Time sadly caught up with America's oldest teenager.
Dick Clark, the iconic TV host and producer who put younger folks to shame with his work ethic and energy until he was slowed by a stroke eight years ago, has died. He was 82.
He suffered what his agent, Paul Shefrin, described as a "massive heart attack" this morning while at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, where he was recovering from an outpatient procedure he has last night.
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"Attempts to resuscitate were unsuccessful," Shefrin said in a statement. "He is survived by his wife Kari and his three children, RAC, Duane and Cindy."
And, needless to say, generations of fans who could have picked any decade and tuned into Clark on radio or TV.
From the pioneering song-and-dance series American Bandstand—the format of which is still being copied to this day—to his annual Dick Clark's New Years Rockin' Eve, the New York native was a fixture of the entertainment scene.
Even when he wasn't on camera, Dick Clark Productions (which he sold in 2007 for a reported $175 million) was a force behind event television like the Golden Globes, the American Music Awards, the Academy of Country Music Awards and So You Think You Can Dance.
Since he first heralded the dropping of the ball in Times Square for ABC in 1972, Clark missed hosting his New Year's Eve show exactly once: He took the night off in 2004 after suffering a stroke earlier in the month, but was back on the air in 2005 along with cohost and ultimate successor Ryan Seacrest. (For the record, Rockin' Eve was preempted in 1999, but Clark still pulled countdown duty.)
"I wouldn't have missed this for the world," Clark said on the air as he waited for 2006 to arrive. Most recently, he and Seacrest ushered in 2012 together.
