Dick Clark - Telegraph In the end they found that Clark had done nothing illegal, but ABC ordered him to give up his outside businesses or the show. He kept the show, a decision that he estimated cost him $8 million. His holdings included partial ownership of Swan Records, which later released the first American version of the Beatles" 1963 hit She Loves You. Curiously Clark never booked the Beatles or the Rolling Stones for American Bandstand. Elvis Presley also never appeared, although Clark did manage an on-air telephone interview while Presley was serving in the US Army. But no one doubted his entrepreneurial acumen, for Clark was one of America's most successful media moguls: Dick Clark Productions supplied films, game shows and even beauty contests to the television networks. For some 40 years Clark also hosted a live New Year's Eve televised outside broadcast from Times Square in New York. For a time during the 1980s Clark had shows on all three US networks and was listed among the Forbes 400 of the wealthiest Americans. Richard Wagstaff Clark was born on November 30 1929 in Bronxville, New York, the son of a radio sales manager. At the AB Davis high school in nearby Mount Vernon, he joined the drama club and was voted "The Man Most Likely To Sell The Brooklyn Bridge," on account of his extrovert and persuasive personality. He graduated from Syracuse University in 1951. Having taken holiday jobs in various radio stations as a student, Clark moved to Philadelphia in 1952 to host a weekday record radio show on WFIL called Dick Clark's Caravan Of Music. Shortly afterwards, the station's local television affiliate launched a successful afternoon programme called Bandstand, and when in 1956 the resident host was fired for drink-driving, Clark took over. The show went coast-to-coast the following year, attracting daily weekday audiences of six million for its simple format, summed up by Clark himself with characteristic brevity: "I played records, the kids danced, and America watched." Many black entertainers received their first television airing on the programme, now renamed American Bandstand, and it helped to popularise a succession of 1960s dance crazes including the Twist, the Watusi and the Harlem Shuffle. To supplement his earnings, Clark became a partner in several music-related companies, bought a record-pressing business and a share of a management agency. By the age of 30 he was a millionaire. His company, Dick Clark Productions, went public in 1986. His image as "the world's oldest teenager" became strained after Clark was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in 1994. He suffered a stroke in 2004 . Twice divorced, Dick Clark had a son with his first wife, Barbara Mallery, and a son and daughter with his second wife, Loretta Martin. He married his business partner Kari Wigton in 1977. Dick Clark, born November 30 1929, died April 18 2012