Mary Hart
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Mary Hart (born November 8, 1950) is an American television personality and a long-time host of the syndicated gossip and entertainment round-up program Entertainment Tonight. She has been an anchor, or "hostess", of that program since 1982.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life
Hart was born Mary Johanna Harum in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and lived there, as well as in Denmark and Sweden, as a child and teenager. She speaks both Danish and Swedish fluently. Hart competed in the Miss America pageant in 1970 as Miss South Dakota, and finished in the top ten. Two years later, Hart graduated from Augustana College in Sioux Falls and produced and anchored her own cable TV talk show. That led to jobs on the air in Iowa and Oklahoma. She was married to Terry Hart from 1972 to 1979.
[edit] Career
In 1979, she moved to Los Angeles, determined to leave journalism behind. She had $10,000 in the bank. She lived in Westwood and jogged through the rich neighborhoods of Holmby Hills and Beverly Hills. Hart landed a small role on the soap opera Days of our Lives, as well as some TV commercials. Almost broke, she became a host on Los Angeles news program "PM Magazine". That led to a job in 1981 as co-host of Regis Philbin's first national talk show. When that show was canceled four months later, Entertainment Tonight interviewed her about what it felt like to be canned. The day after the interview, she was hired as an "E. T." correspondent; 13 weeks later, she was named the show's co-host with Ron Hendren.
In 1984, Hendren was replaced by Robb Weller, who was replaced by John Tesh in 1986, who was replaced by Bob Goen in 1996. Soon after her hiring by ET, Hart chose starmaker Jay Bernstein as her manager. Hart is perhaps best known for her shapely legs, leading to an endorsement contract with Hanes Hosiery for their line of pantyhose in 1987. She has never worked barelegged while hosting Entertainment Tonight. Jay Bernstein also had her legs insured for $1 million. In 1991, the New England Journal of Medicine reported that Hart's voice, perhaps best described as perky, had triggered seizures in an epileptic woman. [1] This was later referenced in an episode of the NBC sitcom Seinfeld, where Kramer (Michael Richards) suffers from convulsions whenever he hears Hart's voice.
Hart has been parodied in Animaniacs in the character, "Mary Heartless".
[edit] Personal life
Hart lives in an affluent part of Los Angeles with her husband, Burt Sugarman, the producer of the films Children of a Lesser God and Crimes of the Heart. The two were married in 1989 and have one son, A. J. (born December 24, 1991). Hart, originally a Lutheran, converted to Judaism upon her marriage to Sugarman.[1]
| Preceded by Dixie Whatley |
Co-host of Entertainment Tonight 1982–present |
Succeeded by incumbent |
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ the Jewish News Weekly. Celebrity Jews. Retrieved on September 30, 2006.
