Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Collins hosted Miss America

Gary Collins, an actor, television show host and former master of ceremonies for the Miss America Pageant, died Saturday, authorities said. He was 74.
img-0-7396152.jpg
Gary Collins: Dies at 74.

Gary Collins, an actor, television show host and former master of ceremonies for the Miss America Pageant, died Saturday, authorities said. He was 74.

During the 1980s, Collins hosted the Miss America pageant and the television shows Hour Magazine - for which he won a Daytime Emmy in 1983 - and The Home Show.

As an actor, he appeared in numerous movies and was a fixture on television in the 1960s and 1970s, playing a variety of guest roles in comedies and dramas including Perry Mason, The Love Boat and Ironside, among others.

He kept acting for decades, appearing as late as 2009 in an episode of the TV show Dirty Sexy Money.

Collins was married to former Miss America and Mississippi native Mary Ann Mobley.