Bert Parks
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Bert Parks (December 30, 1914 – February 2, 1992), an American actor, singer, and radio and television announcer and host, is best known as the longtime host (1955-1979) of the annual Miss America Pageant telecast.
Born Bert Jacobson in Atlanta, Georgia, Parks got his first broadcasting job at age sixteen, for Atlanta's WGST radio. He moved to New York when he was nineteen. He was hired as a singer and straight man on The Eddie Cantor Show before becoming a CBS radio staff announcer. Parks became the host of Break the Bank, which premiered on radio in 1945 and went on to television from 1948-1957, and Stop the Music on radio in 1948, and on television 1949-1952. Other game/quiz shows Parks hosted in the first decade and a half of television (the debut years are noted here) included The Big Payoff (1951), Balance Your Budget (1952), Double or Nothing (1952), Two in Love (1954), Giant Step (1956), Hold That Note (1957), County Fair (1958), Bid 'n' Buy (1958), Masquerade Party (which debuted in 1952 with Parks as a panelist until he became the show's host in 1958), and Yours For A Song (1961). Parks also hosted the pilot for The Hollywood Squares but was not selected to host the series. That honor went to Peter Marshall.
He also had a daytime variety show with The Bert Parks Show (1950), a variety show. He hosted the Miss America telecast from 1955 until 1979.
An audio tape of Parks's classic rendition of the song "There She Is, Miss America" is still used each year in the Miss America contest as the just-announced winner takes her walk down the runway in her newly-earned crown.
Parks died of lung cancer at age 77.
