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. He would dance on the show until early 1960. Ray Smith was one of the show’s secretly gay dancers. 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.
“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.
