On CNN's Erin Burnett OutFront, two people who credit Dick Clark with kickstarting their careers in music, Neil Sedaka and Marie Osmond, remembered the icon as a man who took chances on untested talents, and turned them into stars.

For Showbiz Tonight anchor A.J. Hammer, who met Dick Clark as a young man, the experience was career-defining. "I got to meet my idol," Hammer told Erin Burnett. Clark, who died at age 82, was a role model to Hammer–and, Hammer says, a genuinely nice and kind man.