There are thirteen million women in the United States between the ages of eighteen and twenty-eight. All of them were eligible to compete for the title of Miss America in the annual contest staged in Atlantic City last month if they were high-school graduates, were not and had never been married, and were not Negroes. Ten thousand of them participated in preliminary contests held in all but three of the forty-eight states. Then, one cool September day, a Miss from each of these states, together with a Miss New York City, a Miss Greater Philadelphia, a Miss Chicago, a Miss District of Columbia, a Miss Canada, a Miss Puerto Rico, and a Miss Hawaii, arrived in Atlantic City to display her beauty, poise, grace, physique, personality, and talent. The primary, and most obvious, stake in the contest was a twenty-five-thousand-dollar scholarship fund—a five-thousand-dollar scholarship for the winner and lesser ones for fourteen runners-up—which had been established by the makers of Nash automobiles, Catalina swim suits, and a cotton fabric known as Everglaze. The winner would also get a new four-door Nash sedan, a dozen Catalina swim suits, and a wardrobe of sixty Everglaze garments. The contest was called the Miss America Pageant. The fifty-two competitors went into it seeking, beyond the prizes, great decisions. Exactly what was decided, they are still trying to find out.
Miss New York State was a twenty-two-year-old registered nurse named Wanda Nalepa, who lives in the Bronx. She has honey-blond hair, green eyes, and a light complexion, and is five feet three. Some other statistics gathered by Miss America Pageant officials are: weight, 108; bust, 34; waist, 23; thigh, 19; hips, 34; calf, 12; ankle, 7½; shoe size, 5; dress size, 10. She was asked in an official questionnaire why she had entered the Atlantic City contest. She answered that her friends had urged her to. The day before the contest was to start, I telephoned Miss Nalepa at her home to ask when she was leaving for Atlantic City. She said that she was driving down the next morning and invited me to go along.
Miss Nalepa lives in a second-floor walkup apartment in a building near 164th Street on Sherman Avenue, a couple of blocks from the Grand Concourse. At eight the following morning, I was greeted at the door of the Nalepa flat by a thin young man in his late twenties wearing rimless glasses. “Come right in, Miss,” he said. “I’m Teddy, Wanda’s brother. Wanda’s getting dressed.” He led me into a small, dim living room, and I sat down in a chair next to a table. On the table were two trophies—a silver loving cup saying “Miss Sullivan County 1949” and a plastic statuette saying “Miss New York State 1949”—and a two-panel picture folder showing, on one side, Miss Nalepa in a bathing suit and, on the other, Miss Nalepa in a nurse’s uniform. Teddy sat on the edge of a couch and stared self-consciously at a crucifix and a holy picture on the wall across the room. I asked him if he was going to Atlantic City. He said that he was a tool-and-die maker and had to work. “Bob—that’s Wanda’s boy friend—he’s driving you down,” he said. “Bob can get more time off. He’s assistant manager for a finance company.”
One by one, the family wandered into the room—Mr. Nalepa, a short, tired-looking man who resembles Teddy and who works in a factory making rattan furniture; Mrs. Nalepa, a small, shy woman with gray hair; and Wanda’s younger sister, Helen, a high-school senior. Each of them nodded to me or said hello, but nobody said anything much after that. Then a pair of French doors opened and Wanda came in and said hello to me. Everybody studied her. She wore an eggshell straw sailor hat set back on her head, a navy-blue dotted-swiss dress, blue stockings, and high-heeled navy-blue pumps. For jewelry, she wore only a sturdy wristwatch with a leather strap and her nursing-school graduation ring.
“I hope this looks all right,” Miss Nalepa said in a thin, uncertain voice. “I didn’t know what to wear.”
“Looks all right,” her father said.
The doorbell rang. Teddy said that it must be Bob. It was Bob—a tall, gaunt man of about thirty with a worried face. He nodded to everybody, picked up Miss Nalepa’s luggage and threw several evening gowns over one arm, said that we ought to get going, and started downstairs.
“Well, goodbye,” said Miss Nalepa.
“Don’t forget to stand up straight,” her sister said.
“What about breakfast?” her mother asked mildly.
“I don’t feel like eating,” Miss Nalepa said. “Good luck, Wanda,” said Teddy
“Well, goodbye,” Miss Nalepa said again, looking at her father.
“All right, all right, goodbye,” her father said.
Miss Nalepa was about to walk out the door when her mother stepped up timidly and gave her a peck on the cheek. As we were going downstairs together, Miss Nalepa clutched at my wrist. Her hand was cold. “That’s the second time I ever remember my mother kissed me,” she said, with a nervous laugh. “The first time was when I graduated from high school. I looked around to see if anybody was watching us, I was so embarrassed.”
We found Bob and a pudgy, bald-headed man named Frank stowing the bags in the luggage compartment of a 1948 Pontiac sedan. I learned that Frank, a friend of Bob’s, was going along, too. Women neighbors in housecoats were leaning out of windows to watch the departure. Frank told Miss Nalepa that a photograph of her taken from the rear had come out fine. “Wanda has a perfect back,” he said to me. “I’m getting this picture printed in the National Chiropractic Journal. I’m a chiropractor.”
I got in front, with Bob and Miss Nalepa. Frank got in back. On our way downtown, Miss Nalepa told me that we were to stop at Grand Central to pick up her chaperone, a Miss Neville. Miss Neville represented WKBW, the radio station in Buffalo that, with the blessings of the Miss America Pageant people but without any official blessings from Albany, had sponsored the New York State contest. A couple of weeks before competing in that one, which was held at the Crystal Beach Amusement Park, near Buffalo, Miss Nalepa had won the title of Miss Sullivan County in a contest held in the town of Monticello, thus qualifying for the state contest, and a week or so before that she had won the title of Miss White Roe Inn, the inn being situated outside the town of Livingston Manor, in Sullivan County. She had gone to the inn for a short vacation at the insistence of a friend who thought she could win the beauty contest there. Miss Nalepa had heard of such contests and of others held at local theatres but hadn’t ever entered one before. “I never had the nerve,” she told me. “I always knew I was pretty, but it always made me feel uncomfortable. When I was six, I remember a little boy in the first grade who used to watch me. I was terrified. I used to run home from school every day. At parties, when I was older, the boys paid a lot of attention to me, and I didn’t like it. I wanted the other girls to get attention, too.” Miss Nalepa went to a vocational high school, to study dressmaking; worked in a five-and-ten-cent store for a while after graduation; considered taking singing lessons but dropped the idea after her two sisters told her she had no singing ability; and went to the Rhodes School, in New York City, for a pre-nursing course and then to Mount Sinai Hospital, where she got her R.N. degree in 1948. She didn’t like to go out on dates with the hospital doctors. “Doctors are too forward,” she said.
