Miss Burbank | Wkozy's Blog
Trivia of the Day- September 10, 2009- Famous beauty pageant contestants
September 11, 2009
This past Tuesday, September 8th was the anniversary of the first Miss America contest way back in 1921.
According to Cindy Adams gossip column here are several famous women who were once…excuse me?..Yes, that’s right Cindy Adams gossip column…hm?…all right that’s enough of that, not all my sources are the Encyclopedia Britannica. Anyway there are a great many beauty pageant losers and winners that went on to fame afterward; for instance, actress  Dyan Cannon was once Miss West Seattle– “not even all of Seattle”– carps Ms. Adams.
So okay, like what beauty pageant did Ms. Adams ever win even that she can make fun of Dyan Cannon winning Miss West Seattle? Oh I see, none. Wow. Big surprise. Bet the smartass wouldn’t even win a beauty pageant in her apartment building.
Gena Lee Nolin of “Baywatch” (Pamela Lee Anderson Part Deux) was Miss Las Vegas. Or as Miss Adams might scoff, “Hmph..not even all of Nevada.” And Maria Conchita Alonso was 14-years-old when she won Miss Teenager of the World. Or as Ms. Adams might say, “Pfft…not even all of the solar system.” Speaking of Pamela Lee, her ex-husband Tommy Lee is from pageant-winning pedigree. His mother, Vassiliki Papadimitriou was Miss Greece in 1957.
Susan Anton won Miss Muriel Cigars in 1970, which led of course to her sweet and excellent prestigious job as an actress in Muriel Cigar TV commercials.
Halle Berry was a Miss USA runner-up, and Cloris Leachman was a 1946 Miss America runner-up. Faye Dunaway was a Tallahassee May Queen loser, in good company with Linda Evangelista, a loser in the Miss Teen Niagara Pageant. Jeez, what did the winner look like if Linda Evangelista lost? Ah, but you never know. Ever see a picture of Jennifer Garner as a kid? Puzzling.
Some women were apparently beautiful immediately upon leaving the womb. Beginning when she was 13-years-old, Raquel Welch won Miss La Jolla, Miss Photogenic, Miss Contour, Miss Maid of California, and lots of men’s hearts with her Cave Woman “One Million Years B.C.” poster.
Similarly, before pin-up hottie Loni Anderson entranced America on “WKRP in Cincinnati” the busty star represented Miss Roseville in the 1964 Miss Minnesota Pageant. She was runner-up. Get this though: She was a brunette. In fact she was born with jet-black hair, dying it blonde when she moved to Hollywood.
Natural blonde actress Cybill Shepherd was Miss Teenage Memphis in 1966, at age 16, and a decade later, Deborah Norville was 1976’s Georgia Junior Miss winner, the same year that Michelle Pfeiffer was Miss Orange County. And two decades later again, Ali Landry, the Doritos Girl from that 1998 Super Bowl commercial (no relation to Super Bowl-winning Dallas Cowboy coach Tom Landry) was Miss USA in 1996.
Even Alan Alda’s mother, nee Joan Brown, was in on the action, winning a beauty pageant in which she was called “Miss New York”. I worded that coyly because a list of Miss New York winners does not show her to be among them. So I guess there was some other Miss New York-like pageant? You would think that with all the idiosyncratic pageant titles out there–Miss Muriel Cigars, Miss Burbank (won in 1948 by a barefoot Debbie Reynolds), Miss Eleganza in Naples (won by a 13-year-old Sophia Loren in white shoes she painted black)–you would think that a pageant wouldn’t have to name its winner the same name as another pageant.
There was a Miss Greenwich Village, which smoky-voiced Lauren Bacall won in 1942. At least it is believed smoky-voiced Lauren Bacall won. Being Greenwich Village it could have been…well…let’s just say a “smoky-voiced” impostor.
Oh now here’s a fun one: Martha Stewart won Glamour magazine’s Best-Dressed College Girl in 1961. “Best Dressed College Girl”. It almost sounds like one of those consolation descriptions when someone’s getting set up on a blind date: “You’re asking me what does she look like? Oh. Well, She’s got a great personality.” Or, “You wanna know what his hair looks like? Oh. Well, it’s a lovely flesh-tone actually.” “Best Dressed College Girl”. Technically speaking, you can look like Ernest Borgnine and win “Best Dressed College Girl.”
