The Committee, as they were known, could do all the hot dances of the day: the Madison, the mashed potato, the pony. Committee members included Mike Miller, Charlie Bledsoe, Ron Osher, Mary Lou Raines, Pat(ricia) Tacey, and Cathy Schmink. On the last day of the show, January 4, 1964, all the most popular Committee members through the years came back for one last appearance. . Shes been a Realtor for the past 20 years and lives outside Philadelphia. We have our own "beach music" and sepearte room and bar in the back of the Ox. Im the biggest ham. Although she denies being conscious of the camera, she admits, I did try to dance up front. There I was under the burning lights of the WJZ-TV studio, slow-dancing with a Buddy Deane Show committee member. Five days a week on Channel 13 (first known as WAAM, then as WJZ), it played for two hours a day, and on Saturdays, two and a half. Marie Fischer was the first Joe to become a Committee memberchosen simply because she was such a good dancer. After saying goodbye to the Committee members . The Buddy Deane Show went on the air on Sept. 9, 1957 and became the most popular local show in the United States. Until the day she passed away [in 2007], we were still friends. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. so they had a points system. Linda Snyder: Every young star that had records out would come and promote their records. John Waters, writer and director of Hairspray: I was always obsessed by it. 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. And there was a big problem with that. He wanted me to go to a summer training session to be a trapeze artist. Special Thanks to Linda Snyder (committee member from the Buddy Deane Show) who shares many stories from the TV show, Richard Powers who provided the amazing photo from the set of the Buddy Dean Show, Lance Benishek (dance historian) who provided some ample questions and motivation when we began researching these dances in 2005. She was his right-hand man and she picked out all the kids for the show. My father had forbidden me to try out for the Buddy Deane Committee -- fearing, perhaps, that it would interfere with my becoming a national scholar at City College high school or prevent me from one day discovering the Internet -- so I had to sneak on the show, courtesy of girlfriends who sent away for tickets and took me as their guest. It didnt have a happy ending. "When you dance be sure to hold her, hold her tight. In 1950, he moved to Baltimore to WITH. We really didnt want to go off the air. The stage production opened in 2002, won eight Tony Awards and spawned another Hairspray movie, which was released in 2007. . . . And my mother would pack a little paper bag with my cha-cha heels and my pastel pink lipstick. We are kind of like Ozzie and Harriet, says Gene Snyder as Linda nods in agreement. As well, a show was broadcast from a local farm in Westminster, Maryland. Its host was Winston "Buddy" Deane, who died in Pine Bluff, Arkansas after suffering a stroke, July 16, 2003. I remember it well, recalls Evanne. To be a local celebrity like that, you always had to look your best when you went outside because people would see you. [1], Deane's dance party television show debuted in 1957 and was, for a time, the most popular local show in the United States. "Jesus, I can be anywhere, like a funeral parlor, and people will introduce me as 'this is Concetta, she was on Buddy Deane.' She smelled like a garden of flowers and could crack her chewing gum discreetly. I watched and fantasized about it and made up stories about it in my brain. It was horrible/ says Joe. Gene and Linda Snyder met on The Buddy Deane Show as committee members in 1959 and have been married for 46 years. Buddy himself, the high priest, returned for the event. When the show ended, Deane moved back to Arkansas, bought half a dozen radio stations, and lived out his life there, except for brief runs back to Baltimore, where hed host reunions with hundreds in attendance. When that little red light came on, so did my smile, she says, laughing. Deane was named the No. Mary Lou Barber: I used to receive 100 letters a week, all fan mail. (It's featured in Waters' film. Mary Lou Raines received 100 letters a week. Once a Deaner, always a Deaner, as another so succinctly puts it. The main thing was your hair was flat, the antithesis of Buddy Deane, she says, chuckling. So the NAACP targeted the show for protests. Truth is, the era wasn't as innocent as some might contend. It's so nice that we all have great friendships to remember & it's so great to sta y in touch. We answered everything back then, except people like Mary Lou, who got bags of fan mail. Im Joe, too. There was a change in the works., Part of that change was the racial integration movement. My dad use to pick myself and Eva Anne up from Gwynns Falls Junior High and her Mom would then pick us up after the show. On the air before