“Miss Mary Ann” King never stopped reminding people how special they are.
Long after she left the children’s television show “Romper Room,” King continued to carry her Magic Mirror, a prop she peered through to list the names of the special viewers at home. She brought it with her on errands later in life for the people who never heard their name on air.
“People stopped her everywhere we went and wanted her to say their name,” said Kandace Del Rosario, King’s daughter. “That’s why she carried it.”
The television host and long-time Hacienda Heights resident died Thursday at 82.
“She’s going to be greatly missed. Not just by me, but I think by many, many people,” Del Rosario said.
As of Friday, a Facebook post about her death had received more than 153 comments from friends and viewers.
“Romper Room” aired around the world with different hosts in each locale. Here in Los Angeles, “Miss Mary Ann” hosted the show in the 1960s and 1970s. “It was a grand journey,” King said last year. “When you do a daily show, it stretches your mind and keeps you busy. You really work hard. But I would have done it for nothing. I just loved it.”
On the show, she taught children how to behave — and how not to behave — with the help of “Do Bee” and “Don’t Bee.” She closed off each show with her Magic Mirror at the end to read off the first names of children watching, many of them submitted by their parents.
“Romper, bomper, stomper, boo, tell me, tell me, tell me do. Magic Mirror, tell me today, did all my friends have fun at play?” the host asked.
In 2003, a mugger snatched King’s bags, including one containing her Magic Mirror. Socorro Serrano, who hosted “Romper Room” as “Miss Soco” from 1975 to 1990, dug out her Magic Mirror after learning of the theft. She presented it to King on Countdown with Keith Olbermann.
“She really is the one that most people remember with her beautiful red hair and her lady-like demeanor and her sweet voice,” Serrano said. “That was my little way of encouraging her and respecting her. She was the ‘Romper Room’ teacher.”
It was the first time the two hosts sat together, Serrano said. While studying education in college, Serrano looked at King as a role model.
“She was just so important in the lives of so many little kids,” Serrano said. “She set the bar high for all ‘Romper Room’ teachers, and like all of her much younger students, I always wanted her to be proud of me.”
Originally from Oklahoma, King wrote commercials before she ever appeared in one. But when an actress couldn’t nail the lines, she stepped in and impressed the producers, Del Rosario said. She appeared in advertisements and talk shows in Texas and Kansas, until she was asked to come to Hollywood to host “Romper Room.”
“In her words, that was the end of the rainbow, where the dream was,” her daughter said.
After “Romper Room,” she went deeper into education, teaching as part of a regional occupation program that helped high school students learn technical skills. She took the job after school officials told her “if you think you can do better, come and do it,” when she complained about one of her daughters’ classes.
King was a lifelong advocate for education. In 2010, she fought against the controversial implementation of a Confucius Classroom, sponsored by the Chinese government, at a middle school in Hacienda La Puente Unified School District. Officials later decided to offer the program without accepting a $30,000 grant from China.
King moved from her home in Hacienda Heights to the Oakmont of Chino Hills senior community in 2015. Del Rosario made the decision because of a string of break-ins and her mother’s trusting personality. Sometimes people who saw her on the show sought her out at home.
“She brought sunshine wherever she went,” Del Rosario said. “She just saw the good in everything and trusted everyone, even when she probably shouldn’t have.”
Del Rosario has asked that anyone who would like to attend services for her mother contact her at KandiDelRosario@aol.com.
