Dick Clark Spins Another Record

These dog days of August are the times that try columnists’ hearts.

Nothing, literally almost nothing, happens to write about--so what a thrill when two fab breakfasts come one’s way, and one of them is with Dick Clark. (The other was with the Cedars-Sinai Women’s Guild, which is no slouch either.)

Chatting over melon in the Polo Lounge, Clark told of his upcoming inclusion in the Guinness Book of World Records--the recipient of the first Guinness Supreme Achievement Award.

When Clark’s “American Bandstand” begins its 35th consecutive year this fall on Sept. 19, it sets a record as TV’s longest-running entertainment program.

The youthful Clark himself looks record-breaking, at

57 still spinning platters and talking about the hits. The current songs will never establish themselves the way the golden oldies did, Clark believes: “Records are now up and out in just 10 weeks. They used to stay on the charts 10 months.” Clark insists that he has just “tagged along” on the show, but does point out that surveys show that Americans have a 93% familiarity with “American Bandstand.”

Clark celebrates his own stay on the charts with a massive party Sept. 14, hosted by Julio Iglesias and Dionne Warwick. But who will sing “At the Hop”?

RICHES TO RAGS--Yes, that’s what the promise is on the invite to the Dec. 15 premiere of “Overboard” with Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell. “From Spago to Spam, from Porsches to Pickups” the invite to the Cedars-Sinai Women’s Guild bash promises. Putting together the details Monday at breakfast, were Marcia Koch, the guild president, Carolyn Blywise (who with Fran Stark and Nancy Rosenbloom will co-chair the premiere) and supper party chair Joanna Carson along with her co-chair Judy Ovitz. Resplendent in a yellow suit with a matching Bottega Veneta yellow shoulder bag, Carson said the premiere party would reflect the theme of the movie--in which Hawn moves from being rich to being not-very. So it will start with caviar and end with peanuts. It’s a Garry Marshall film, and he told the group half-kiddingly, “My wife is a nurse. She thought this was a good group. The film was originally going to the Sons of Italy.”

Koch was clear that the invites had to go out soon--even though the party was more than three months off. “We have ‘diabetes’ in December,” she said, warning of another event. She at first had thanked the folks at United Artists for underwriting most of the party’s expenses--when MGM’S Barry Lorie pointed out, “Wrong logo. It’s MGM. Think of the lion.” Koch then went on to promise that the party would be wonderful, and “even if we use the hot apple pie for dessert--it will be king of funky--we will have the elegance of the chocolate covered strawberries.” Parties like these do not happen without attention to details. The women--including Ruth Fox, Mimi Meltzer, Lorraine Sloan and new board member Nancy Zarif--took their invitations and went home. The guild has raised more than $7 million in the past 30 years--most of it in the past decade. In 1980, the hospital’s Hospice Unit was funded initially at $50,000 by the guild, which gave an additional $600,000 through 1986. At the end of this year, another $100,000 will be given. Kudos.

SORRY, WRONG NUMBER--Veteran NBC Radio network correspondent and political reporter Dan Blackburn learned he was out of a job in the worst way--when he called in with a hot story last Friday to his editor at NBC in New York. Blackburn was the only one to track down former Democratic National Chair Chuck Manatt to a Newport Beach hotel, there to ask Manatt about the repercussions of Gary Hart’s supposed re-entry into politics.

Talking to his desk, Blackburn found out that his services were no longer needed by the network now owned by Westwood One, Inc. of Los Angeles. Which, one insider said, brings down the number of network correspondents based at NBC Burbank from nine to three in the past year--correspondents who actually cover news, that is, like former staffers Roy Neal and Frank Bourgholtzer. Look soon on another station for Blackburn, who has covered every presidential campaign since 1964 and has no plans to sit out this one.

IMMIGRANT ASSISTANCE--John Sayles’ new film “Matewan,” starring James Earl Jones, focuses on the coal wars in West Virginia in the 1920s. Monday, more modern-day labor concerns get the attention at the benefit premiere of the film at the Directors’ Guild. The evening was put together by the AFL-CIO Labor Institute of Public Affairs, and will benefit the Immigrant Assistance Project of the County AFL-CIO, the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund and the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California--all of whom are involved in documentation and assistance to aliens.

HOT STUFF--Or not so hot, depending on how you like it. When Phyllis Diller launches her new line of chili Sept. 12 at a party at Brentwood Park, one can choose with or without beans, chicken chili or even a beef stew. Truth is, the girl who has made a million laughs out of saying she can’t cook, really can.