Dick Clark debuted, the show was a hit from the beginning, says Arlene today. Buddy Deane Committee This is a home for all of the dancers from the Buddy Deane Era (1957 - 1964) to meet up and keep in touch. Mary Lou Barber: Ive only been able to watch [Hairspray] a couple of times because so much of it hits home. Buddy Deane. This was the adults, who didnt know what to do, so they shut the whole thing down.. Ladies and Gentleman . These kids developed a huge following of fans and hangers-on in Baltimore who emulated their dance moves, followed their life stories, and copied their look. This undated photo shows dancers on "The Buddy Deane Show." Deane, Kozak, Cahan, the . He was one of the first disc jockeys in the area to regularly feature rock and roll. The Buddy Deane Show was a teen dance television show, created by Zvi Shoubin, hosted by Winston "Buddy" Deane . In the beginning, there was Arlene. To this day, I don't know why my late father, then in his 60s, was watching the Buddy Deane Show. This is a home for all of the dancers from the Buddy Deane Era (1957 - 1964) to meet up and keep in touch. This Committees committee, under the watchful eye of Arlene, chose new members, taught the dance steps, and enforced the demerit system, which could result in suspension or expulsion. . The uncertain life of a high-schooler became more tolerable. ', 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. The one thing everyone seems to remember about The Buddy Deane Show is its ending: amid calls to integrate the almost all-white program (as in Hairspray, there was one day a month when African Americans could dance on the show), Buddy Deane was canceled. . Why not do The Deane Show on TV again? The old Buddy Deane gang is still a hit, too, still getting recognized on the street, and still remembered with affection by a generation that spanned the Eisenhower and Kennedy years. The show was a teen dance and music show and ran from 1957 to until 1964 on WJZ-TV until the show was canceled.The show was a teen dance and music show and ran from 1957 to until 1964 on WJZ-TV until the show was canceled.The show was a teen dance and music show and ran from 1957 to until 1964 on WJZ-TV until the show was canceled. Billy, especially, was picked on unmercifully "up on Belair Road," but deep inside, the ones making fun -- some of whom would wind up with heroin habits or work down at Bethlehem Steel -- were deeply envious of him. I wanted to go, but my parents wouldnt let me. In 1985 the Committee members are for the most part happy and healthy, living in Baltimore, and still recognized on the street. You could throw her down on the ground, and her hair would crack, recalls Gene. Its like anything you see today. * Indicates person was on the show until the last episode. three, two, one. Id get hate mail. Eva Anne and Mike Marcellino were my favories. That dancing was integrated and I learned how to do the boomerang, shing-a-ling, the skate and the twine time. Deane and Kozak were advised by a small group of committee members on final cuts. To be selected you had to bring a character reference letter from your pastor, priest, or rabbi, qualify in a dance audition, and show in an interview (the Spotlight) that you had personality. At first the Committee had a revolving membership with no one serving longer than three months. It was so painful. She was the one of the biggies who refused to be on the Board (they had power; a liked because of it). I used to get death threats on the show. Very few "squares" or "Joe College" teen-agers were on the show. "The Nicest Kids In Town" -former dancers from the Buddy Deane Show (1957- 1964). I think Im honoring their great stardom. Some committee guys bought their shoes at Manchester's on Howard Street, pointy-toed footwear that sported various buckles, flaps and other avant-garde touches. We are in touch with Larry Miller, Lola & many of the people that you haven't seen in awhile. They still get together and they still do a pretty sharp Madison. The producers of Diner wanted to include Buddy Deane footage in their film, but most of the shows were live and any tapes of this local period piece have been erased. Today they seem opposites. The rivalry with Dick Clark meant that Deane urged all his performers not to mention American Bandstand or visits to Clark in Philadelphia. It was a fluke. It was difficult with your peers, recalls Peanuts. My email: frani@francescatravel.com It's so funny that we were just talking about you a few months back. Teenagers who appeared on the show every day were known as "The Committee". In mixed marriages (with non-Deaners), many of the outsiders resented their spouses pasts. They set the style for teens throughout Baltimore. I will be moving near Ocean City in July.Do you remember me. I was just accidentally obsessed with something that was appealing to more people. Marie Shapiro: I think we all kind of knew what