At Grand Central, Miss Neville, a pleasant, gray-haired lady, who said she had not been in Atlantic City for twenty years and was very enthusiastic about going there now, got in the back seat with Frank, and they began talking about chiropractic. As we headed for the Holland Tunnel, the three of us in the front seat discussed the contest. “Don’t expect much and you won’t be disappointed,” Miss Nalepa said, clutching Bob’s arm. She thought it would be nice to have some scholarship money and said that if she won any, she might use it to learn to play some musical instrument. No money had come with the Miss White Roe Inn title. She had received seventy-five dollars from the Sullivan County Resort Association for becoming Miss Sullivan County, and a picture of her in a bathing suit had appeared in the New York Daily News captioned “Having Wandaful Time.” When she was named Miss New York State, she was given three evening gowns and two pieces of luggage. She earned ten dollars a day nursing, but she hadn’t worked for more than a month—not since she started entering beauty contests—and she had had to borrow three hundred dollars from members of her family for clothes, cosmetics, jewelry, a quick, $67.50 course in modelling, and other things designed to enhance beauty, poise; and personality. She was worried about being only five feet three. The Miss Americas of the preceding six years had all been five feet seven or more. The contestants would be judged on four counts: appearance in a bathing suit, appearance in an evening gown, personality, and talent. Miss Nalepa was wondering about her talent. Her act, as she planned it, was going to consist of getting up in her nurse’s uniform and making a little speech about her nursing experience.
“I don’t know what else I can do to show I’ve got talent,” she said. “All I know how to do is give a good back rub.”
“Listen, what you need right now is a good meal,” Bob said.
Miss Nalepa said she wasn’t hungry. “You’ve got to eat,” Bob said. “You’re too skinny.”
“You’ve got to eat,” Frank repeated. “You’re too skinny.”
We stopped for breakfast at a roadside restaurant. Miss Nalepa had only half a cheeseburger and a few sips of tea.
In Atlantic City, Miss Nalepa and her chaperone headed for the hotel they had been assigned to, the Marlborough-Blenheim, where they were to share a double room. I said I was going to check in at the Claridge, across the street, and Bob offered to take my bag over. As the two of us walked over, he said that he and Frank were going to hang around for a short while and then go back to New York. “She’s not going to win,” he said. “I told her she’s not going to win. That nursing isn’t the right kind of talent. They’ll want singing or dancing or something like that.”
In the lobby there were large photographs of Miss America of 1948, and of the current Miss Arizona, Miss Florida, Miss Chicago, and Miss District of Columbia, all of whom, I learned from my bellhop, had been assigned to that hotel. “Big crowd comes down every year to see the crowning of Miss America,” he said. “This is America’s Bagdad-by-the-Sea. The only place on the ocean where you’ll find a big crowd relaxing at recreations in the fall.”
On my bureau was a small paper cutout doll labelled “Miss America, Be Be Shopp, in her official gown of Everglaze moire for the Miss America Pageant, September 6-11,1949.”
“You seen Be Be, yet?” an elevator boy with round shoulders and watery eyes asked me as I was going back down. “Be Be’s staying with us. Be Be looks real good. Better than last year. You seen Miss Florida yet?” I shook my head. “She’s something!” he said.
I went out to the boardwalk, where booths for the sale of tickets to the Pageant had been set up in a line running down the middle, between two rows of Bingo Temples, billboard pictures of horses diving into the ocean from the Steel Pier, and places named Jewelry Riot, Ptomaine Tavern, and the Grecian Temple. The roller chairs were rolling in and out among the ticket booths. “Get your ticket now to see the beauties at the parade!” a middle-aged lady called to me from one of them. “Bleacher seats are twenty-five cents cheaper than last year!”
The contestants were registering for the Pageant at the Traymore, so I went over there. A couple of dozen policemen were standing outside the registration room. I asked one of them if Miss New York State had arrived. “Not yet, sister,” he said. “Stick around. I got my eye on all of them.”
A white-haired gentleman wearing a green-and-purple checked jacket asked him how the registration was going.
“You want to see the beauties, buy a ticket to the Pageant,” the policeman said.
“They got any tall ones?” asked the gentleman.
“Yeah, they got some tall ones,” the policeman said. “Utah is five, ten. She comes from Bountiful—Bountiful, Utah.”
“Hope it won’t rain for the parade tomorrow,” said the gentleman.
“It don’t look too promising,” observed the policeman.
Miss Nalepa and her chaperone turned up, and I went inside with them. The contestants were standing in an uneven line, looking unhappily at each other, before a table presided over by a middle-aged woman with a Southern accent. She was Miss Lenora Slaughter, the executive director of the Pageant. The atmosphere was hushed and edgy, but Miss Slaughter was extravagantly cheerful as she handed out badges and ribbons to the contestants. When Miss Nalepa’s turn came to register, Miss Slaughter gave her a vigorous hug, called her darling, handed her a ribbon reading “New York State,” and told her to wear it on her bathing suit, from the right shoulder to the left hip. I introduced myself to Miss Slaughter, and she shook my hand fervently. “You’ll want to follow our working schedule,” she said, giving me a booklet. “All the girls are going upstairs now to be fitted with their Catalina bathing suits, and then they get their pictures taken, and tonight we’re having a nice meeting with all the girls, to tell them what’s what. The Queen—Miss America of 1948; we call Miss America the Queen—will be there. You’re welcome to come. . . . Miss California!” she cried. I moved on and Miss California took my place. Miss New York State clutched at my arm again and nodded toward Miss California, who had a large, square face, long blond hair, and large blue eyes. (Height, 5’ 6¼; weight, 124; bust, 36; waist, 24¼; thigh, 20; hips, 36; shoe size, 6½-AA; dress size, 12; age, 19. Reason for entering the contest: “To gain poise and develop my personality.”) Miss New York State stood still, staring at her. “Come on, Wanda,” said her chaperone. “We’ve got to get you that bathing suit.”
The bathing suits were being handed out and fitted in a two-room suite upstairs. The contestants put on their suits in one room while the chaperones waited in the other. The fitting room was very quiet; the other was filled with noisy, nervous chatter.
Miss Alabama’s chaperone was saying, “I’m grooming one now. She’ll be ready in two years. She’s sure to be Miss America of 1951.”
“Have you seen Nebraska? She’s a definite threat,” said Miss New Jersey’s chaperone to Miss Arkansas’s chaperone.
“What’s her talent?” asked Miss Arkansas’s chaperone.
“Dramatic recitation,” said Miss N.J.’s.
“She’ll never make the first fifteen,” said Miss Ark.’s.