Vera Miles, the actress who played Janet Leigh’s sister in “Psycho” won the swimsuit competition at the 1948 Miss America contest. She lost the overall competition though, coming in 3rd place. The winner? A Minnesota farm girl named BeBe Shopp, who played the marimba in the talent portion. I think I was in a BeBe Shopp once–buying pellet gun ammunition.
Speaking of “Psycho”, Kathie Lee Gifford was an America’s Junior Miss Pageant contestant representing Maryland. She was disqualified however when she accidentally broke the rules by talking with a man in public. Did they actually think Miss Gifford would be able to NOT talk in public for any extended period of time. But in her defense, “Talking with a man in public” was her crime? Is that a typo? Maybe they meant “talking with a man in pubic?” Tsk tsk.
Before Regis Philbin teamed up with the perky Kathie Lee Gifford for their morning TV show, Regis co-hosted PM Magazine with perky Mary Hart who finished in the top ten in the 1970 Miss America Pageant. She was Miss South Dakota.
The following year, Miss Texas won the 1971 Miss America title. Phyllis George was her name and she went on to fame as a TV host on many shows. She has the distinction of being the only winner to drop her crown on live television. So naturally she was steered into sports broadcasting by the TV network geniuses. Ms. George was maligned in the beginning of her career as being a pretty face placed unfairly into various hosting duties.
Former pageant contestant Diane Sawyer faced the same sort of criticism at the start of her career, perhaps even moreso. Maybe because she was blonde. Or maybe because she was a press aide to Richard Nixon during his presidency and after his Watergate resignation. After his Watergate resignation. Regardless, Ms. Sawyer’s career isn’t exactly suffering, being one of the highest paid newswomen in history, so who’s to say blondes don’t make smart moves.
Take fellow blonde Marla Maples  for instance, who placed 4th in Georgia’s Miss Teen Pageant, winning Miss Photogenic. A wily and smart young lady, she set her sights on Donald Trump, or vice versa, and look at her career now! She’s in a reality TV show! Yeah I swear! A real honest to goodness reality TV show! Top that Ms. Sawyer!
Here’s another fun pageant title: In 1957 Ali McGraw was a contestant in the “Prettiest Waitress” pageant. I’m not kidding. The winner received a pinch on the ass by Bob Barker while being told: “Hey sweet cheeks, I’ll have another cup of coffee when you get around to it.”
True Amazing Trivia Alert! Which of the following ladies is a pageant champion? Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush, Imelda Marcos or Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis? The answer? None other than the enchantingly gorgeous Imelda Romualdez who reigned as Miss Manilla in 1953 before becoming First Lady of the Philippines beside hubby Ferdinand Marcos. Who knew? In the final question phase of the competition I wonder if she mentioned her goal to own a bazillion pairs of shoes.
I like that Delta Burke is an actual former beauty pageant contestant who played a former beauty pageant contestant on the show “Designing Women”. She was Miss Florida in 1974 but came up short in the Miss America Pageant after the talent portion of the contest in which Miss Burke performed a British dramatic theatrical recitation by the soon-to-be-beheaded Queen Anne Boleyn…in a Southern accent. Maybe she should have played the marimba.
There’ve been many more beauty pageant contestants who became famous I could mention…Vanessa Williams, Jeri Ryan, Mary Frann, Sharon Lawrence, Kim Basinger, someone named Oprah Winfrey, Debra Messing….
But the last one I will mention is actress Sharon Stone who won the Saegertown Spring Festival Queen title and the 1976 Miss Crawford County Pageant. As it happens I used to date a woman who had competed in that very same pageant! Not the same year as Ms. Stone, but a few years afterward. I asked her if she would share any details she can remember about what it was like to be a contestant in that Pageant. Kindly answering back, she wrote: “… several years prior to my entering the pageant, this was the place that Sharon Stone launched her career by actually winning the Miss Crawford County Pageant.” And with regard to the activities involved she remembered: “Well, all the contestants had to meet in a place about 5 miles from the fairgrounds, and we all were assigned to a topless Corvette. We had to sit on the top of the seat so that our bodies were up in the air and had the crap blown out of our nicely styled hair as we were paraded through town to the fairgrounds.”
I had to do a double take when I read “assigned to a topless…” before registering the sentence correctly in my mind.
Well that’s the trivia for today. I’ve been remiss the past few days due to working long hours on “Law and Order” which I hope to provide fun details about later.
Right after I solve world peace.