Buddy Deane - NY Times Obituary

Buddy Deane, 78, TV Host
And Inspiration of 'Hairspray'

PINE BLUFF, Ark., July 26 (AP)
--Buddy Deane, whose popular Baltimore television dance show for teenagers became the basis for the John Waters movie "Hairspray," died here on July 16. He was 78

The cause was complications from a stroke, his family said.

One of the first radio disc jockeys to broadcast rock 'n' roll, he recognized the emerging style's appeal in the 1950's and began playing the music continuously, in what was then a new radio format.

From 1957 to 1964 he was host of "The Buddy Deane Show" and eventually had a small part in Mr. Water's 1988 movie about a show like his.

"The Buddy Deane Show," on WJZ-TV in Baltimore, featured teenagers dancing to live bands, many of which became major recording groups. It had many of the city's teenagers in thrall for two and a half hours a day, six days a week.

Bill Haley and the Comets performed "Rock Around the Clock" for the first time on the show, and Mr. Deane was named the No.1 D.J. in 1962 by Billboard magazine.

The Waters movie's story, about an overweight girl who wants to become a regular on the thinly fictionalized "Corny Collins Show," makes one significant departure from the real show: Mr. Deane's show was not successfully integrated after a stirring civil-rights struggle.

In the movie, Mr. Deane appeared briefly as a reporter in a scene outside the governor's mansion as the chief executive is besieged by protesters demanding integration. Unlike the hard-line segregationists depicted in the movie, WJZ-TV's managers wanted the show to integrate. But white Baltimore wasn't ready.

"The management of the station did not realize that Baltimore was very much a Southern-oriented city," Mr. Deane said in a 2002 interview with The Associated Press. He said they asked each member of the show's committee of regular dancers "what they thought about integration, and they said, 'Well, it's O.K. with me, but my folks won't be happy.' That was the general consensus."

The show was canceled, and Mr. Deane returned to his home state of Arkansas and acquired KOTN-FM and KOTN-AM radio stations here. His stations combined rock 'n' roll with an emphasis on local news and information.

He expanded his radio ownership to other stations in Pine Bluff and Dumas.

He was a partner with his daughter and her husband in Delta Radio Inc., which last year sold its remaining four radio stations to M.R.S. Ventures of Tyler, Tex.

Mr. Deane started his career at the Little Rock radio station KLXR, moved to Memphis, and then to Baltimore, where he worked at WITH radio.

Survivors include his wife and three daughters.