HOLLYWOOD (CNS) – A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame will be unveiled Thursday honoring Mario Lopez on his 51st birthday for a career best known for portraying star athlete A.C. Slater on the NBC Saturday morning comedy “Saved by the Bell” and hosting “Extra” and “Access Hollywood.”
Actor Mark Wahlberg, Lopez’s mother Elvia Lopez and Valari Dobson Staab, the chairman of NBCUniversal Local, are set to join Lopez in speaking at the 11:30 a.m. ceremony at 6930 Hollywood Blvd., in front of Wahlburgers restaurant and across the street from the TCL Chinese Theatre.
The ceremony will be streamed on the Walk of Fame’s website, walkoffame.com.
The star is the 2,792nd since the completion of the Walk of Fame in 1961 with the initial 1,558 stars.
Eastbound Hollywood Boulevard will be closed between Orange and Highland avenues from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. to accommodate the ceremony Ana Martinez, producer of the Hollywood Walk of Fame, told City News Service.
Born on Oct. 10, 1973, in Chula Vista, Lopez was discovered by a talent agent at a dance recital when he was 10 years old. He made his professional acting debut as a cast member in the ABC comedy “a.k.a. Pablo,” which ran for six weeks in 1984.
Lopez was a cast member of “Saved by the Bell” throughout its 1989- 1993 Saturday morning run, its prime-time spinoff, “Saved by the Bell: The College Years,” which ran on NBC in the 1993-94 season, and its 2020-22 reboot on Peacock.
Lopez’s other television acting credits include portraying four-time Olympic gold medal-winning diver Greg Louganis in the 1997 USA Network made-for- television movie, “Breaking the Surface: The Greg Louganis Story,” the CBS daytime drama “The Bold and the Beautiful,” and the FX medical drama “Nip/Tuck.”
Lopez has been a host of “Access Hollywood” since 2019 after being a host of the rival syndicated entertainment news program “Extra” from 2008- 2019.
Lopez is also a host of `Access Daily with Mario & Kit,” the radio shows “On with Mario Lopez,” and “iHeartRadio Countdown with Mario Lopez,” and the boxing podcast “The 3 Knockdown Rule.”
Lopez also hosted the Miss America pageant in 2007, 2009 and 2010 and the Miss Universe pageant in 2007 and 2020.
