I got a little power-crazed, admits Joe. 'Buddy' Deane; www.WashingtonPost.com -- The Messy Truth of The Real 'Hairspray.' When Mary Lous husband gave me the long and complicated directions to their home on the phone, he ended with And there you will find, yes, Mary Lou Raines. He later confided that when he first started dating her, he had no idea of her early career. Weve been searching for her for years, even Ricki Lake couldnt find her when she had her TV show., John Waters and members of the original cast of Hairspray. In 2003, "Hairspray" went on to sweep the 57th Annual Tony Awards, winning a total of eight awards. The early look of the Committee was typically 50s. The Corny Collins Show is now integrated! Waters himself commented on the films revisionist history, I gave it a happy ending that it didnt have., Hairsprays happy ending gave the story an arc that appealed to Broadway and Hollywood producers. "Buddy" Deane was a broadcaster for more than 50 years, beginning his career in Little Rock, Arkansas, then moving to the Memphis, Tennessee market, before moving on to Baltimore, where he worked at WITH radio. This move would have been a footnote in the annals of television if not for the director and Baltimore native John Waters, whose 1988 film Hairspray offered up an alternate history, with its fictional Corny Collins Show and rose-tinted, lets-all-dance-together ending. Why Europeans Dont Get Huge Medical Bills. Ladies and Gentleman . From 1964 to 1984, Deane hosted a show and owned KOTN-FM and KOTN-AM radio stations at Pine Bluff. We got more mail: Oh, please dont break up! Somebody even sent us a miniature pair of boxing gloves. "Hairspray" is set in the 1960s and is based on a TV show called "The Buddy Deane Show," which featured Baltimore-area teenagers dancing to popular music but was canceled in 1964, after the . She was one of the chosen few who went to New York to learn how to demonstrate the Madison, and was selected for the exchange committee that represented Baltimores best on American Bandstand. Buddy Deane. The musical is based on John Waters' 1988 campy movie of the same name. has the chance to resurface a forgotten history of how discrimination in pop culture intimately shaped the lives of young people 50 years ago. maintains the basic of Waterss story, but like the Broadway version and musical film, it features more than a dozen songs that help to convey the hopeful narrative. Arlene Kozak, Buddys assistant and den mother to the Committee. The film would spawn a 2002 Broadway musical adaptation starring Harvey Fierstein and Marissa Jaret Winokur, and a 2007 film adaptation of the musical starring John Travolta and Nikki Blonsky. The school tried to throw me out before. sively white show. He was so happy. Facing controversy over the possibility of more integrated broadcasts, the station canceled the program. BLACK MUSIC MOMENT #96: Short-Lived Integration Of The Buddy Deane Show. Last spring, five hundred people quickly snapped up the $23 tickets to the third Buddy Deane Reunion, held at the Eastwind, in Essex, to raise money for the Baltimore Burn Center. So you cant imagine how excited I was when I finally got a chance to interview these local legends twenty years later. The Deaners didnt mind. I was aggressive. 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. The Buddy Deane Show was a highly visible regional program that asserted a racially segregated public culture. Every rock n roll star of the day (except Elvis) came to town to lip-synch and plug their records on the show: Buddy Holly, Domino, the Supremes, the Marvelettes, Annette Funicello, Frankie Avalon, and Fabian, to name just a few. Advertisement. But by far the most popular hairdo queen on Buddy Deane was a 14-year-old Pimlico Junior High School student named Mary Lou Raines. They are still referred to, good naturedly by some, as the Ken and Barbie of the show. Gene, a member of the first Committee, and I underline first, later became president of the Board. He just didnt understand., But some have dealt with the problems in good humor. The first big stars were Bobbi Bums and Freddy Oswinkle, according to Arlene, but no matter how big anyone got, someone came along who was even bigger. Joe Cash and Joan Teves became the shows first royalty. In mixed marriages (with non-Deaners), many of the outsiders resented their spouses pasts. The Buddy Deane show aired 6 times a week and had a dance committee just like in hairspray. It was the times, most remember. I got these letters from the Naval Academy, Helen remembers, so I went there one day, and all the midshipmen were hanging out the windows. were the highest rated local TV show in America." Amazingly, Deane's show was aired live, two-and-a-half hours each day on five days a week with three hours on Saturday. Waters based the main storyline and "The Corny Collins Show" on the real-life "The Buddy Deane Show" and racial events surrounding it. I guess Helen Crist was the first drapette: the DA, the ballet shoes, oogies [tulle scarves], eye shadoweyeliner was big thenand pink lipstick., Helen Crist. Buddy Deane was the host of a Baltimore dance show that ran on TV from 1957 to 1964 six days a week. Theatre producer, Margo Lion, saw a television broadcast of the film in 1998 and started to conceive it as a stage musical. Even doing commercials was expected. In 1985 the Committee members are for the most part happy and healthy, living in Baltimore, and still recognized on the street. 