The 40s: The Story of a Decade (38 page)

“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.

· · ·

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 money-maker 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 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: