laughs].

PCC:
But while you were preparing for the possibility of going behind the scenes, were you also thinking about - in the early days - the possibility of rock ‘n’ roll not lasting? There was all that talk about it being just a fad.

DICK CLARK:
No. No, I didn’t believe that. I think that’s not a projection backwards. I was involved deeply enough to know that rock ‘n’ roll was a misnomer. It encompassed so many different kinds of music. It would be like saying popular music is going to go away. That couldn’t possibly be.

PCC:
It seemed, at many points, the marriage between rock ‘n’ roll and television was very difficult to pull off.

DICK CLARK:
Oh, that’s a bear to this day. It’s not easy.

PCC:
Why do you think it is so difficult and how have you been able to surmount that so consistently?

DICK CLARK:
Well, we do things that appeal to a television audience. I was trying to explain how we get such a broad audience for this one shot of three hours. You couldn’t do it regularly. It’s one of the reasons why ‘The Andy Williams Show’ or ‘The Johnny Cash Show’ or ‘The Glen Campbell Show’ or the Patti Page program or whatever the devil, isn’t on anymore, because your audience is not large enough, now that it’s become so diversified, to sustain a mass audience for television. That may change with the advent of cable.

I mean, look at MTV. MTV gets a .4 rating. Over the air, they’d be off the air before it started. But it services a very vital audience to people who want to reach that young demographic with advertising. It survives with a miniscule audience.

PCC:
‘Bandstand,’ how instrumental do you think that was in terms of bringing rock ‘n’ roll into American households and making it acceptable, not so frightening to parents?

DICK CLARK:
Well, a friend of mine is doing ‘The History of Rock ‘n’ Roll,’ Andrew Solt, and I did a lengthy interview with him yesterday and we were reflecting on that. It was a propagator of the music, without a doubt. It had a huge audience. It was the number one daytime show for a lot of years. Its audience was 51 per cent over 18, so it introduced the music to a lot of older people. It introduced the world to all kinds people they would never see on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’ or ‘The Perry Como Hour.’ So it was extraordinarily helpful. And the same thing I just said about MTV, in a small way. ‘Bandstand’ got everybody. You can’t do that again. The nature of the beast, the medium has changed. So MTV is continuing to do the same sort of thing. It’s a promotional tool.

PCC:
As I recall, one of the only artists you didn’t get on ‘Bandstand,’ was another key figure in bringing rock into the mainstream, Ricky Nelson.

DICK CLARK:
Yeah,but that was a commercial decision on the part of his dad, who was a brilliant guy. He had the corner on the market. The current teen idol was assigned to his television show on ABC. Why on Earth would he ever go anywhere else? [Laughs]. We understood that. And years later, he was on several of our shows. So it was just a pure business decision.

PCC:
Producing all those ‘Caravans of Stars’ tours back in the day, was that a wild time? What was it like sending those busloads of performers across the country?

DICK CLARK:
I hope someday somebody will make it into a picture. I’ve tried a couple of times to mount it. But I don’t think anybody understands. It was a world unto itself. A bus full of blacks and whites traveling in some parts of this country that weren’t ready for that sort of society, living together. It was a good story. There’s a terrific book there. Maybe someday we’ll write it.

PCC:
What about the British Invasion, were you producing those shows, too?

DICK CLARK:
We did 150 concerts a year. After the ‘Caravan of Stars’ stopped touring in the mid-’60s, we would just book individual acts. It’s an interesting story. Toward the end of the ‘Caravan,’ we had every English act you could get a hold of. And they would make a thousand dollars a week, maximum. That was the high range. I can remember specifically, Tom Jones, I think got $1100 or $1200 a week for seven days a week, probably did nine shows. A year later, we booked him for $50,000 a night against 70 or 80 percent of the gross. So the business changed almost overnight.

PCC:
Those tours provided a unique kind of entertainment, with each artist just performing a few of their hits.

DICK CLARK:
It was a fascinating period of time. I still work with a lot of the people I traveled with in those days. And it’s like a war, we all say, ‘Gee, we oughtta go back and do that again,’ forgetting how difficult that was. I’m not sure that any of us, at this stage of our lives, could do it again for more than a few days.

PCC:
So no more producing those tours?

DICK CLARK:
No, we are not in the concert business. It ceased to be predictably profitable a number of years ago. When the margins got so slim and you could sell out virtually 90-odd-percent of the house and lose a ton of money, it didn’t seem like a business you’d want to be in.

PCC:
But you still put on shows with the ‘Bandstand’-type artists?

DICK CLARK:
Oh, we still do those shows. We do mostly corporate shows, because the middle level executives are all of that period. And they’re hugely successful. We get standing ovations and people dancing in the aisles [chuckles]. It’s down to a very smooth presentation of nostalgia, laughs, a lot of memories, some videotape and the original performers themselves. And it works for people, late 20s to 60s. It’s the kind of music that belongs to several generations.