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. Both black and white activists picketed the . Was it really twenty years ago? Ironically, The Buddy Deane Show introduced black music and artists into the lives of white Baltimore teenagers, many of whom learned to dance from black friends and listened to black radio. Why not do The Deane Show on TV again? Motormouth Maybelle, a fictional black deejay and civil-rights activist played in the NBC version by Jennifer Hudson, sings: You cant stop today as it comes speeding down the track / Child, yesterday is history and its never coming back / Cause tomorrow is a brand new day and it dont know white from black. In the films narrative, this utopian vision of a colorblind future solves the problem of segregation and racial injustice. Everywhere we went, people would say Theres Mary Lou. I wondered if she had just been released from the penitentiary.. As with the drapes and squares of the previous decade, she explains, there were two classes of people thenDeaners and Joe College. People already were excited about it, but after the election they were saying, Boy, do we need this now, Meron said while promoting the new television musical. The "Corny Collins Show" in Hairspray is loosely based on the Baltimore teen dance program called the "Buddy Deane Show." One Baltimore woman fought to get black teens on the popular show back in . The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached, or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Baltimore Magazine. I havent seen her since we made the movie, said Waters. See, the fictional Corny Collins Show is actually based on the real Buddy Deane Show, which aired on WJZ-TV in Baltimore, Maryland from 1957 to 1964, and was the inspiration for John Waters . Mr. Deane's salary . It was a family: Buddy was the father, Arlene was the mother.. Also, read the comments in that same excerpt about the series only wanting "attractive" teenagers as featured dancers. Sure, as a teenager I was a guest on the show. Almost every rock 'n' roll star except Elvis graced the Deane Show stage. It aired for two and a half hours a day, six days a week. You are history. 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. Unlike the tensions that followed the real integration of the Buddy Deane Show, Waterss Hairspray ends with the protesters triumphing. Sources: www.IMDB.com -- Buddy Deane Biography; www.OzNet.com - A Collection of Articles About Buddy Deane; www.Variety.com -- Winston J. Six days a week and often two hours a day, Buddy Deane and his Committee Members--the privileged regular teen dancers . The more hair spray, the better. It was a real kick! Her fame even brought an offer to join the circus. All of those dances were real, they were real dances, we didnt make any of them up and two were cut out. Girl Scout leader, very active in my kids school. Mary Lou is still a star. Arguably the first TV celebrities in Baltimore. 'The Buddy Deane Show' was over . Penny nervously stumbles over her answers, and another girl, Nadine Carver, is cut for being Black (the show has a "Negro Day" on the last Thursday of every month, she is told). Actor: Hairspray. John Waters with Divine (Harris Glen Milstead) at the Baltimore premiere of Hairspray, Originally, I had it, the idea was Divine was gonna play the mother and the daughter like in The Parent Trap. New Line [Cinema] wouldnt let me, he said. If you leaned on one side, the next day youd just pick it out into shape. There were a lot of obscene phone calls., And the rumors, God, the rumors. Once a Deaner, always a Deaner, as another so succinctly puts it. By representing this realityin bubble-gum, technicolor clarityHairspray does something that pure documentation, at times, cant: It makes a difficult part of a nations history accessible (and entertaining) to millions of viewers. At 21, I married a professional football player, Helen remembers, and he made me burn all the fan mail. I was a square. The show featured only white kids dancing, so Scruggs wrote him a letter in the fall of. Or the Bob-a Loop? Mary Lou was aware that in some neighborhoods it was not cool to be a Buddy Deaner. It was called The Waverly Theater back then, and Waters, looking dapper in a purple pinstriped suit, recalled that night as one of the last times he saw his friend and muse Divine before his death. . It ran two hours a day, six days a week. Teenagers who appeared on the show every day were known as "The Committee". See production, box office & company info. Jones). I had always studied dance, and I wanted to go on [the show]. In a long list of reasons why we find it difficult to wait for freedom, King writes: When