He was also known as one of the original producers of The Tonight Show Starring Steve Allen and Arthur Murray's Dance Party.
The two played fictional versions of themselves; a newlywed couple living in an apartment in New York City trying to make it in life.
The series was the first sitcom broadcast on television, the first to show a couple sharing a bed and the first to feature a pregnancy; the Stearns' real life son Christopher (born 1948).
[6] After Mary Kay, Stearns went on to produce the Steve Allen version of The Tonight Show which ran on NBC from 1954–1957 and Arthur Murray's Dance Party in the 1950s.
Stearns died on December 1, 2001, in Newport Beach, California at the Hoag Memorial Hospital from complications of a fall at the age of 85.