It is hard to imagine one showman's career spanning the first half of the 20th Century from Buffalo Bill's Wild West Circus to the British invasion of the Beatles.

When I first met George Hamid, Sr. most of the bumps in his perilous ride to success were behind him. Our introduction occurred a year or two after my Philadelphia television debut on American Bandstand in the mid-fifties.

For the then unheard of sum of $10,000 George hired me to host a two-day show featuring relatively unknown teenage newcomers such as Chubby Checker, Frankie Avalon and Bobby Rydell to perform in the Steel Pier's ten-thousand capacity Marine Ballroom on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City. The concept was so successful that I starred on Steel Pier into the late sixties.

I was actually in Atlantic City playing the Steel Pier on the day George and his son George, Jr. brought the Beatles to the Boardwalk Convention Hall during the band's first U.S. tour, one of the fascinating accounts later in the book told by George, Jr.

The tales of the Hamids' show biz era are remarkable and entertaining and will take readers on a journey through a time we will never see again. I'm proud to have been a part of it.