Wallace, others remember Clark
Television and music giant Dick Clark was remembered in Las Vegas on Wednesday for helping young talent get noticed, for sharing his fame and his eternal good cheer.
The "American Bandstand" creator died of a heart attack Wednesday in a Santa Monica, Calif., hospital. He was 82.
"If you are over 40, this is someone you dearly loved," said Flamingo headliner George Wallace, who was one of the last to see him in Las Vegas.
Last month, Clark attended Wallace's show unannounced but afterward "insisted on taking a picture with him. Are you kidding, I went running up to him," Wallace said.
Skin color meant nothing to Clark, Wallace said, referring to the "American Bandstand" years when stars were born.
"That was the first show we could showcase on, that and Ed Sullivan," Wallace said.
"That's why we loved him so much," he added.
"Chubby Checker with 'The Twist,' Smokey Robinson, Gladys Knight, The Jackson Five with 9-year-old Michael Jackson and Martha and The Vandellas.
"It meant a lot to blacks, people my age," Wallace said.
Las Vegas resident Allen Fawcett said Clark gave him his "big break on TV when he hired me to host 'Puttin' On the Hits' in 1984."
"Later, I learned that Dick had already seen me play Joseph in the Broadway production of 'Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,' and had decided to hire me without an interview/audition," Fawcett said, who has lived in Las Vegas for about a decade.
The syndicated show ran for five years.
Fawcett said Clark "taught me the No. 1 key to success as a host: 'The camera is your friend and smiles sell.' "
Former Mayor Oscar Goodman said Clark "did a lot of good for our society. In his day, his name was magic and he carried it humbly."
Goodman's teen years in Philadelphia, home of "American Bandstand," included attending the show, but for a whole different reason.
"We would go in there to start fights with the guys who were dancing with the girls," Goodman said. "We were real thugs," he said with tongue in cheek, I think.
"He was so humble you'd never think he was a star, and he was a star," Goodman added.
Clark was so popular he brought "The Dick Clark Show" to the Thunderbird Hotel in the mid-1970s. If he was in town, Clark rarely missed a chance to see a show.
He attended Wallace's show three times. Angela Stabile, who opened "X" burlesque in 2002 at the Flamingo, recalled seeing Clark and Ed McMahon in the audience at the opening.
The Fremont Street Experience paid tribute to Clark on Wednesday with a pictorial retrospective on Viva Vision.
SIGHTINGS
Newly single Johnny Depp, in the audience at Elton John's show at Caesars Palace on Wednesday. ... Earnie Shavers, one of boxing's big-punch artists, getting a shoutout from Mike Tyson during Tuesday's show. In his latest revelation, Tyson told ESPN's Rick Reilly, "I didn't talk about getting a prison official pregnant." The woman didn't have the baby, Tyson told Reilly in the interview for "SportsCenter."
THE PUNCH LINE
"This year, the government will spend a trillion dollars more than it will take in. Experts say 32 percent of our taxes go to defense. And the rest buys hookers for the Secret Service." - Craig Ferguson
Norm Clarke can be reached at 702-383-0244 or norm@reviewjournal.com. Find additional sightings and more online at www.normclarke.com. Follow Norm on Twitter @Norm_Clarke.