PCC:
Beyond the nostalgia factor - you see a lot of teens interested in some of those early rock artists - what is it about that music that makes it live on?

DICK CLARK:
The music was so ingrained in our memory banks during our growing up period. It doesn’t matter what your age is, that music truly belongs to everybody. Can’t happen again, because of the thing we were talking about earlier, the business is so chopped up and you’re not exposed to hearing a song over and over again. We live in the disposable society. We burn it up and throw it away. It’s kind of too bad.

PCC:
Do you think it was more song-oriented back then?

DICK CLARK:
No, I don’t think it had anything to do with that. I mean, that’s what you writers do, you look for something that is deeper than a surface answer. I tend to take it at face value, which is, we played everything and we played it a long time and it became memorable.

PCC:
Do you find it ironic that this was considered such dangerous music back when it started and now they talk about the innocence of those times? Is that just the passage of time?

DICK CLARK:
Well, it’s a reflection of how times have changed. If those were dangerous and lascivious lyrics held up to scrutiny in the ‘50s and ‘60s, you’re hearing the same thing happening with the ‘90s music. But again, it’s a reflection of what’s going on. It doesn’t please everybody. It’s certainly a lot harder today than it was then.

PCC:
Right, do you actually see danger in today’s rock acts? Or is it pretty much the same situation, just a different level, because of the different times?

DICK CLARK:
The world is more dangerous. And it’s a degree. Music is usually a reflection of stuff you ought to know is happening out there and, if you’re unaware of it, if you’re not a newspaper reader or magazine or television consumer, music will bring you the message. That’s been true since the minstrel days, in the old castle to castle days. They spread the news.

PCC:
The fact that now the music is linked with the visuals, do you see MTV as a big threat, as some people do?

DICK CLARK:
The only sad part about MTV, to me, is that it strips young people of their ability to imagine what a song should play in their head, their own little mind movie. After a while, if you watch enough of it, you play back the visual the director gave you. And that’s just a different change. Those of us who are older, working with a medium that didn’t have pictures, dreamed our own pictures up. It’s kind of too bad.

PCC:
You were just installed in the TV Academy Hall of Fame, does that make you feel like more of an institution?

DICK CLARK:
Well, this is the year I’ve been installed in a lot of places [laughs] and it’s an award year. The whole moral is, hang on long enough and they’ll pat you on the back.

PCC:
You’ve got a whole raft of shows coming up, a couple of country specials?

DICK CLARK:
Yeah, let me get a list here, I’ve got “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve,’ That’s the first thing. ‘Hot Country Jam’ will play in February. That’s NBC. A couple of ‘American Bandstand’ specials. The Golden Globes we just did. The 21st American Music Awards, the 29th Academy of Country Music Awards is coming up in May. That’s on NBC. We have a Sea World special on CBS. What’s the other one? ‘Will You Marry Me?’ What the devil is that? Hmmm. Oh, here it is, sorry. Oh, yes, I remember now, it’s a Valentine’s Day thing. It goes on 2/13. That’s a show we bought the rights from overseas - Germany and Holland. It’s people proposing to one another, surprising each other. a lovely thing. Most of the shots are done. I think we’ve got a couple more to do. It brings tears to your eyes of joy. Everybody connected with it loves the darned thing, because it makes you feel so good. And that’s men and women. Obviously, we knew, initially, it would draw women. But apparently men are sentimental beasts that don’t like to admit it. We all cry. It’s the sort of thing that we fantasize about, that you can be that happy the rest of your life.

PCC:
As far as the country specials, it seems like a lot of the people had been into rock n’ roll in the ‘50s and ‘60s are now into country. Have you noticed that trend?

DICK CLARK:
Yeah, that’s easy to see why. Alternative choices of music. Alternative music. New wave, rap, hip-hop, dance, heavy metal, hard rock, all of that may be alien to somebody’s ear and if they want something a little more familiar, that is ‘new’ to them, they can go to Hot Country or New Country, where these people who were born and raised on rock ‘n’ roll, but have turned to country, are now performing in the manner that this other audience can understand and appreciate. That’s one of the reasons why 70 stations in the Top 100 markets, the number one station is a country station.

PCC:
It seems that you, personally, have been able to bridge all the gaps. You can be next to Pearl Jam or Frankie Avalon and seem equally at home. How do you manage that trick?

DICK CLARK:
Because I’m non-competitive. I’m just a presenter and everybody grew up with me. Years ago, I developed a friendship with Axl Rose, which struck me as unusual, because he was pretty avant garde at the time. And the same thing happened with Prince years before that. And Madonna before that. Well, obviously, I go back to the black-and-white era of all the guys that created the music to begin with [laughs]. So it’s interesting, I guess, for performers to be around somebody who’s lived through it all.

