Dick Clark was born in Bronxville, New York on November 30, 1929. At the age of 13, he went to see a live radio broadcast starring Jimmy Durante and Garry Moore and decided he wanted to be in broadcasting. At the age of 17, his first job was in the mailroom of the radio station his father managed. He received a degree in business administration from Syracuse University, where he was a disc jockey on the student radio station. After graduating, he worked briefly as an announcer for his father's station before getting a job in television, at WKTV in Utica, as a news announcer.
In 1952 WFIL in Philadelphia gave him his own radio show, Dick Clark's Caravan of Music. In 1956, he became the host of a local television show called Bandstand after the regular host was fired. Soon afterward, the show was being broadcast on ABC nationwide with a new name, American Bandstand. In 1972, he started hosting New Year's Rockin' Eve. He also hosted numerous awards shows, comedy specials, series based on TV outtakes and the game show $10,000 Pyramid as well as made guest appearances on dramatic and comedy series, usually playing himself.
Starting in the 1960s, he started producing other music shows like Where the Action Is and It's Happening. He eventually expanded into game shows, awards shows, comedy specials and series, talk shows, children's programming, reality programming, and movies. He won five Emmy Awards, including a Daytime Emmy lifetime achievement award in 1994, and in 1993 was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He died from a heart attack on April 18, 2012 at the age of 82.
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