“Confidentially,” said one chaperone to another, “confidentially, I wouldn’t pick any of the girls I’ve seen to be Miss America.”
“Some years you get a better-looking crop than others,” her companion said. “At the moment, what I’ve got my mind on is how I can get me a good, stiff drink, and maybe two more after it.”
I went into the other room, where Miss New York State was having trouble with her suit. She did not like Catalina suits, she told me; they didn’t fit her, and she wished the Pageant officials would let her wear her own. Another contestant paused in her struggle with her suit and said it was very important to like the official Pageant suits. “There just wouldn’t be a little old Pageant without Catalina,” she said severely.
Outside, in an open patio, the contestants posed in their suits—all ribbons running from right shoulders to left hips—for a band of photographers. Miss Shopp, Miss America of 1948, of Hopkins, Minnesota (height, 5’ 9; weight, 140; bust, 37; waist, 27; hips, 36; age, 19), also in her Catalina suit and her “Miss America” ribbon, joined them. She had a dimpled smile on her face. A cool breeze blew in from the ocean and Miss New York State folded her arms and shivered.
“Be Be! Be Be! Wouldja mind waving?” a photographer called.
Miss America waved.
“She made fifty thousand dollars in her year as Miss America,” said Miss New York State without much enthusiasm. “I wouldn’t mind making fifty thousand dollars. Maybe I could be a model or something.” She looked at the other contestants and remarked, with surprise, that there were a lot of short ones. She said this made her feel better. Miss Arizona, she pointed out, was about her height. Miss Arizona looked worried. Her chaperone, a thin, freckle-faced woman, touched her arm, and Miss Arizona tried to smile. Miss New York State thought Miss Arizona was sort of pretty. She had brown hair, cut short, and dark-brown eyes. (Height, 5’ 3½; weight, 106; bust, 34; waist, 22; thigh, 20; hips, 34; shoe size, 6½-AA; dress size, 9; age, 18. Reason for entering the contest: “Because it would be a great honor to be Miss America.”)
“The kid looks so strained,” said Miss New York State finally.
A photographer called to Miss Arizona and Miss New York State to sit on a railing with some other girls. They sat, shivering in the breeze but smiling broadly. On the first page of the booklet given to me by Miss Slaughter was a welcome to the contestants by the president of the Miss America Pageant, Park W. Haverstick, who is president of the Atlantic City Chamber of Commerce. “The hearts of the people of Atlantic City are open equally to the winners or to the losers,” it began, and it ended with a quotation:
That night, Mr. Haverstick acted as chairman of the meeting of the contestants in Convention Hall, the world’s largest auditorium. He is a solid, elderly gentleman with a large, bald head. He introduced the first speaker of the evening, Miss Slaughter, describing her as a friend they all knew and loved, the friend who had been working for the Pageant since 1935. Miss New York State and most of the other contestants were wearing suits and hats. They sat attentively, their hands folded in their laps, as Miss Slaughter stood up and shook her head unbelievingly at them. “I see your faces and I see a dream of fifty-one weeks come true,” she said. “Now, I want you all to listen to me. I’m going to ask you girls to keep one thought in mind during this great week. Think to yourself ‘There are fifty-one other talented, beautiful girls in this contest besides myself.’ Get out of your head the title of Miss America. You’re already a winner, a queen in your own right.” She announced that a special prize—a thousand-dollar scholarship—would be awarded to the contestant elected Miss Congeniality by her competitors.
An elderly, heavyset woman with a high-pitched, martyred voice, Mrs. Malcolm Shermer, chairman of a group of local hostesses who would escort the contestants from their hotels to the Pageant activities and back again, stood up and said that she would personally watch over the girls in their dressing room. “When I wake up on Pageant morning, it’s like another Christmas Day to me,” she said, and went on to list some rules of decorum the contestants would have to follow. The girls were not to make dates with any man, or even have dinner with their fathers, because the public had no way of knowing whether or not a man was a contestant’s father; they were not to enter a cocktail lounge or night club; they were to stick to their chaperones or their hostesses. “You have reached the top of the Miss America mountain,” Mrs. Shermer said in a complaining tone, “so we’re making you almost inaccessible, because all good businessmen put their most valuable belongings in a safe place.” The contestants looked impressed. Miss New York State sighed. “They don’t take any chances,” she remarked to me. “This is just like school.”
Miss America of 1948, clad in a suit of Everglaze (I later discovered that she had driven over faithfully in a Nash), then welcomed the fifty-two contestants. She smiled and told the contestants to keep smiling from the moment they woke up every day to the moment they fell asleep. Mr. Haverstick nodded solemnly. “Always have that smile on your face,” she said. “Your smiles make people feel happy, and that’s what we need—happier people in the world.” The contestants all managed a smile. They continued to smile as Mr. Bob Russell was introduced as the master of ceremonies of the Pageant. He came forward with that lively skip characteristic of night-club m.c.s and said, “Girls, this week you’re performers, you’re actresses, you’re models, you’re singers and entertainers. Girls, show this great city that you’re happy American girls, happy to be in Atlantic City, the city of beautiful girls!” Mr. Haverstick blushed and managed a small smile of his own. The contestants were instructed to wear evening gowns, but not their best ones, in the parade that was going to take place the next day. Still conscientiously smiling, they filed out of the hall. Miss New York State let go of her smile for a moment and told me that she was returning to her room. She would lie down and elevate her feet for twenty minutes, put pads soaked with witch hazel over her eyes, take two sleeping pills, and go to sleep.
On the way out, Miss Slaughter stopped me and said that I was going to see the best contest in the Pageant’s history. It had come a long way, she said, from the first one, in 1921, when it was called the Bathers’ Revue. The first winner, given the title of the Golden Mermaid, was Margaret Gorman, of Washington, D.C., who briefly considered a theatrical career and then went home and married a real-estate man. “In those years, we offered nothing but promises and a cup,” Miss Slaughter said. “Now we get real big bookings for our girls, where they can get started on a real big career. This is not a leg show and we don’t call the beauties bathing beauties any more. The bathing part went out in 1945, when we started giving big scholarships.” Miss America of 1945—Bess Myerson, of the Bronx—the first winner to be awarded much more than promises and a cup, won a five-thousand-dollar scholarship and bookings worth ten thousand dollars. “Bess went right out and capitalized,” Miss Slaughter said. “She went to Columbia and studied music, got married, and had an adorable baby girl, and now she runs a music school and does modelling, too.” The next winner—Marilyn Buferd, of Los Angeles—wanted to get into the movies. She got a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar-a-week job as a starlet with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. She is now in Italy, under contract to Roberto Rossellini. Miss America of 1947—Barbara Jo Walker, of Memphis—caused the Pageant officials considerable worry. “She upped and announced she wanted to get married; she didn’t want to go out and make money and get publicity,” Miss Slaughter said. “Well, there was nothing we could do but let her get married to this medical student of hers, and now we’ve brought her back this year to be a judge.” Be Be Shopp, whose term would run out in five days, had been the biggest moneymaker as Miss America. “She just never stopped working at it,” Miss Slaughter said. “She set a real good example for our girls.” Miss Shopp travelled across three continents, appearing at conventions and similar gatherings with a vibraharp, the instrument with which she had demonstrated her talent at last year’s contest by playing “Trees.” Miss America of 1944 went back to her home in Kentucky and married a farmer. Miss America of 1943 is singing in a night club in Paris. Miss America of 1942 married Phil Silvers, the comedian. Most of the Miss Americas back to 1921 got married soon after winning their titles. Miss America of 1937, however, has neither married nor embarked on a career. “Miss America of 1937 got crowned, and the next morning she just vanished,” Miss Slaughter said, looking pained. “Why, she ran right home, someplace in New Jersey, and when we found her, she refused to come out—no explanation or _any_thing. Just the other day, she decided she wanted to be a model or actress or something, but maybe it’s too late now.”