you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she cant go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. Today they seem opposites. I was honored, touched by it all.. I took off my steady ring and threw it down. The night was full of delightful anecdotes, including these ten you may not have heard before. Im the biggest ham. Although she denies being conscious of the camera, she admits, I did try to dance up front. Some fifty years later, the mindset is STILL the same. Hairspray, which started as a camp film with a modest $2.7 million budget, grew into a popular and commercially successful Broadway musical and movie. The AP will not be held liable for any delays, inaccuracies, errors or omissions therefrom or in the transmission or delivery of all or any part thereof or for any damages arising from any of the foregoing. The show was a teen dance and music show and ran from 1957 to until 1964 on WJZ-TV until the show was canceled. . I'm sure they could have reached out to me via these posts, but did not. Deane began his broadcasting career at KLXR in Little Rock, Arkansas. The Buddy Deane Show was taken off the air because home station WJZ-TV was unwilling to integrate black and white dancers. . The information used was obtained from WJZ. (I looked like I was taking off.) And Helen, Linda, and Joanie all got out the rat-tail teasing combs. http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2016/03/how-madison-line-dance-got-its-name-and.html, http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2016/03/al-brown-and-ray-bryant-madison-records.html, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddy_Deane_Show, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hairspray_(2007_film), http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2015/06/timeline-for-cultural-use-of-saying.html, https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/tv/on-hairsprays-25th-anniversary-buddydeane-committee-looks-back/2013/01/17/a45a1cc2-5c23-11e2-88d0-c4cf65c3ad15_story.html, http://theurbandaily.com/2011/06/01/black-music-moment-96-short-lived-integration-of-the-buddy-deane-show/. The "Corny Collins Show" in Hairspray is loosely based on the Baltimore teen dance program called the "Buddy Deane Show." One Baltimore woman fought to get black teens on the popular show back in 1958. The Deane Show was marketed to a predominantly white audience, but due to integration efforts and the civil rights movement of the time the show first had Black dancers appear once a month then once a week. Deane also played songs that other disc jockeys, including Dick Clark, refused to present to mostly white teen TV audiences because the acts sounded "too black" (e.g. The first page of the essay, for example, features a full-page picture of black protestors in 1962 in Times . ' And Evanne still shudders as she recalls, Once I was in the cafeteria. Romance was one thing; sex was another. The television news reporter covering the Corny Collins Show in the film sums up the climactic scene: Youre seeing history being made today. Jul 24, 2017 - Explore Bruce Clarke's board "Buddy Dean Show", followed by 154 people on Pinterest. Some of the local teens who danced on the show became local celebrities and had fans of their own. He got a great review in The New York Times. Ninfa O. Barnard wrote this article for explorepinebluff.com. Once I was off the show for a while, and they said I had joined the nunnery, says Helen, laughing. The story also locates racial prejudice in a single character, Velma Von Tussle (played in the live musical by Kristin Chenoweth), which enables the other white characters to remain largely innocent bystanders to the discrimination faced by the programs black teenagers. Originally an all-white teen show with a monthly "Negro . The Buddy Deane Show was a teen dance television show, created by Zvi Shoubin, hosted by Winston "Buddy" Deane (1924-2003), and aired on WJZ-TV (Channel 13), the ABC affiliate station in Baltimore from 1957 until 1964. Joe remembers a sport coat I bought for $5 from somebody who got it when he got out of prison. Sign up for our Email Newsletters here. Oh, my God, its Evanne! Autograph books, cameras, this is what they lived for. Hopefully, some footage of you and the other Black dancers will be found and published online.Best wishes to you and yes, GOD HELP US! My mother used to pick me up after school to make sure nobody hassled me., The adoring fans could also be a hassle. From 1957 to 1963, only white teens were allowed to attend the weekday broadcasts of the Buddy Deane Show, with the exception of one Monday each month when black teenagers filled the . If a guy had one beer, it was a big deal. And although few will now admit to having been drapes, the styles at first were DAs (slicked back into the shape of a ducks tail), Detroits, and Waterfalls (flowing down the front) for the guys and ponytails and DAs for the girls, who wore full skirts with crinolins and three or four pairs of bobby socks. But it went something like this: Buddy Deane was an exclusively white show. 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