Trivia: Once known as "America's oldest living teenager," emcee, occasional actor, television producer, commercial pitchman, restaurateur, and entrepreneur Dick Clark was one of Hollywood's powerhouses, but became most famous for hosting the longest-running series on the ABC television network, American Bandstand, which aired from 1957 to 1987 and then was resurrected for a year on the USA network in 1989. This show played a vital role in promoting rock music and gave many important acts their first national exposure. Clark began his career as a radio announcer. The first episodes of American Bandstand were broadcast from Philadelphia and were quite innovative. Each show featured popular artists who lip-synched their latest hits, interviews, autograph sessions, and lots of teen dancing. Though playing rock & roll music -- which was still regarded with trepidation and suspicion among conservatives -- the shows were reassuringly wholesome, an image in large part projected by the clean-cut, friendly, and honest-faced Clark himself. Through the years, the canny host secured the rights to each episode, many of which contain the only available clips of popular performers and one-hit wonders alike. Therefore, his collection provided a priceless archive to the history of rock music. Clark at one time was an aspiring actor and has appeared in a few feature films playing someone other than himself. He made his feature-film debut in 1960's Because They're Young. As an emcee, he hosted game shows and the ABC New Year's Eve telecast from Times Square in New York for many years. He also hosted numerous television compilation shows, often in the company of Ed McMahon with whom he represented the Publisher's Clearing House sweepstakes on television. As a producer, Clark's Dick Clark Productions was responsible for numerous series, television movies, game shows, specials, and compilations as well as television commercials and awards specials. As a restaurant owner, Clark founded a small chain of Dick Clark's American Bandstand Grills, rock & roll-themed restaurants decorated with memorabilia from Clark's enormous personal collection.In 2004, Clark suffered a stroke that nearly ended his broadcasting career. Though he managed to sporadically come back for his annual New Years Eve specials, Clark eventually passed away at the age of 82 from a heart attack in 2012, leaving behind a legacy unlike any other.

Trivia: A singer almost from the time she learned to talk, American actress Shirley Jones was entered by her vocal coach in the Miss Pittsburgh contest at age 18. The attendant publicity led Jones to an audition with Rodgers and Hammerstein for potential stage work. Much taken by Jones' beautifully trained voice, the producers cast her as the leading lady in the expensive, prestigious film production of their theatrical smash Oklahoma! (1955). In 1956 Jones starred in another Rodgers and Hammerstein film adaptation, Carousel; this and her first film tended to limit her to sweet, peaches 'n' cream roles for the next several years. Thankfully, and with the full support of director Richard Brooks, Jones was able to break away from her screen stereotype with her role as a vengeful prostitute in Elmer Gantry (1960) -- a powerfully flamboyant performance that won her an Academy Award. Alas, filmgoers preferred the "nice" Shirley, and it was back to goody-goody roles in such films as The Music Man (1962) and A Ticklish Affair (1963) -- though critics heartily praised Jones' performances in these harmless confections. It was again for Brooks that Shirley had her next major dramatic film role, in 1969's The Happy Ending, which represented one of her last movie appearances before her four-year TV stint as the glamorous matriarch of The Partridge Family. This popular series did less for Shirley than it did for her stepson, teen idol David Cassidy, but The Partridge Family is still raking in ratings (and residuals) on the rerun circuit. Her unhappy marriage to the late actor Jack Cassidy long in the past, Jones found domestic stability as the wife of actor/agent Marty Ingels, with whom she wrote a refreshingly candid dual biography. The actress also played a recurring character on The Drew Carey Show (1998-1999), and appeared in numerous documentaries throughout the 2000s. Jones had a supporting role in 2006's Grandma's Boy, and guest roles on shows like Cougar Town and Raising Hope.

Trivia: A performer whose career soared and peaked in the early '70s, multifaceted entertainer David Cassidy dramatically redefined the term "teen idol," as others including Paul Anka and Neil Sedaka had before him. In his heyday, Cassidy culled an untoward number of admirers, including legions of starstruck teenage girls. The son of actors Jack Cassidy and Evelyn Ward (and the stepson of Shirley Jones), David landed his first major break on the blockbuster '70s musical sitcom The Partridge Family (1970-1974), opposite Jones, Susan Dey, and Danny Bonaduce. Based very loosely on the experiences of the real-life family vocal band the Cowsills, the now-iconic series told of a widowed mother and her brood of rowdy kids, who became national pop stars overnight, and eked out a life touring in a colorful schoolbus and performing all over the country. Cassidy -- 20 years old when the series premiered -- played the eldest Partridge boy, 16-year-old David. Series producers took advantage of the program's success by marketing the Partridges as a real-life recording group, fronted by David (who was not a professional musician); this worked, and brought Cassidy Grammy Awards and the largest celebrity fan club in the history of recorded music. The triumphs were somewhat short-lived, however, and by 1975 (a year after Family folded) Cassidy's popularity with the younger market had declined, as new and fresher talent took his place. He responded by branching out into acting roles, in films such as A Chance to Live (1978), The Narc (1978), and The Night the City Screamed (1980), and in time established an agreeable presence as a musical theater star, on Broadway and in London's famed West End.Cassidy's overall popularity rebounded in the mid- to late '90s. Thanks in no small part to a nostalgia craze and to presence on VH1, he landed an assignment opening the 75-million-dollar show EFX at the MGM Grand, which in turn gave him the clout to mount and produce his own revue in Vegas, a tribute to Sinatra and co. christened The Rat Pack Is Back (1999). In the following decade, Cassidy began touring once again, signed a new record deal, and issued a series of albums including Then and Now (2001) and Touch of Blue (2003). Busy as ever, he topped TV GUIDE's list of the 25 Greatest Teen Idols in 2005.

Trivia: Like her TV contemporaries Ron Howard and Valerie Bertinelli, actress Susan Dey grew up before the eyes of America. In 1970, the eighteen-year-old Dey was cast as Laurie Partridge on the popular sitcom The Partridge Family, garnering excellent reviews from critics who otherwise wrote off the series as a waste of time. As early as the 1975 TV movie Cage without a Key, Susan was struggling to break away from her goodie-goodie Partridge image. She almost succeeded with her nude love scene in the 1977 theatrical feature First Love, but audiences still preferred to see Susan in such roles as Jo March in the 1977 made-for-TV Little Women. Also in 1977, she starred in the obscure television series Loves Me, Loves me Not. In 1986, she accepted the role of no-nonsense attorney Grace Van Owen in the courtroom television drama LA Law, and in 1992, Susan was permitted to flex her comedy muscles once more as Wallace Porter in the weekly sitcom Love and War, though she grew dissatisfied with her role and left the series in 1993. Dey would continue to appear in selective projects over the coming years, specializing in Lifetime orignal movies like Deadly Love, Blue River, and Bridge of Time. Dey would also enjoy a story arc on the series Third Watch.