The following morning, the contestants were photographed again in their Catalina swim suits. After lunch they were assembled in the ballroom of a hotel near one end of the boardwalk for the American Beauty Parade, which would wind up near the other end, a distance of four and a half miles. Roller chairs and beach chairs were lined up along the route; the supply had been sold out (at $6.15 and $2, respectively) three weeks before. State police had been brought in to help keep order. It was a fine day for a parade—clear, sunny, and brisk. The business streets back of the boardwalk were almost deserted. The boardwalk was packed. Every roller chair was occupied, occasionally by as many as six people. Along the Parade route a shabby, eager, excited crowd of men, women, and children stood six and eight deep or sat in bleachers. Some carried small American flags, and others waved the paper-doll replicas of Be Be Shopp. Miss Arizona stood near the door of the ballroom. She would be one of the first to leave. She wore a long skirt of red suède, slit at one side, and a multicolored blouse of Indian design. Miss New York State, looking rested and wearing an aquamarine-colored satin gown, was off in a corner, watching Miss America of 1948, who was wearing a slip and contemplating the original of the dress she was pictured in on the paper doll. The dress lay across the backs of two chairs. It had a large hoop skirt and was decorated on the front with the official flowers, appliquéd, of the forty-eight states. She announced that she had to wear the gown in the parade and every night of the Pageant. “It weighs thirty-eight pounds,” she said. “How am I ever going to play my vibraharp in it?”
Miss New York State shook her head in speechless marvel. “Will you play every night, Miss Shopp?” she asked.
“Call me Be Be, please,” Miss America said, showing a dimpled smile. “Everybody calls me Be Be. I play my vibraharp every place I go. I’ve made two hundred and sixty-one appearances with it, opening stores and things. The vibraharp weighs a hundred and fifty pounds, and a man usually carries it for me. They were the only men I got close to all year. I worked so hard I didn’t have a chance to have any real dates.”
Miss Florida, who was standing nearby, shook her head sadly. “Mah goodness, no dates!” she said.
Two women attendants climbed up on chairs and held the thirty-pound gown aloft while the Queen crawled under it. “Is it in the center of me?” she asked as her head and shoulders emerged. Everybody said that it was in the center of her and that she looked glorious. Miss America was now ready to lead the parade. I went outside and found a place on the boardwalk near a mobile radio-broadcasting unit, where Miss America’s father, who is physical-education director at the Cream of Wheat Corporation in Minneapolis, was being interviewed. “I’m just as excited this year as last year,” he was saying. “I’m just starting to realize she’s Miss America.”
The parade took two hours. Each contestant sat on a float pushed by a couple of men. Not one contestant let Atlantic City down by failing to keep a smile on her face. Miss New York State, preceded by Hap Brander’s string band and a float proclaiming the merits of Fralinger’s Salt Water Taffy, got a big hand from the audience. Most of the other contestants merely sat and smiled, but she stood and waved and laughed and shouted and seemed to be having the time of her life.
The contestants were to rehearse that night with Bob Russell in Convention Hall, and I decided to go over there. Going through the lobby of my hotel, I ran into Miss Florida with her mother.
“Don’t forget to smile, honey,” her mother said, smiling.
“Ah don’t have any trouble smilin’, Mama,” said Miss Florida.
“That’s a good girl, honey,” her mother said.
The statistics on Miss Florida showed that at eighteen she was already a veteran beauty. She was Citrus Queen of Florida in 1947, Railroad Exposition Queen in Chicago in 1948, Miss Holiday of Florida of 1949, and Miss Tampa of 1949. (Reason for entering the Atlantic City contest: “Because the Chamber of Commerce of Tampa asked me to compete.”)
At Convention Hall, Mr. Russell, standing on the stage surrounded by weary-looking contestants, was outlining the procedure for the next three nights. A long ramp ran out into the auditorium at right angles to the stage, and a few of the contestants squatted on it, as though they were too exhausted to move back to the stage with the others. Miss New York State seemed fairly fresh. Her face was flushed, but she appeared to smile without effort. She wanted to know whether I had seen her in the parade. “That was fun,” she said. “I was standing and yelling things, and people were yelling things to me. That was really a lot of fun. I never thought that people would be so friendly.”
“Please, girls,” said the M.C. “I need your attention.”
“I’m used to a long, hard day from nursing,” Miss New York State whispered. “Some of these girls look all done in.” Smiling, she gave the M.C. her attention. He explained that the contestants would be divided into three groups. Each night, one group would compete for points on their appearance in evening dress, another in bathing suits, and the members of the third would demonstrate their talents. The girls would be judged on personality at two breakfasts, when the judges would meet and talk with them. Every girl would be scored in these four categories, and the fifteen girls with the highest total number of points would compete in the semifinals of the contest, at which time the judges would reappraise them and choose the queen and the four other finalists. Miss New York State was assigned to a group that included Miss Florida, Miss California, and Miss Arizona; they would appear the first night in bathing suits, the second in evening gowns, and on the third they would demonstrate their talents. The winners of the bathing-suit and talent competitions would be announced each night, but not the runners-up, and neither the winners nor the runners-up in the evening-gown competition. In this way, it would not be known who the semifinalists were until they were named on the fourth, and last, night of competition. Each day, Mr. Russell said, he would rehearse the girls in whatever they had prepared to do to show their talent that night. He then made the contestants line up in alphabetical order and parade together from the wings onto the stage and off it down the long ramp—the same ramp each would eventually be required to walk alone. The parade would wind up on each of the first three nights with the appearance of Miss America of 1948 in her thirty-pound gown. The other girls would raise empty water glasses in a toast to her while Mr. Russell sang the Miss America Pageant song, which goes: Let’s drink a toast to Miss America,
Mr. Russell then asked each contestant to walk onstage by herself and onto the ramp, to model before the judges’ enclosure, and to walk off the ramp. He started with Miss Alabama, giving her a briefing in walking and modelling. Miss Arizona, the second contestant, walked gracefully and modelled knowingly, obviously needing no instruction at all.
