Bert Parks Negotiates Return to Miss America Pageant

The Miss America Pageant is negotiating to bring back Bert Parks, who serenaded newly crowned beauty queens with “There She Is” for 25 years before being dumped as the pageant’s television host in 1980.

“I can confirm we are talking to people on behalf of Mr. Parks” and to Parks himself, pageant Director Leonard Horn said. “Nothing has been finalized.”

Gary Collins and Phyllis George would still be co-hosts of the show, but Parks would sing “There She Is” during the winner’s traditional walk down the runway, said a source on the pageant board of directors.

Calls to Parks, 75, at his Greenwich, Conn., home were not immediately returned.

His firing a decade ago in favor of Ron Ely, who played “Tarzan” on television, stirred a public outcry. Johnny Carson led a letter-writing campaign in support of Parks, and 20,000 people took part.

Parks went on to play host at other pageants, some serious, others silly.

Former pageant Director Albert Marks Jr., who died last year, said in 1980 that he fired Parks because he wanted to appeal to a younger generation unfamiliar with Parks or little enamored of his rendition of the theme song.

Parks has said the firing was the best thing to happen to his career.

He has since been host of the Mrs. America Pageant, the U.S. Man of the Year, a small-dog contest and a prettiest tugboat contest. In the new Marlon Brando movie “The Freshman,” he serenades a Komodo dragon, a 6-foot lizard.

This year’s pageant is scheduled for Sept. 4-8 and will be shown on NBC.