Singer Bobby Rydell

Rydell, along with James Darren, Fabian and Frankie Avalon, was part of a wave of wholesome teen idols who emerged after Elvis Presley and before the rise ...

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Bobby Rydell, the 1960s teen heartthrob who appeared in the 1963 musical comedy "Bye Bye Birdie," has died. He was 79.

I wasn’t a soft-shoe type of guy, but I was always a fairly good mover, and everything in ‘Bye Bye Birdie’ is all moves,” he said in a 2020 interview. But I’ve survived through all of that, and I’m continuing to do what I really enjoy doing.” “It’s been my life since like 7 years old,” said Rydell, who was a frequent guest on variety shows hosted by the likes of Red Skelton, George Burns, Jack Benny and Danny Thomas. “I can’t complain at all about my career. I wanna be that drummer,” Rydell said he told his father. Ukee Washington of CBS3 in Philly shared the news with social media on Tuesday. “A Philly Music Legend … has passed on. “That’s what you had to do to make it.

He had his first hit in 1959. Six decades later, teamed with his fellow singers Frankie Avalon and Fabian, he was still drawing crowds.

After his television appearances dwindled, he continued to perform in nightclubs and nostalgia shows, and to tour Australia, until the promoter Dick Fox put the Golden Boys together in 1985, initially or a PBS special. In 1975, Ian Dove wrote: “Mr. Rydell is not your hard rocker — his era was in the late 1950s, when rock was being softened and made less frightening. In a radio interview in 2013 with Ted Yates of CKOC in Hamilton, Ontario, Mr. Rydell explained why he hadn’t stayed in Hollywood to make more movies: “I couldn’t. There was something about the lifestyle in California that I really wasn’t used to. But the only movie in which he made much of an impact was “Bye Bye Birdie,” released in 1963 and based on the hit Broadway musical of the same name, which poked fun at show business in general and rock ’n’ roll frenzy in particular. In the 2000 book “The Beatles Anthology,” Paul McCartney was quoted as saying that he and John Lennon based “She Loves You” on a Bobby Rydell song. He raised his children there, and moved in 2013 only because the house had grown too big for him and his wife. “His son had passed away, and Bobby always felt he was looked upon by Mr. Skelton as a son. The Australian police had to make a wedge to get us out of Sydney Stadium. It was scary, but all in all it was absolutely tremendous.” (Mr. Rydell went on to tour in Australia more than 20 times.) Reviewing his Copacabana performance in 1961, Variety complimented him on his “sense of career.” “Right now, he’s a teenager’s teenager,” the Variety critic said. Unlike some of the other pretty faces of his era, Mr. Rydell was a real musician. His name alone could conjure up an entire era: The 1970s rock musical “Grease,” in both its Broadway and movie versions, was set in 1959 at the fictional Rydell High School. Over the course of his recording career he placed 19 singles in the Billboard Top 40 and 34 in the Hot 100.

The 1950s teen idol was known for his hits 'Wildwood Days,' 'Volare,' 'Swinging School,' among many others.

For over 30 years, the singer has performed in hundreds of shows. He was scheduled to sing at the Golden Nugget in Atlantic City in June. Producers of the 70s romantic comedy ‘Grease’ named the high school after Rydell to pay tribute to the era in which the popular musical was set.