PCC:
What about today’s teens? Are they more difficult to relate to than the teens of the ‘50s or ‘60s?

DICK CLARK:
I don’t think so, because, basically the same things drive us all, whether we’re kids or adults. You want to be accepted by your contemporaries. You share the same kind of musical and clothing tastes. The thinking process is more or less the same. The difference is, they’re older, psychologically.

PCC:
Too much older, too early?

DICK CLARK:
Hey, we are all that way. And anybody living in this world, as we live in it now, it ain’t so innocent as it was.

PCC:
Having dealt with teens throughout the years, did that make it any easier for you when your own kids hit their teens?

DICK CLARK:
It did. They’re all grown up now and two of them are in their 30s. One of them is approaching, is 29. But it was. I knew things, as a parent, that other parents didn’t know. I can remember vividly, one of my kids extolling the virtues of a handful of artists. I’ll make up a number. Five. And I said, ‘’Of those five people, four are junkies.’ He said, ‘What are you talking about?’ Well, within the year, they all got busted. So suddenly he discovered that his old man wasn’t as innocent and stupid as he might have appeared.

PCC:
So the fact that they realized that you knew what was going on, that made it easier for you to advise them?

DICK CLARK:
I think so. I like to think so, because if you think your parent is at least in touch with your world, you might be able to communicate. But hell’s bells, I’ve been arguing with my kids about the length of their hair and their clothing and all the other things [laughs]. But they all turned out real well. I’m real proud of them. Two of them are in film and one is in television.

PCC:
Speaking of teens, you’re also involved in skin care products?

DICK CLARK:
Actually, it’s a skin care product for adults. I’ve been luck all of my life and when I turned 60, my skin began to dry out and I was borrowing products from my wife and I said, ‘This is crazy. I should develop a line, because people have always teased me, ‘Whatever you’ve got, put it in a bottle, I’ll buy it [laughs] Well, I found something, a beta-glucan product that does remarkable things and has been very successful. It’s only six months old.

PCC:
You’re also still busy with the National Music Foundation [which eventually closed its doors in 2008]?

DICK CLARK:
Yeah, that’s my other life. I’m trying to get that off the ground and established. It will be, over the next few years. It should have been done 25 years ago. But we have our work carved out for ourselves. We have acquired a former college campus in Lenox, Massachusetts, 63 acres and 20-some buildings and we’ve got to raise a lot of millions of dollars to pull it off.

PCC:
And the primary goals?

DICK CLARK:
The primary goals are threefold - one is to continue education of music, preserve the heritage in a museum and third is to come up with a place of residence for music professionals.

PCC:
I guess you’ve seen many artists who were successful at one time and then couldn’t take care of themselves later in life?

DICK CLARK:
That’s what started the whole thing. The motion picture people were smart enough to do it a long time ago and have established the Motion Picture Home. I’m just dreadfully sorry that we weren’t able to get to it sooner. We should have. But better now than never. We’re just out, flogging the bushes, trying to get everybody organized. It’s not easy. Charity work is, quite frankly, the most difficult thing I’ve ever undertaken. I’m not good at begging. And you’ve got to be a beggar.

DICK CLARK:
You’d think people would see how obvious the need is.

DICK CLARK:
Yeah, but at the end of this conversation, I say, ‘Fine, it’s been wonderful talking to you, Paul. I’d like you to send me a thousand dollars.’ It’s very hard for me to do. And a thousand isn’t what I’’m asking for. I’m asking for hundreds of thousands and, in some cases, millions. And fifty dollars in other cases, where it’s equally as difficult. It’s a learned craft. I’ve never had to do it. I’m enjoying the progress, but I’m not enjoying the begging.

PCC:
But once you see the results, do you think that will be one of your most satisfying accomplishments?

DICK CLARK:
Yeah, that’ll be around long after I’m gone and everything else is forgotten. Some other band of enthusiastic people will have carried it on and it will have been worthwhile. I keep telling myself that in these moments where I’m going, [high-pitched voice of desperation] ‘What am I doing this for!?’

PCC:
Where does the wellspring of energy come from?

DICK CLARK:
I’ve had it since I was a baby. There are some people like that. It’s the A and B personality thing, I guess. I’m just constantly buzzing along, doing something.

PCC:
Does your wife have trouble keeping up with you?

DICK CLARK:
She’s worse. She works with me here at the company. She’s the vice-president of administration. She organizes the place and keeps it running on an even keel and, in our personal life, takes care of all the details that I never even think of.

PCC:
When will you release ‘Where The Action Is’ to video?

