The Deaners didnt mind. . The show featured only white kids dancing, so Scruggs wrote him a letter in the fall of 1958 to . His show became one of the highest rated stations in the country. Oddly enough, few of the Deaners Ive talked to went on to show biz. At just 10 years old, he and a friend set up their own radio station in a chicken coop that belonged to Deane's mother. (97) It would be a treasure to pass down to my future generations. The show featured only white kids dancing, so Scruggs wrote him a letter in the fall of 1958 to . [citation needed] With an ear for music seasoned by many more years as a disc jockey than Clark, Deane also brought to his audience a wider array of white musical acts than were seen on American Bandstand. Last spring, five hundred people quickly snapped up the $23 tickets to the third Buddy Deane Reunion, held at the Eastwind, in Essex, to raise money for the Baltimore Burn Center. Girl Scout leader, very active in my kids school. Mary Lou is still a star. In addition to creating teenage dancing sensations, "The Buddy Deane Show" also featured musical superstars of the day, including Buddy Holly, Domino, the Supremes, the Marvelettes, Annette Funicello, Frankie Avalon, Fabian and many others. The Buddy Deane Show was a teenage dance party, on the air from 1957 to 1964. Sign up for our Email Newsletters here. On the other, Hairspray Live! It's not just about police brutality. One time I was going with this guy, and he was dancing with this guest I didnt like, says Evanne. It was similar to Philadelphia's American Bandstand. 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Buddy called me up before the cameras, and I wasnt dressed my best. At first I was so shy I hid behind the Coke machines., But Evanne used to come right home and head for the TV. The black cops would stop us and say: This isnt Greenwich Village, you know. When I get depressed, I dont go to the psychiatrist, I go to the jeweler, she says. It ran two hours a day, six days a week. Hopefully, some footage of you and the other Black dancers will be found and published online.Best wishes to you and yes, GOD HELP US! The Deane program was a segregated show: white and Black teenagers danced on separate broadcasts. He wanted me to go to a summer training session to be a trapeze artist. In 1950, Deane moved to Baltimore to host 1230 AM WITH after Stan Kenton, a performer and guest he was interviewing, informed him of the opening at the radio station. Or the Bob-a Loop? But black kids in . . It was maddening: the Mashed Potatoes, the Stroll, the Pony, the Waddle, the Locomotion, the Bug, the Handjive, the New Continental, and, most important, the Madison, a complicated line dance that started here and later swept the country. Black and white together on local TV. IndieWire is a part of Penske Media Corporation. The night was full of delightful anecdotes, including these ten you may not have heard before. Deane died in Pine Bluff, Arkansas on July 16, 2003, after suffering a stroke. In 1984, he sold the station to a local college but bought it back in 1996. When the subject comes up today, most loyalists want to go off the record. I still believe that footage is out there somewhere. Joanie, whose mother wanted me to be a child star, hit the show in early 57 at age 13 (you had to be 14 to be eligible, but many lied about their ages to qualify), followed a few months later by Joe, 17. The information used was obtained from WJZ. It was similar to Philadelphia's American Bandstand. . Ladies and gentlemen, the nicest kids in town!. Acts that appeared on the show first were reportedly barred from appearing on Dick Clark's American Bandstand, but if they had been on Bandstand first they could still be on The Buddy Deane Show. On Sept. 13, 1964, he introduced The Beatles before their concert at the Baltimore Civic Center, and a few days later, he and his family moved back to Arkansas. Dick Clark patterned his ABC-TV show, Where the Action Is, after local remotes done by Deane in Maryland. Black History Month . If "The Buddy Deane Show" didn't exactly end happily (canceled in 1964, it never did integrate the dancers), Waters remains a fan. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it. Ten seconds to airtime. Racism is passed down from one generation to the next. Ironically, The Buddy Deane Show introduced black music and artists into the lives of white Baltimore teenagers, many of whom learned to dance from black friends and listened to black radio. Deane fought in the Battle of the Bulge and was awarded a Purple Heart during his time in the Europe. Baltimore teenagers rushed home to catch the show daily to listen to the popular music, watch their favorite dancers, copy their style and learn the new dances that were introduced almost every week. This move would have been a footnote in the annals of television if not for the director and Baltimore native John Waters, whose 1988 film Hairspray offered up an alternate history, with its fictional Corny Collins Show and rose-tinted, lets-all-dance-together ending. Mary Lou, the Annette Funicello of the show, was the talk of teenage Baltimore. Buddy offered to have three or even four days a week all black, but that wasnt it. You could throw her down on the ground, and her hair would crack, recalls Gene. Please read our Terms of Use or contact us. