Mary Hart

Mary Hart
Hart modeling for The Heart Truth charity fashion show in 2007
Born	Mary Johanna Harum (1950-11-08) November 8, 1950 (age 66) Madison, South Dakota, U.S.
Occupation	Television personality, talk show host, singer
Years active	1976–present
Title	Miss South Dakota 1970 Semi-finalist Miss America 1971
Spouse(s)	Terry Hart (1972–1979) (divorced) Burt Sugarman (1989–present)
Children	Alec Jay "AJ" Sugarman (born 1991)

Mary Hart (born November 8, 1950) is an American television personality and was the long-running host (1982-2011) 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.

Mary Hart was born Mary Johanna Harum in Madison, South Dakota and lived in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, as well as in Denmark, as a child and teenager. She speaks both Danish and Swedish fluently. Hart, who competed as Mary Harum when she was Miss South Dakota 1970, was a semi-finalist in the Miss America 1971 pageant. In 1968, Hart graduated, first from Augustana Academy and in 1972 from Augustana College in Sioux Falls. While teaching English at Washington High School for two years, she also produced and anchored her own talk show on KSFY-TV, the local ABC affiliate.

Hart began her full-time television career at 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.