In the wings, where the contestants were waiting their turns and eight or nine policemen were standing guard, there was a lot of discussion about which one would win the title. “I been picking ’em for years,” one cop was saying loudly to another. “It’ll be California. You want to bet it won’t be California?” A bet was made. Miss Montana asked if the policemen had seen her horse anywhere; she was going to show talent in horsemanship by riding her horse across the stage, but her father hadn’t shown up with it. The police didn’t know anything about the horse.
Miss Greater Philadelphia, a five-foot-seven girl with black hair, said she felt ill and was going to lie down. Miss New York State told a policeman she wanted to go back to the dressing room with her and see if she could help. “I’m a nurse. I might be able to do something for her,” she said.
“You’re a beauty, you’re no nurse,” said the policeman. “Now you go on back in line and rehearse, like Bob Russell tells you.”
Miss New York State returned to her place in line, and when her turn came to walk down the ramp, she walked with her arms hanging stiffly; she didn’t seem to be familiar with the technique of modelling. “Do something with your hands, honey,” Mr Russell told her. “Remember—you’re a model. Hold your hands together in front of you.” As she went back to the line, she looked despairingly at me. After a while, she got out of line again and joined me in the wings. “West Virginia got six new suits from her state before she came here,” she said after a silence, in an unenvious tone. “And she got six new dresses and six pairs of shoes and five hundred dollars in cash, besides a thousand dollars from her home town. Colorado got a silver-fox scarf—there’s only two in the world of that particular shade—and a lot of the girls got things like silverware and automobiles and radios for winning their state contests. Nobody ever told me the girls got things like that.”
Miss New York State took only an hour to get dressed for the opening night. I stopped by her room before dinner. She was studying herself in a mirror. She wore an ice-blue satin evening gown, her hair was shining, she had on very little makeup, and her face was smooth and pale. She put on a rhinestone necklace, looked hard at herself, wiped a bit of lipstick from a front tooth, and shrugged. “I’m so vain,” she said.
“We’d better go down to dinner, Miss Neville said. “You’re due at Convention Hall at eight.”
The hotel dining room was filled, mostly with elderly ladies in high lace collars, canes hanging from the backs of their chairs. Several of them applauded as Miss New York State made her entrance, and one later sent her a note wishing her good luck. Miss New York State ordered onion soup, filet of sole, a caramel-nut sundae, and tea with lemon. After she had finished her fish, she waited placidly for her sundae, which was not served until almost eight.
I found a seat at the press table at Convention Hall, abreast of the ramp, as Mr. Russell, wearing a dinner jacket, skipped out and announced that the parade was going to begin. Miss Alabama and the fifty-one others came onto the ramp, smiling but shaking with nervousness. My seat was not far from where Miss New York State stood on the ramp, and I could see her trembling with a kind of sick, forced laughter. The judges, all in evening dress, were introduced: Vyvyan Donner, women’s editor of Twentieth Century-Fox Movietone News; Cecil Chapman, dress designer; Clifford D. Cooper, president of the United States Junior Chamber of Commerce; Guy E. Snavely, Jr., who was described as a husband, father, and executive secretary of Pickett & Hatcher, an educational foundation in Birmingham, Alabama; Paul R. Anderson, president of Pennsylvania College for Women, in Pittsburgh; Mrs. Barbara Walker Hummell, Miss America of 1947; Conrad Thibault, baritone; Vincent Trotta, art director of the National Screen Service, a company that makes posters and billboards for motion pictures; Coby Whitmore, commercial artist; Hal Phyfe, photographer; and Earl Wilson, columnist. Voting was by ballot, with two certified public accountants acting as tellers of the ballots. From the press table I picked up a brochure about Convention Hall and read that it is 488 feet long, 288 feet wide, and 137 feet high, and that it could be transformed in a few hours into a full-size football field or into the world’s largest indoor fight arena. “The place dwarfs,” a gentleman seated next to me said with finality.
After the parade, the group competing in evening gowns that night came onstage one by one, modelled before the judges, and walked down the ramp. Then they came out in a group and lined up in front of the judges, who sat in their enclosure, which adjoined the ramp. Miss Illinois, a pert girl with green eyes and blond hair, fixed in a Maggie (Jiggs’ Maggie) hair-do, winked saucily at the judges. She wore a strapless white gown with a rhinestone-trimmed bodice. (Height, 5’ 6¼; weight, 118; bust, 35; hips, 35½; age, 19. Reason for entering the Pageant: “I entered with the sincere hope of furthering my career.”) Mr. Russell urged the girls to give big smiles and urged the judges to pay attention to coiffure, grooming, and symmetry of form. The contestants faced front, turned to show their profiles, turned to show their backs, turned to show their other profiles, then faced front again, and retired. The tellers collected the ballots. Next, a group in bathing suits came out, led by Miss Arizona. Miss California, the tall blonde, came next. Miss Florida followed, and, after a few other contestants, Miss New York State. As they stood before the judges, the M.C. asked them to examine the girls’ figures carefully for any flaws. For example, he asked, did the thighs and the calves meet at the right place. Miss New York State stood rigidly, once grasping at the hand of Miss North Dakota. “The audience of nine thousand, who had paid from $1.25 to $6.15 for their tickets, sat patiently and stared. The bathing-suiters retired, and Mr. Russell announced that he would do impersonations of Al Jolson, Bing Crosby, Eddie Cantor, and Enrico Caruso. After this demonstration of versatility, he said that the curtains were about to open on “our beautiful old-fashioned Southern garden.” The curtains parted. All the girls, in evening gowns, were seated in chairs on simulated grass. Here and there were potted palms. For some reason, Miss New York State sat behind one of them.
The talent competition began. Miss Alabama, a mezzo-soprano, led off by singing “’Neath the Southern Moon,” accompanied, more or less, by a pit orchestra. Miss Nevada’s talent, it seemed, was raising purebred Herefords; she had wanted to bring one of her cows, she said in a brief speech, but the officials wouldn’t let her. Miss Colorado gave a monologue from “Dinner at Eight.” Miss Hawaii danced a hula. Miss Indiana showed a movie demonstrating her talent in swimming. Miss New Jersey sang “Mighty Lak’ a Rose.” Miss Minnesota, a small version of Be Be Shopp, played some gypsy airs on a violin. While the judges marked their ballots, Miss Shopp entertained by playing “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” on her vibraharp, evidently not handicapped by the thirty-pound gown. Then the preliminary winners were announced: Bathing Suit, a tie between Miss Arizona and Miss California; Talent, Miss Minnesota.
