page_title: Mary Hart
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Mary Hart / Career
caption_attribution_description: Mary Hart at the 81st Academy Awards
context_page_description: Mary Hart is an American television personality and was the long-running host of the syndicated gossip and entertainment round-up program Entertainment Tonight, which is the longest running entertainment magazine show of all time. She was also Miss South Dakota 1970.
context_section_description: Hart began her full-time television career in 1975 at WMT-TV (currently KGAN) in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, then moving to KMTV in Omaha, Nebraska.  In 1976, she went to KTVY (now KFOR-TV) in Oklahoma City, where she co-hosted a show with Danny Williams called Dannysday.  She also was a sales representative for a school yearbook company. Determined to leave journalism behind, she moved to the Los Angeles neighborhood of Westwood in 1979 with $10,000 in the bank.  Hart landed a small role on the soap opera Days of Our Lives, as well as some TV commercials. Almost broke, she became a co-host on the Los Angeles version of the syndicated PM Magazine.  That led to a job in 1981 as co-host of Regis Philbin's first national talk show on NBC. When that show was canceled four months later, Entertainment Tonight interviewed her about what it felt like to be canceled. The day after the interview, she was hired as an ET correspondent. Thirteen weeks later, she was named the show's co-host, along 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.  Hart began co-hosting ET with Mark Steines in 2004. Soon after her hiring by ET, Hart chose Jay Bernstein as her manager. Hart is known for her shapely legs, leading to an endorsement contract with Hanes for that company's line of pantyhose in 1987. Jay Bernstein had her legs insured with Lloyd's of London for $1 million each. Executive Producer Linda Bell Blue described Hart as "the face of ET". On March 29, 1987 she participated in the World Wrestling Federation's WrestleMania III, serving as the guest timekeeper in the main event between Hulk Hogan and André the Giant.
  During the summer of 1988, Hart appeared in Las Vegas with comedian David Brenner at the Golden Nugget Hotel and Casino, which realized another of her childhood dreams, singing and dancing on stage. She continued her work on Entertainment Tonight while performing in Las Vegas, flying between the cities after two shows in Vegas, the last at 11:00PM, to film ET the following morning at 8:00AM. In 1991, the New England Journal of Medicine reported that Hart's voice had triggered seizures in an epileptic woman. This was later referenced in an episode of Tiny Toon Adventures and 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". She had also voiced a cartoon character named "Fairy Hart" in an episode of The Fairly OddParents where Bob Goen voiced "Bob Glimmer", and in The Fairly Oddparents TV movie, Fairly OddBaby.
  In May 2009, Hart suffered a broken left wrist due to an accident at home (not due to any exotic activity, despite her jokes about it). While her wrist was healing, she wore various brightly colored slings designed to match or complement her wardrobe for each show. On August 5, 2010, Hart announced that she was leaving the show at the end of the upcoming 30th season, citing that she was ready for a change. Hart's final episode aired on May 20, 2011—ending her 29-year history with the program.
  Between 2014 and 2016, Hart was a recurring character on the ABC Family sitcom Baby Daddy, as a fictional version of herself, who hosts a morning show called "The Mary Hart Show", and was the boss of Tahj Mowry's chracter Tucker Dobbs.
  On October 29, 2015, Hart made a guest appearance on ET, being interviewed by current host Nancy O'Dell; her appearance was meant to kick off a month-long celebration of the program's 35th season.
  Hart was Master of Ceremonies at the July 4th celebration at Mt. Rushmore on July 3, 2020. In her remarks, she said, "I remember well the tumultuousness, the tumult, the tragedy, but ultimately the triumph of the sixties. I was growing up then, and those were not easy times – for those of you who happen to be old enough like I am, to remember – but you know what, that was a terrible decade, but we turned out to be a better nation." Hart came under fire for allegedly making a white power han
caption: Hart at the 81st Academy Awards in February 2009.
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