Dick Clark

If there was someone who was supposed to be forever young, it was Dick Clark. He was never “the world’s oldest teenager,” as the clich went, but the world’s longest-serving cool uncle/chaperone. That forever-young facade was gone well before Clark, who suffered a stroke in 2004, died on April 18 at age 82. But he achieved cultural longevity well before then. The “Who will be the next Dick Clark?” speculation started years ago. But no one, however hardworking or well coiffed (see: Ryan Seacrest), is really in a position to present one face of youth culture to an entire country. That mass culture, like Clark himself, could not live forever. But for an impressively long run, Dick Clark kept the party going.