The contestants got back to their hotels late, because Miss Michigan was given a party backstage in honor of her nineteenth birthday. This had come about because she had decided early in the evening that she wanted to drop out of the Pageant and go home at once. I had been advised of the circumstance by an official of the Pageant. “This little brat wants to run out on us,” he had said, stuffing some chewing tobacco into his mouth. “We’re taking a gamble and blowing a sawbuck on a cake for her. It better work.” It worked. Miss Michigan decided to stay in Atlantic City. Everybody appeared to enjoy the party, and everybody made a determined effort to be Miss Congeniality. Miss New York State showed no disappointment at not having won first place in the swim-suit competition. “California is so tall,” she said to me.
At my hotel the next afternoon, I ran into Miss Arizona’s chaperone in the elevator. “I thought I would die last night before they announced that my girl had won,” she said. “I’ve been with her ever since she won her first contest, three years ago, but I’ve never been through anything like that before.” Three years ago, she told me, Miss Arizona had won a teen-age beauty contest sponsored by Aldens, a mail-order house in Chicago; she had then attended a modelling school and had modelled teen-age clothes for Aldens catalogue. The business people of Arizona (Arizona has the largest man-made lake in North America and the largest open-pit copper mine in the world, and it is great to live in Arizona, a brochure entitled “Miss Arizona, 1949—Jacque Mercer,” put out by the contestant’s sponsor, the Phoenix Junior Chamber of Commerce, and handed to me by the contestant’s chaperone, said) had given her twenty-five hundred dollars to prepare for the Atlantic City contest. The chaperone invited me to come up to her room to look at Miss Arizona’s wardrobe. It was a spectacular wardrobe, put together with taste. Miss Arizona was an only child. Her mother had married at fifteen and had named her daughter Jacque after a doll she had had. “Jackie’s parents are here, but I’m making them stay away from her,” the chaperone said. “They’re schoolteachers. Schoolteachers don’t know what to do with children.” Miss Arizona came into the room.
“The Pageant asked Jackie what kind of car she likes and I said to put down Nash,” said the chaperone.
“I like Cadillacs,” Miss Arizona said. She opened a shoe box and stared at a pair of high-heeled button-strap shoes.
“Your mother went right out and bought a pair just like them,” the chaperone said to her.
I told Miss Arizona and her chaperone that I had to get along, in order to look in on Miss New York State. Miss Arizona immediately said she liked Miss New York State. “She doesn’t giggle, the way some of the others do,” she explained. “I don’t care for girls who giggle.” She flicked a speck of dust off one of her new shoes. “I’ll be glad when this is over and I can frown at people if I feel like it,” she said. “I sometimes feel as though my face is going to crack. But I keep that bi-ig smile on my face.” She laughed.
When I joined Miss New York State, she was wearing her nurse’s uniform—white dress, white stockings, and white shoes. She was going, she said, to the Atlantic City Hospital. Two photographers covering the Pageant had heard that she had no way of demonstrating her talent, and had arranged to make a movie short showing her in professional action. She looked crisp and efficient. She had had a busy morning, she said, having been examined for personality at the first of the two breakfasts with the judges. The contestants sat at small tables, with a couple of judges at each. After each course, a bell rang and the judges changed tables, which gave them an opportunity to talk with all the contestants. Miss New York State said that most of the girls had trouble getting their breakfast down but that she had had orange juice, bacon and eggs, toast, marmalade, and tea. “I wasn’t going to sit there and let all that good food go,” she said. She didn’t know whether she had made a favorable impression on the judges. “I told Conrad Thibault I had never heard of him,” she said. “He didn’t seem to like that.”
Before the Pageant’s second-evening program began, some of the judges wandered about Convention Hall, presumably judging the new Nash waiting in the lobby for the winner and judging the audience, which was approximately the same size it had been the first night. Earl Wilson stopped at the press table and said he had been reading an essay on beauty by Edmund Burke. “He says that an object of beauty should be comparatively small and delicate, bright and clear, with one section melting neatly into the other,” he said. “The essay didn’t affect me any. I like ’em big.” He was joined by a gentleman from Omaha, who listened to him impatiently for a while. “I tell you what you’re gonna pick, Earl,” he finally broke in. “You’re gonna pick the kind of girl I would pick for my own wife or daughter. That’s what we got this contest for.” Mr. Wilson nodded respectfully and moved on.
In front of the dressing room, Miss Florida was taking leave of her mother. “Smile, now, honey,” said her mother.
“Ah am smilin’, Mama,” said Miss Florida.
Inside, Miss New York State was standing with her back right up against an ironing board while a lady attendant pressed the skirt of the gown she was wearing for the evening’s competition. It had a white net skirt and a white satin bodice. She had bought it at a New York wholesale house for $29.75. She looked around admiringly and objectively at the dresses of the other girls. “What beautiful gowns,” she said.
Miss Florida was smiling at no one in particular. The city of Tampa had given her her gown—ruffled champagne-colored lace (a hundred and fifty yards)—and matching elbow-length gloves. Miss California sat gravely before a mirror in a dress of blue satin trimmed with black lace on the bodice and a black lace bow at the waist. Miss Arizona stood in a corner, a tense smile on her face, in a gown with a hoop skirt of ruffles of white organdie eyelet (a hundred and sixty yards) with a bouquet of red carnations at one side.
Miss Missouri came in, and Miss New York State waved to her. “Missouri is going to dance tonight,” she told me. “I like dancing. It always makes me feel good. You know,” she went on rapidly, “I found out today I’m photogenic. One of those photographers told me I could be a model, and my picture is in all the papers. One of the papers said I was outstanding.” She grabbed my arm. “Nobody ever called me outstanding before.”
Mrs. Shermer, the chief hostess, called out that the girls were to line up in the wings, and that they should be careful not to step on each other’s dresses. Miss New York State took her place in line and the contestants started to move onto the stage, big smiles on their faces.
“Mind my horse!” Miss Montana said cheerily to her hostess.
“I would get the one with the horse,” the hostess said to me.
I went out front and again sat down at the press table, next to a man whose badge said he was Arthur K. Willi, of R.K.O. Radio Pictures. Throughout the evening-gown and bathing-suit parades, he held a pair of opera glasses to his eyes, then he put them down with a groan. “I look and I look and I look, and what do I see?” he said. “If Clark Gable walked out on that stage right now, he would fill it up, or Maggie Sullavan, or Dorothy Maguire. There’s nothing here, nothing—not even when I look at these kids with the eyes of the masses.”