DICK CLARK:
They’re hard to clear, Paulie, The costs involved, between the performers, the composers, the copyright holders, the music rights holders. That why you don’t see a great deal of that old stuff around. We’ve done a few packages. We did the ‘Golden Greats.’ That was 60-some-odd individual numbers. But it took forever. And they’re they’re not big, remunerative projects. For the amount of work you put into it, you don’t get back a commensurate amount of money back. So you do it for another reason, to preserve it, to preserve the legacy. Well, a better way is probably to stick it in a museum and make it all available.

PCC:
And that would be part of the National Music Foundation?

DICK CLARK:
Oh, absolutely. That’s one of the three goals. There is no American music museum of music, encompassing everything from jazz and classic and all the stuff that’s come out of this country, including rock ‘n’ roll and country music and every other permutation. And it’s peculiar we don’t have an American music museum.

PCC:
And this would be like the Museum of Broadcasting, where the public could actually listen and watch?

DICK CLARK:
Oh, yes. The touchy-feely stuff. When we get to that point, and we’re talking a minimum of a couple years away, that will be done under the direction of somebody who knows how to build museums. I don’t know anything about that. But it will have the essence of what we learned from amusement parks and modern museums, where you can go in and participate in it.

PCC:
You say you don’t know much about museums. It seems like your knowledge covers a very broad spectrum. What do you consider to be your area of greatest expertise?

DICK CLARK:
Probably television. I discovered the other day, on my birthday, somebody sent me one of those little tabloid sheets that tells you all the things that went on. The year in which I was born, 1929, Bell Laboratories demonstrated color television. So TV and I have been around together all these years [laughs].

PCC:
Practically no one has enjoyed the kind of longevity you have. Is there a secret there?

DICK CLARK:
I think that has to do with my native enthusiasm for the subject and not getting nailed into any one particular category. True, I’ve been known for music and kids dancing to records and that will always be with me. But I’ve been able to zip off in any other direction anybody called me on.

PCC:
Would you be up for hosting in a series situation again?

DICK CLARK:
I don’t know. Yes, of course, if somebody were to ask me to do that, I’d say, yeah. But it would depend on whether it could be worked into the schedule. Five years ago, I wanted desperately to be in the talk show business. The way it’s gone now, I don’t want to be in it. But I couldn’t do that today, because it requires so much punctual time. I need the ability to fly here, to go there, to not work for six days or whatever is necessary to keep my life in line.

PCC:
Do you get actually sleep and take the occasional vacation?

DICK CLARK:
Oh, yeah. Lots of vacations. This woman I was telling you about, that I‘m married to, puts it into the calendar, writes it down. We have this little cabin up in the mountains we haven’t been to. I said, ‘Let’s go up there and have dinner.’ She said, ‘Okay, fine.’ So we packed up the four dogs and went up there and played up there in the snow, got tied up in the traffic coming back, but got back at a reasonable hour, put in a full day’s work.

PCC:
Any chance of ‘The Pyramid’ being revived at any point?

DICK CLARK:
I don’t own it. My friend Bob Stewart does. And it’s running twice a day now on USA and I guess he’s just not ready to bring it back again. It’s timeless. I hope he brings it back. I’d love to do that thing again. In its area, it was one of the three or four best.

He’s an interesting guy, just to digress for a second. He was an employee of Goodson and Todman, and he created ‘The Price Is Right, ‘I’ve Got A Secret,’ ‘Password’ and then, on his own, when he went into business for himself, ‘Pyramid.’ So he created four classic games. The man must have a pretty interesting mind. It’s like, everybody says, ‘I write songs.’ What they mean by that is ‘I write poetry that somebody ought to write music to.’ Everybody says, ‘I invent game shows.’ There are only a handful that really do.

PCC:
The contestant used to get so passionate about playing ‘Pyramid.’ I remember Rob Reiner going nuts during the big money round.

DICK CLARK:
Rob Reiner’s the man who was on the first week of shows on CBS, when it first started, said to me, riding up in the elevator at the Ed Sullivan Theatre, ‘This show is too easy. It’ll never last.’ And the other fun thing is, every time I see Billy Crystal, he holds the all-time record for going to the top of the pyramid in 21 seconds, I say, ‘Have you done anything else in your career?’ he’ll yell across the room, ‘Twenty-one seconds, I did it in!’ ‘Yeah, I know, I know.’ [Laughs]

PCC:
Do you think about your legacy, what you want to be remembered for, what you want to leave behind?

DICK CLARK:
I try not to, because that probably means you’re ready to sit under a palm tree somewhere and give it all up. And I’m not quite at that stage yet. The Lord has blessed me with good health and as long as that hangs in there, I’m going to keep on chugging along.