Articles and Reviews

Idols don't come easy. Start looking up to some celebrity and soon enough he turns out to be a bigtime gambler, addict, adulterer, child molester, steroid abuser, tax cheat - maybe even a double murderer.

Take heart from Linda Hoffman. Her teen idol turned out to be humane as well as human.

Hoffman was 10 in 1960 when a chance encounter on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City led to a lifetime friendship with a celebrity and, she says, changed the course of her future. Sound a little bit like the movie Beaches? The ending is not as tragic.

The celebrity in question is Bobby Rydell. More from him later.

Thanks to Hoffman, Rydell was among the first 10 stars named to the Walk of Fame on Broad Street in 1987. Now Hoffman wants the City to erect a sign on the 2400 Block of South 11th Street, where Rydell grew up, commemorating it as Bobby Rydell Boulevard. A City Council Committee will hold a public hearing on the idea Friday, and the full council is expected to approve the plan by the end of the month.

If this is a big deal, it's because the city almost never changes the names of streets (as in Kelly Drive, which used to be East River Drive) and hardly ever "also names" streets, as it is doing in this case. There is no such marker on the streets where Frankie Avalon, Fabian or even Eddie Fisher lived.

Bobby is worth it, says Hoffman, now 45.

Rydell, now 53, was one of a handful of guys who rocketed from South Philadelphia to teen idol status in the late 1950's, back when American Bandstand was big. Remember Frankie Avalon? Fabian? Rydell was of that genre.

He was the skinny one with the pompadour, kind of an early Lyle Lovett. He had million sellers with such songs as "Wild One" and "Kissin' Time" and costarred in the movie version of Bye Bye Birdie opposite Ann-Margret, who still keeps in touch, he says.

"I would think twice before I'd agree to have my street named for somebody," said Hoffman, who could pass for a native South Philadelphian but grew up in Flourtown. "That person would have to be pretty special. But Bobby, he's been a lot more to this city than a lot of those other guys. They were great, and they left. You know what I'm saying? Bobby never really left.

"Sure, he travels and everything but he stayed in the area; he married his childhood sweetheart; he does charity work that is incredible .I mean, you would never know half of the charity work this man does - all for this area. That's when it hit me."

The bronze plaque on the Walk of Fame commemorated Rydell's musical contribution to the city, Hoffman said. The street sign would honor the personal side - the boy who grew up in a rowhouse, where his parents and grandparents molded reverence for community and respect for elders.

Those are the qualities, Hoffman said, that first drew her to Rydell and his family on Easter Sunday 1960, when she was outside the Planter's Peanut Store and Rydell took a break from his Steel Pier show to sign autographs on the Boardwalk.

The common wisdom about teenage infatuations is that they fade. Not Hoffman's. She went from helping Bobby's mom with the sacks of fan mail to becoming president of the Bobby Rydell National Fan Club at age 14.

She appeared with him on The Mike Douglas Show, and he sang "Happy Birthday" to her when she turned Sweet 16 and he was appearing at the Latin Quarter in New York City.

Who forgets such moments?

"When you're a kid and you're around all that heady stuff," Hoffman said, "you learn to handle yourself. You learn how to handle other fans, you know, who want things and who want things that are unreachable. It laid the foundation for a lot of what I do today."

Hoffman went on to a career conducting international tours for a travel agency and now works as a personal assistant to a very prominent and very private Philadelphian.

But she still treasures the way she was treated with respect, even at age 10, and welcomed into Bobby's family circle.

In April, when she knocked on doors along 11th Street, seeking signatures on her petition to "also name" the street, she met Nicholas Spadea, whose parents bought the Rydell (then Ridarelli) home in 1962.

Spadea, 26, remembers sleeping in the bedroom - the one with the soundproofing in the ceiling - in which Rydell practiced his drumming. Spadea and his wife, Maria, who is also from the neighborhood, still live in the home. They open the door to every television and film crew that comes along.

"The house always had a lot of notoriety," Spadea said. Over the years the brickfront home with the wrought iron rail has be featured on Evening Magazine and Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Spadea said he likes the idea of Bobby Rydell Boulevard. "It's a nice positive," he said, adding that in South Philadelphia, folks may move but they don't really want to leave the neighborhood. "They leave because they want a parking spot," he said.

Rydell said the only reason he moved out to Penn Valley was that the family needed more closet space. That was in 1962. He took along his grandparents, his parents, his new bride and his South Philadelphia values, he said.

Now his son, Robert, 25, who is married and has a child, lives in the old neighborhood. "He always said he wanted to move back to South Philadelphia," Bobby said of his son. "He liked the atmosphere of downtown, where you could play with somebody next door or down the street, as opposed to out here, where you have to be literally driven everywhere. He just loved South Philly. And I love South Philly, it will always be in my heart."

Rydell still gets lots of work. He played in Puerto Rico during the Memorial Day weekend, had some gigs in Florida last week and will be at Caesar's Atlantic City Hotel-Casino this week.

In performance, he does all the oldies and some classics. Fans like Hoffman, sporting Bobby Rydell T-shirts or buttons, trek to every show. They still sit in the front rows, Hoffman said, "but we're quieter today."