[Magdalen] There She is, Miss Amer . . . Uh Oh

[Jay Weigel]

Wow, quite a lady.....beautiful indeed, and definitely with a brain to
match! Rest in peace and rise in glory, Miss America 1951! There should be
more like you!

On Sat, Feb 27, 2016 at 11:03 AM, Jim Guthrie <jguthrie at pipeline.com> wrote:

> Yolande Betbeze Fox, a convent-educated Alabamian who defied convention,
> and set new standards, by refusing to tour the country as Miss America of
> 1951 in revealing bathing suits, died on Monday in Washington. She was 87.
>
>  *
>
>  *
>  *
>  *
>
> Her death was confirmed by the Joseph Gawler’s Sons funeral home in
> Washington.
>
> By the time Ms. Fox won her title on Sept. 9, 1950, in Atlantic City,
> pageant officials, trying to calibrate propriety and sex appeal amid
> changing mores, had already decided to stop crowning Miss America while she
> was wearing a swimsuit. That pageant staple had been confined to the
> swimsuit competition, an event Ms. Fox — Ms. Betbeze at the time — had
> already won. She began her reign in a gown.
>
> But given that the swimsuit competition’s chief sponsor, Catalina,
> manufactured swimwear, Ms. Fox was still expected to model bathing suits as
> the reigning Miss America.
>
> What the organizers did not expect was her response. “Yolande declared,
> ‘I’m an opera singer, not a pinup!’ and refused posing in a bathing suit
> again,” according to her official biography on the pageant’s website <
> http://www.missamerica.org/our-miss-americas/1950/1951.aspx>.
>
> As a result, Catalina withdrew as the pageant sponsor and began the rival
> Miss USA contest.
>
> And she led a really remarkable life after that . . , Civil Rights,
> Anti-War etc. .
>
> Read it All:
>
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/26/us/yolande-betbeze-fox-miss-america-who-defied-convention-dies-at-87.html
>
> Cheers,
> Jim Guthrie
>