Marjorie Wallace

Marjorie Wallace, born January 23, 1954, in Indianapolis, Indiana, is an American actress, television host, model, and beauty queen. She is best known for making history in 1973 as the first woman from the United States to win the Miss World contest. Later in her career, she gained further prominence as an original co-anchor for the television entertainment news program Entertainment Tonight.

Wallace was raised in the suburbs of Indianapolis, where her family operated an industrial supply business. Her parents divorced when she was 14 years old, and at age 17, she moved in with a guitarist from a local rock band named Pure Funk. She soon began traveling between Indianapolis and Chicago to work as a model. Encouraged by a modeling agent, Wallace entered and won both the Miss Indiana World and Miss World USA beauty pageants, granting her entry into the international Miss World competition.

On November 23, 1973, Wallace defeated 53 competitors at the Royal Albert Hall in London to capture the Miss World title. During her stay in the United Kingdom, she dated several prominent figures, including Welsh singer Tom Jones, Northern Irish football star George Best, and American race car driver Peter Revson, to whom she became engaged. However, while engaged to Revson, she carried on an affair with Jones. Pageant officials determined that her actions violated her contract, and on March 7, 1974—104 days after her victory—Wallace became the first Miss World to have her title revoked.

Following the loss of her title, Wallace experienced significant personal hardship. On March 22, 1974, Revson died in a crash while practicing for the South African Grand Prix. Less than three months later, Wallace was found unconscious in her apartment by her sister following an overdose of sleeping pills and required dialysis treatment at a hospital in Indianapolis. She later clarified that while she was depressed at the time, the overdose was not a suicide attempt.

Wallace transitioned into television during the mid-to-late 1970s. She secured acting roles on popular series such as Baretta and Get Christie Love!, served as a panelist on the game show Match Game, and featured in commercials for Ultra Brite toothpaste, Wella products, and American Express. After moving to New York and auditioning for sportscasting roles with major networks, she was hired in 1981 as an original co-anchor for Entertainment Tonight. She departed the show a few months later after declining a reassignment to a reporter role.

Wallace's personal life included several high-profile relationships. She lived with tennis champion Jimmy Connors in 1976, and in May 1978, she married film producer Michael Klein, with whom she had a son named Adam before their divorce in 1982. She was later linked to Richard Cohen, and in 1994, she married real estate developer Donald Soffer, a marriage that ended in divorce in 1996.