Early Television and Film Career
In 1958, he continued his Saturday night television legacy, launching Al Rucker and the Seven Teens program on WJAR-TV, Providence, Rhode Island. In New York City in 1959, when asked to change his name, he chose that of a distant cousin, Clay Cole. Clay's 1960 all-star ten-day Christmas show at the Brooklyn Paramount Theater broke the all-time house box office record. Clay was among the few white performers invited to appear at Harlem's Apollo Theater; he headlined three week-long revues, starring Fats Domino, Gladys Knight & the Pips and Chubby Checker. In 1961, he appeared as himself in the film Twist Around the Clock. When WNTA-TV was sold in 1963, Cole's program was picked up by New York City television station WPIX-TV, where the program became known as Clay Cole's Discotek by 1965. During the 1960s "British Invasion", musical acts arriving from the UK often appeared on Cole's television show before doing network shows such as The Ed Sullivan Show. The Rolling Stones and The Who were among those who first appeared on Cole's television show. Cole's show differed from American Bandstand in a few ways: while both Cole and Dick Clark had an interest in young people and their music, Cole did not hesitate to join in on his show's dance floor. He was also more confident about booking lesser-known performers and comedians for his show.
Read more about this topic: Clay Cole
Famous quotes containing the words early, television, film and/or career:
“It is easy to see that, even in the freedom of early youth, an American girl never quite loses control of herself; she enjoys all permitted pleasures without losing her head about any of them, and her reason never lets the reins go, though it may often seem to let them flap.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
“In full view of his television audience, he preached a new religion—or a new form of Christianity—based on faith in financial miracles and in a Heaven here on earth with a water slide and luxury hotels. It was a religion of celebrity and showmanship and fun, which made a mockery of all puritanical standards and all canons of good taste. Its standard was excess, and its doctrines were tolerance and freedom from accountability.”
—New Yorker (April 23, 1990)
“Perhaps our eyes are merely a blank film which is taken from us after our deaths to be developed elsewhere and screened as our life story in some infernal cinema or despatched as microfilm into the sidereal void.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“In time your relatives will come to accept the idea that a career is as important to you as your family. Of course, in time the polar ice cap will melt.”
—Barbara Dale (b. 1940)