The M.C. brought out two platinum blondes and introduced them as Miss Atlanta of 1947 and Miss Omaha of 1947. They did a tap dance to “I Got Rhythm.” “Those poor kids,” Willi said. “Those poor, poor kids. Look at them. They look as though they had been knocking around Broadway for fifteen years.” When the talent session began, he put the glasses back to his eyes. Miss Kansas, who was twenty-two, sang “September Song” with a deliberately husky voice. Miss Canada sang “Sempre Libera” from “La Traviata.” Miss Connecticut recited “Jackie, the Son of the Hard-Boiled Cop.” Miss Montana, wearing a conventional riding coat and frontier pants, rode her horse, a nine-year-old mare named Victory Belle, out onto the stage. Miss Illinois grinned confidently at the judges, and in a strong soprano sang “Ouvre Ton Cœur” as though she meant it. Miss Wisconsin wound up with a baton-twirling act. The winners: Bathing Suit, Miss Colorado; Talent, Miss Canada.
“The Pageant wants publicity in the Canadian papers,” a newspaperman near me said.
Willi put his opera glasses in his coat pocket. “They’ve all lost their youth already,” he said. “They come down here for what? To lose their youth!”
Miss New York State’s picture was in the New York, Philadelphia, and Atlantic City newspapers the next morning. She was shown at the Atlantic City Hospital, wearing her uniform and holding a two-year-old girl who had just had her tonsils out. Photographers from the wire services had accompanied the moviemakers to the hospital, and pictures of her had been sent out across the country. Miss Arizona had dark circles under her eyes when I encountered her in our hotel lobby after lunch, and she said that she was going to spend the afternoon thinking about Shakespeare and listening to a recording of Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet” overture, to get in the mood for her talent demonstration that night—Juliet’s potion scene. She had stayed up all the night before talking about it and other Pageant matters with her chaperone. Miss Arizona had played Juliet at Phoenix Junior College, having been chosen from five hundred girls who had tried out for the part. She wanted to be an actress; she wouldn’t go to Hollywood until she had attended drama school and spent several years in the theatre. “Hollywood would try to make me be something they wanted me to be,” she said. “I won’t do that. My grandfather always said that you can have anything you want in the world, any way you want it, if you want it enough to work hard enough for it.”
That night, Miss Arizona came out in a wispy white nightgown and, in the auditorium that could be transformed in a few hours into a full-size football field, called up the faint, cold fear thrilling through her veins that almost freezes up the heat of life. The audience was restless and noisy as she expressed her fear that she would die ere her Romeo came. She was followed by Miss Greater Philadelphia, playing “I’m in the Mood for Love” on an electric guitar. Miss Mississippi did Hagar berating Abraham, in a dramatic reading popular with elocution teachers. Miss California acted the part of a girl who had been wronged by a man, in a reading even more popular with elocution teachers. Miss Florida sang “Put Your Shoes On, Lucy,” which was announced in a release to the press as “Put Your Shoes on Lucy.” Miss New York State, wearing her ice-blue evening gown, gave a short talk on nursing. She spoke without any expression at all, as though she were reciting something she had memorized with difficulty. “Ever since I was a little girl, I was taught that people were here for the purpose of serving others,” she said. The audience shifted unsympathetically in their seats. Somebody muttered that Miss Illinois ought to stop flirting with the judges. Miss New York State said she had decided to become a nurse when she visited a friend who was a patient in a veterans’ hospital during the war. She had been shocked by the men’s helplessness. She would now show a film of herself going about her usual duties. While the film was being run, she made flat, realistic comments on it. She was pictured in the children’s ward, in the maternity ward, and assisting a surgeon at an operation. At the end of the picture, the audience applauded halfheartedly. The winners: Bathing Suit, Miss Illinois; Talent, Miss Arizona.
I met Miss New York State as she was going back to her hotel. She felt pretty good, she said. She had enjoyed standing before all those people and telling them about nursing, and she had liked watching the talent of the others. “Wasn’t Miss Arizona good?” she said. “She got hysterical so easily.”
I was awakened at seven by the sound of gunfire. Some former Seabees had arrived in the city for a convention, and the Navy was welcoming them with a mock assault landing on the beach. It was the last day of the Pageant, and the boardwalk seemed to sag with the crowds.
The auditorium that night had a capacity audience, including standees, of twenty thousand. The Seabees came en masse. Most of the police at the hall felt that Miss California would be the winner, but the captain in charge of the detail was indifferent. “All you can do is look, and you get tired looking,” he said. “I been guarding the beauties since 1921. An old lady come up to me during the parade the other day and says hello. I must of looked at her strange, because she says she was Miss Maryland of 1924. She was a grandmother! That kind of thing don’t make me feel no better.”
The contestants arrived and were counted. No one was missing; no one had walked out on the Pageant. The girls had had breakfast that morning with the judges again and then had voted for Miss Congeniality; Miss Montana and Miss New Jersey had tied for the honor and split the thousand-dollar scholarship. An only fairly congenial Miss wanted to know what kind of education you could get with a five-hundred-dollar scholarship. “Why, same as you can do with a bigger one,” said Miss New Jersey. “Take voice lessons, or go to tap-dance school, or even go to Europe and learn something.” Miss Slaughter nodded staunchly in approval. Also at the breakfast, Miss America of 1948 had made all fifty-two Misses members of the Pageant sorority—Mu Alpha Sigma, whose letters stand for Modesty, Ambition, and Success—and each girl had been given a gold-filled pin. “The most thrilling thing a girl could have,” Miss America had said. “It means that all of you are queens. Remember that when the fifteen semifinalists are named tonight, all of you are queens.” Miss New York State had asked if the sorority high sign was a big smile, a remark that didn’t get much of a laugh. “Well,” said Miss New York State to me that evening, looking at her sorority pin, “I finally belong to a sorority.” She had voted for Miss Montana as Miss Congeniality. “I knew that I would never be elected,” she told me. “In nursing, I got to know too much about human nature to be able to act congenial.”
Mrs. Shermer was looking very pleased. She told Earl Wilson she had a hot item for his column—she had discovered some contestants putting on false eyelashes. Mr. Wilson looked pleased, too. He had spent the afternoon autographing copies of his latest book at a department store in town. Miss Arizona had received a wire from her father (who was staying at a nearby hotel) saying that she had made first base, second base, and third base and concluding, “Now slide into home!” Miss Arizona was excited, and so was her chaperone. Miss New York State was unusually high-spirited and talkative; another photographer had called her photogenic, she said.