was coming. My email is bigsales@aol.com, cell number is 410-365-6569. The Buddy Deane Show was taken off the air because home station WJZ-TV was unwilling to integrate black and white dancers. I watched it for the fashion and for the drama, because Buddy Deane encouraged them to [date and] break up on film. Buddy could take his seat beneath the famous Top 20 Board, and the tension would build. But most have settled down to a very straight life. The views expressed in this post are the author's own. So many talented musicians and people who wanted to show their appreciation made the night truly special. I was so embarrassed. You werent one of them anymore. Outsiders envied the fame, especially if they lost their steadies to Deaners, and many were put off by boys who loved to dance. Linda reverently describes her Committee membership as the best experience I ever had in my life. They later became members of the Permanent Committee, the hall of fame that could come back to dance even after retiring. They were married in 1966 and have one daughter. If Im ever depressed, sometimes I think, Well this will make me feel better, and I go and dig in the box., Holding onto the memories more than anyone is Arlene Kozak, who is by far the most loved by all the Committee members. It was really no big deal to us. Now: The Hahns have stayed in Baltimore. Former committee leader Mary Lou Barber (nee Raines) remains dumbfounded that she received 100 letters a week from fans, some of whom resided at the state penitentiary, but mostly from lovestruck boys who fell in love with the girl with the bow in her hair. Several marriages resulted from liaisons between Committee Members. The views expressed here are the author's own. Rich and I didn't get together until 1989 and, like some other "Deaners", I had the attitude that no one would remember me after all that time, so I never went to the dances. Faced with pressure to integrate the show, something the station (and some Committee members parents) refused to allow, WJZ canceled Buddy Deane in 1964. Come share the songs & dances of the Buddy Deane Show with us! At frantic meetings of the Committee, many said, My parents simply wont let me come if its integrated, and WJZ realized it just couldnt be done. Not show biz, Arlene answers, hesitating, but the record biz, the people. He was seventy-eight. I was really mad. The boys were picked on, because boys didnt dance then. On the show you were either a drape or a square, explains Sharon. Buddy: Deane in the 50s when she worked for a record wholesaler and he was the top-rated disc jockey on WITHthe only DJ in town who played rock n roll for the kids. To a generation of Baltimore teen-agers, Buddy Deane was a pioneering rock 'n' roll disc jockey, host of a must-see television dance party in the '50s . Its time had passed a little. If you were a Buddy Deane Committee member, you were on TV six days a week for as many as three hours a dayenough media exposure to make Marshall McLuhans head spin. Someone else would want to come on the Committee and take your place. Snyder said she choreographed the Madison, a popular line dance of the time, for . I can still remember them calling us in one by one, former Committee member Carl Parks said. Boy - do I wish I had. I took off my steady ring and threw it down. Evanne and her brother run the John Brock Benson Dance Studios, in Pasadena, and have a line of dancers who appear at clubs all over the state. Oh, my God, its Evanne! Autograph books, cameras, this is what they lived for. (backrow) Joe Loverde, Vicki Defeo, Bil Bertazon, and Marie Fischer Cooke Shapiro. 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. I would see this again years later, stinky and scared young guys dancing to candlelight in a sandbagged Vietnam bunker, serenaded by a tropically-warped Temptations album. Deane helped numerous black record artists in their careers -- James Brown among them. And there were a bunch of us on the rock-and-roll fence, eyes on Buddy Deane's show and ears on Paul "Fat Daddy" Johnson, the gifted and wild Baltimore radio disc jockey who introduced frenetic free-association poetry at unusual times. The 25th anniversary of the movie Hairspray provides an opportunity for members of the dance group of Baltimores The Buddy Deane Show to get back together and reminisce about the TV show that the movie is based upon. You had to be able to jitterbug and you had to be able to cha-cha, and do whatever dance was popular then, the mashed potato or the pony. My black friends knew they could not be on the show because of segregation. In reality, integration spelled the demise of The Buddy Deane Show, which ran from 1957 to 1964. She became so popular that she was written up in the nationwide Sixteen Magazine. But something unforeseen happened: The home audience soon grew attached to some of these kids.
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