Frankie "Hollywood" Crocker (December 18, 1937 – October 21, 2000) was an American disc jockey, VH-1 VJ, TV host and actor.

According to popeducation.org, Crocker began his career in Buffalo at soul music powerhouse WUFO 1080 AM (also the home to future greats Gerry Bledsoe,[1] Eddie O'Jay,[2] Herb Hamlett, Gary Byrd and Chucky T).

[4] In the studio, before he left for the day, Crocker would light a candle and invite female listeners to enjoy a candlelight bath with him.

This innovative feature enabled music enthusiasts to actively participate without paying toll rates to the phone company and engage in the show's content.

Speaking to Radio Report magazine, an industry periodical, Crocker said, "There is nothing I won't play if I hear it and like it and feel it will go for my market".

[8] WBLS helped break Blondie, Madonna, Shannon, D Train, The System, Colonel Abrams, Alicia Myers and supermodel Grace Jones as popular recording artists.

WBLS airplay made "Ain't No Stoppin Us Now" by McFadden and Whitehead a favorite cookout, church, wedding and graduation song.

[citation needed] He also gave America exposure to an obscure genre called "Reggae" and he helped make popular to American audiences a Jamaican rocker named Bob Marley.

As an actor, Crocker appeared in five films, including Cleopatra Jones (1973), Five on the Black Hand Side (1973), and Darktown Strutters (Get Down and Boogie) (1975).

[14] After the payola charges were dropped, he returned to New York radio in 1979 as DJ and Program Director on WBLS-FM, at the end of the disco era.

His friend and former boss Bob Law, a onetime program director of WWRL, said of Crocker, "He encompassed all of the urban sophistication.