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. Some kids on the show went a little nuts, with stars in their eyes; they thought they were going to go to Hollywood and be moviestars.. The Buddy Deane Show was taken off the air because home station WJZ-TV was unwilling to integrate black and white dancers. A big strong line!) up the hill to the famous dance party set, the one that now houses People Are Talking. And although few will now admit to having been drapes, the styles at first were DAs (slicked back into the shape of a ducks tail), Detroits, and Waterfalls (flowing down the front) for the guys and ponytails and DAs for the girls, who wore full skirts with crinolins and three or four pairs of bobby socks. Deane died in Pine Bluff on July 16, 2003, after experiencing complications caused by a stroke. The inspiration for this movie was born out of an afternoon teen dance show, The Buddy Deane Show, which aired on Baltimore's WJZ-TV from 1957-1964 until it was taken off the air because the owner did not want to integrate. These were the first role models I knew. Get off that furniture!? Performances begin at 7 p.m. I thought I was running the world, so they developed a Board, and the Committee began governing itself. Being elected to the Board became the ultimate status symbol. I guess Helen Crist was the first drapette: the DA, the ballet shoes, oogies [tulle scarves], eye shadoweyeliner was big thenand pink lipstick., Helen Crist. Mr. If you couldnt do the Buddy Dean jitterbug, (always identifiable by the girls ever-so-subtle dip of her head each time she was twirled around), you were a social outcast. With the 1960s came a whole new set of stars, some with names that seemed like gimmicks, but werent: Concetta Comi, the popular sister team of Yetta and Gretta Kotik. Pixie was barely five feet tall, but her hair sometimes added a good six to eight inches to her height. While at WITH, Deane was the first Baltimore disk jockey to capitalize on the new musical phenomenon that was rock 'n' roll. Not one of the Committee members, the ones chosen to be on the show every daythe Baltimore version of the Mouseketeers, the nicest kids in town, as they were billed. Now a receptionist living near Towson with her husband and two grown children, Arlene remains fiercely loyal, organizing the reunions and keeping notebooks filled with the updated addresses, married names, and phone numbers of my kids. She met Winston J. How Actress Rachel Hilsons Baltimore Roots Influence Her Work Today, The Mount Vernon Virtuosi is Much More Than a Chamber Orchestra, Jen Michalski Discusses New Short Story Collection The Company of Strangers. All on Pulaski Highway. Deane also presented British artist Helen Shapiro, who sang her Baltimore hit, "Tell Me What He Said," at about the time that she was touring England with The Beatles as one of her support acts. It was similar to Philadelphia's American Bandstand. After the screening, he was joined by Michael Musto and original cast membersLeslie Ann Powers (Penny Pingleton), JoAnn Havrilla (Prudence Pingleton), and Holter Graham (I.Q. Museum Day; Art; Books; Design; Food; Music & Film; Video; Newsletter; Travel. Hundreds of thousands of teens learned the latest dances by watching Committee members on the show, copying their personal style, and following their life stories and interactions. He was so happy. Winston "Buddy" Deane was a broadcaster for more than fifty years, beginning his career in Little Rock, Arkansas, then moving to the Memphis, Tennessee, market before moving onto Baltimore . John Water's himself said that in his movie, he "gave it the happy ending that it didn't have". Nicknamed "Buddy" as a child, Deane . And the girl Deaners, God, hair-hoppers as we called them in Towson, the ones with the Etta Gowns, bouffant hairdos, and cha-cha heels. Greetings, Pat Brun.Thanks for commenting in this pancocojams discussion thread. Actor: Hairspray. No matter how progressive we become, there will always be those who will still hang on to the tradition of hate. My mother used to pick me up after school to make sure nobody hassled me., The adoring fans could also be a hassle. That really hit home then., He adde, That scene where Tracy and [Link] are making out outside and the homeless guy walks up the street singing, that is exactly true. Waters: We used to go to the hotel and hed say, Come in, and hed be in bed with a cleaning woman smoking pot., It was Tracy saying to Link: Please dont look at my legs without the benefit of nylons.. Buddy Deane, a native of Pine Bluff, was one of the first radio hosts to understand the appeal of Rock n' Roll in its infancy, the host of a popular 60s teen dance show, the inspiration for a film and musical character in Hairspray, and so much more. Yeah it was Cosenel, says Joe. His running joke with listeners was that he ran the town from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. until the city's real mayor took over. Almost all dancers wore swim wear and beach attire, with music provided by WJZ-TV. My heart would have broken in two if I couldnt have gone on. Finally, Helen quit Mergenthaler (Mervo) trade school, at the height of her fame. ', Although many parents and WJZ insisted that Committee members had to keep up their grades to stay on the show, the reality could be quite different. Once I was off the show for a while, and they said I had joined the nunnery, says Helen, laughing. 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