Mr. Russell was in tails for the big night. The curtains opened on the “beautiful old-fashioned Southern garden” again. One by one, the fifteen semifinalists stood up as their names were called: Miss Arizona, Miss Arkansas, Miss California, Miss Canada, Miss Chicago, Miss Colorado, Miss Hawaii, Miss Illinois, Miss Kansas, Miss Michigan, Miss Minnesota, Miss Mississippi, Miss New Jersey, Miss New York City, and Miss Wisconsin. Each of them was now sure of at least a thousand-dollar scholarship. The losers sat motionless in the Southern garden, some smiling, some in tears, others trying unsuccessfully to look indifferent. Out front, Miss Florida’s mother cried softly, but Miss Florida was still smiling. Miss New York State, this time only half hidden behind a potted plant, looked puzzled but interested in what was going on.
The semifinalists paraded before the judges once again, then withdrew to change into bathing suits. Mr. Russell asked the losers to walk the ramp, one by one, for the last time. “Give the valiant losers a hand, folks,” he said. “They’ve got what it takes. They are your future wives and mothers of the nation.” The valiant losers got a big hand. Miss New York State walked very gracefully—better than she had walked in competition. She waved cheerfully as she passed me and with her lips silently said, “Bob—is—here.” She received more applause than any of the other losers and quite a few whistles from the gallery. Then Miss Omaha of 1947 and Miss Atlanta of 1947 did their tap dance. Miss New York State watched them with a look of resigned but genuine appreciation.
The semifinalists paraded in bathing suits, and then demonstrated their talent all over again. While the judges marked their ballots, a six-year-old girl named Zola May played Chopin’s “Minute Waltz” on a piano. The M.C. then spoke glowingly of the three donors of the prizes, and introduced the president of the company that makes Everglaze, the president of Catalina, and a delegation of three stout men in white linen suits from Nash. They all took bows. Then the M.C. asked Eddie Cantor to come out of the audience and up on the stage. Cantor did, and said hoarsely and passionately, “Communism hasn’t got a chance when twenty thousand people gather to applaud culture and beauty.”
Then the five big-prize finalists were announced: Miss Arizona, Miss California, Miss Colorado, Miss Illinois, and Miss Mississippi. Mr. Russell interviewed them, and their manner in replying was supposed to help the judges measure them for poise and personality. Each girl was asked three questions: “How do you plan to use your scholarship?” “Do your future plans include marriage, a career, or what?” “What did you get out of the Pageant?” Miss New York State peeked attentively around the potted plant as Miss Arizona, leading off in alphabetical order, replied tersely but politely that she planned to study dramatics at Stanford University, that she wanted marriage first and a career second, and that the Pageant had given her a chance to test herself before a new audience in a new part of the country. Miss California wanted to study interior decorating at the University of California and then go into the furniture business with her father; she wanted a career, so that she could help whomever she married; she was grateful to the Pageant for giving her the opportunity to meet so many wonderful girls from all over the country. Miss Illinois said that music was her first ambition. Mr. Russell, breaking the routine, asked her if she had ever been in love. She replied that she was in love but that music was still her first ambition. Miss New York State watched and listened carefully. No entertainment was at hand while the judges were voting again, so Mr. Russell asked the audience to sing “Smiles” until the ballots were counted, and he waved at the valiant losers to join in.
The winners were announced in reverse order: Fifth place, Miss California ($1,500); fourth place, Miss Colorado ($2,000); third place, Miss Illinois ($2,500); second place, Miss Mississippi ($3,000); first place, Miss Arizona ($5,000, plus the new four-door Nash sedan, the dozen Catalina swim suits, and the wardrobe of sixty Everglaze garments), now Miss America of 1949. There were hoots and boos, as well as cheers, from the audience. The Governor of New Jersey, who had arrived after Miss Arizona had done her Juliet scene, awarded her a gilt statue, half as high as she was, of a winged Miss and said, “The world needs the kind of beauty and talent you have.” Most of the losers then straggled out of the Southern garden into the wings, and a number of chaperones, hostesses, parents, and press people crowded onto the stage. I went along. Miss New York State came forward to watch Miss America of 1948 crown her successor. Miss America of 1948 wept, and her mother, standing nearby, wept with her. The new Miss America, tremulous but happy, said, “I only hope you’ll be half as proud of me as I am of the title Miss America.” Her mother, who had suddenly been surrounded by a group of admiring strangers, was much too occupied with her own emotions to notice her daughter coming slowly down the ramp, crown on her head, purple robe over her shoulders, and sceptre in her hand. The orchestra (the violinist holding a cigar in a corner of his mouth) played “Pomp and Circumstance,” and Miss America of 1949 walked the length of the ramp, smiling graciously.
“This is the beginning,” a reporter said to me. “She’s going to spend the rest of her life looking for something. They all are.”
“She is now the most desirable girl in the United States,” another said.
When the Queen got back to the stage, Miss New York State offered her her solemn congratulations. “I’m glad you won,” she said. “I was rooting for you.”
Then the new Miss America was engulfed by still photographers, newsreel men, and interviewers. Miss New York State stood beside me on the fringe of the crowd and watched.
“Everybody wants my autograph because I’m her father,” Miss America’s father was saying.
Her mother wanted to know whether the parents were to get a badge or ribbon, too.
“We rehearsed what she would say for hours,” Miss America’s chaperone was saying.
“We got to get her in the Nash!” one of the Nash triumvirate in white suits was saying.
A group of people were asking Miss Slaughter about the new queen’s plans. “She’s going to have breakfast with all the newspaper people in New York,” Miss Slaughter said. “Then she gets outfitted with a whole new wardrobe by Everglaze, and she wears Everglaze whenever she goes out in public—it’s in her contract. She’s got to fly to California to preside at the Catalina swim-suit show, and after that she’s got to make a couple of screen tests in Hollywood. I’ve been going mad arranging for those screen tests.” A perspiring gentleman said that the winner of the recent Mrs. America contest at Asbury Park had invited the new Miss America to compete in a contest with her and he wanted to know how the Queen felt about this. “She says no comment because I say she says no comment,” the head of the Pageant public relations said firmly.
Miss New York State shook her head at the wonder of it all. “Going to Hollywood!” she said. “She’ll probably be in the movies.”
The two of us walked back to the dressing room, where we found Miss Missouri tearfully folding up her Catalina swim suit. Miss New York State looked puzzled at her tears and said that she hadn’t cried, because when you don’t expect very much, you’re never disappointed. She was returning to New York with Bob the next morning. She had the name of a photographer who wanted to take a lot of pictures of her to sell to magazines, and another man wanted to talk to her about becoming a model. She was not going back to nursing if she could help it. “You get more when you’re a model,” she said. ♦
