But he feared that if the show’s secret ever came out, Middle America would change the channel. What they didn’t know was that Arlene and several of the other female dancers, and most of the handsome teen boys, were gay.Ĭlark, known as America’s oldest teenager, knew.
Millions of kids from Brooklyn to Beverly Hills ran home from school every weekday to watch them dance, imitate their styles and fantasize about their lives. They were the squeaky-clean Kardashians of their era, and “Bandstand” could easily claim the title as the first reality show. Angel Chevresttįive-foot-two, brown-eyed, brown-haired Arlene and handsome Kenny, a year younger, were among the TV music show’s elite, its stars, the vaunted “regulars” along with another couple often on camera - pert, blond Justine Carrelli and suave Bob Clayton. Arlene Sullivan and Kenny Rossi on the cover of Teen magazine in 1959. The big teenybopper magazines of the era - Sixteen and Teen - plastered “Bandstand” dancers on their covers and wrote glowing, gossipy stories about their lives in Philadelphia, where Dick Clark produced the show. They joined Arlene’s and Kenny’s fan clubs. When cute young teenagers Arlene Sullivan and Kenny Rossi slow danced together on “American Bandstand” back in the late ’50s and early ’60s, kids across the country swooned.
