“That really annoyed me because quite a few of the Philadelphia dancers on ‘Bandstand’ died of AIDS,” Smith said. Years later, when Clark was asked whether any of the dancers had died of AIDS, he stated that one had, Smith recalled. “And the one thing that really shocked me was that those boys who were 14 and 15 and 16 were sleeping with each other.”Ĭlark was “determined” to keep the homosexuality of popular “Bandstand” regulars a secret, Smith said. Angel ChevresttĪnd while Smith knew he was gay, he was “shocked” to learn that “most of the guys on ‘Bandstand,’ so many of them, were gay,” he told The Post. Ray Smith was one of the show’s secretly gay dancers. He would dance on the show until early 1960. He debuted in Studio 3B at WFIL-TV, near the El train stop in West Philadelphia, in 1956 when he was a 13-year-old junior high school student. But back in the “Bandstand” days, Smith was one of the show’s secretly gay dancers. Sullivan’s co-author, Ray Smith, recently retired after 40 years as an Emmy-winning “Today” show producer. I kissed a girl, and I liked it!” Sullivan, now 74 and long out of the closet, reveals in a fascinating self-published book, “ Bandstand Diaries” - billed as “The Book You’ve Waited Over 50 Years to Read!”
“I knew I was different early on, but being with all these friends, I came to terms with my feelings. 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. I am proud of everyone on the JFF platform, and this list is a microcosm of that diversity." The top 15 are rounded out by accounts like Krave Melanin, Cade Maddox, and Rocco Steele.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. "It is the point of a platform like JFF where everyone stands an equal chance of being successful.
amateur, age, race, body type," Ford wrote on Twitter when he released the full list of the top 15 performers - he told Out that he decided to do the top 15 because while this list is ordered by the most subscribers, when ordered by the most profits (performers can set their own monthly fee so some opt for a lesser following at a premium price) a few from the 11 - 15 slots shot into the top 10. "This list is incredibly diverse in porn star vs. The following list was culled by Dominic Ford, the creator of JustForFans, and represent the most followed gay accounts on the platform - he also did a list of trans performers.
So while the porn awards are about to kick up their circuit soon, awarding the best in studio work, we would be remiss to not look back at who the masses decided to fap to in 2019. And it has made for big business with reports consistently showing that performers can bring home $10,000 a month or more. Fan site platforms like JustForFans, OnlyFans, and more have cropped up, allowing performers to film, edit, publish, and (more importantly) profit from their own content.
Over the past three to five years, the homemade gay porn market has crystalized and gone mainstream.