Bert Parks
TV Personality
Name at birth: Bert Jacobson
Bert Parks was the longtime Master of Ceremonies for the annual Miss America beauty pageant, and the guy who sang the theme song "There She Is" at the end of the festivities. Parks got his start as a radio announcer in New York when he was still a teenager. From the 1940s through the 1960s he was the host of several daytime and prime-time TV game shows, including Stop the Music and Masquerade Party. He hosted the Miss America telecast from 1955 until 1980, when he was unceremoniously dumped and replaced by television actor Ron Ely (who was himself replaced in 1982).
Extra credit: Late-night talk show host Johnny Carson was so upset over the firing of Parks as the Miss America host that he launched an unsuccessful campaign to get him re-hired.
Other television hosts of his era include Dick Clark, Richard Dawson and Gene Rayburn.
Four Good Links
Bert Parks
Career profile from a PBS special on the pageant
Bert on The Hollywood Squares
He gets an outright panning in this review of the game show pilot
Bert Parks Audio
Scroll down to his clip to hear what he sounded like
Bert Parks Filmography
Game shows, game shows, game shows
Vital Stats
Birth
Birthplace
Death
2 February 1992
(lung cancer, age 77)
Best Known As
Longtime host of the Miss America pageant
