Being Miss America: Behind the Rhinestone Curtain (Discovering America) (5 page)

In the late 1920s, talkies invaded Hollywood and threatened the career of Greta Garbo, who was told her accent was too heavy to survive the transition. Shortly thereafter, she wielded her increased power to wrestle Louis B. Mayer into submission and become the highest-paid actor in Hollywood. Is it so surprising, then, that another bright, aggressive twentysomething with a nontraditional background would follow suit and want to call her own shots? In the 1950s, Marilyn Monroe decided she was tired of being primarily a sex symbol and began a much-publicized immersion into Method Acting, alongside “serious actors” like James Dean and Marlon Brando. Why, then, does Yolande Betbeze—who rose to fame largely due to her physical and facial beauty but considered herself an opera singer first and foremost—shock so many onlookers when she decides to carve out her own path?

Incidentally, there is little evidence to support—and plenty of oral history to contradict—the hypothesis that Lenora Slaughter was opposed to the initiatives of Myerson, Betbeze, and others who pushed Miss America forward. In 1987, when Bess Myerson’s life had taken a difficult turn, Slaughter shot some choice words across the bow: “It’s a tragedy, but a woman in love will do stupid things.” Myerson responded that she “was always impressed by her ability to sell. Those she couldn’t convince, she charmed; those she couldn’t charm, she simply outlasted. I watched her feed her ‘dreams and ideals’ pitch to hundreds and hundreds of people, and make them believe it as I believed it.” And though Betbeze often seemed to be in conflict with Slaughter, plenty have speculated that the
boss wanted to downplay the swimsuits, too—in fact, she battered the rebellious media into submission with her decision to crown Bebe Shopp, Miss America 1948, in an evening gown. But regarding the pageant’s yearlong image, it would have been impossible for her to orchestrate alone. She needed someone like Yolande Betbeze to come along and put her foot down. When Slaughter died at the age of ninety-four, Betbeze said that “Lenora was a strong lady with a vision. The pageant simply would not exist today if it wasn’t for Lenora.”

Over the course of its history, the pageant’s leaders have often been somewhat behind the times. Much of that is because they have expected the gratitude, humility, and inexperience of each young winner to supersede her business sense. The leadership has repeatedly learned that this is a fallible strategy, starting way back with Norma Smallwood and her insistence on being paid to crown her successor, and Jean Bartel with her progressive ideas about college-educated women, all the way through Evelyn Ay, who knew that her skills as a speaker would carry her further than her appearance alone. In this first era of the pageant, those winners who recognized and moved in step with the current cultural moment are the ones whose names seem to be remembered most often.

By 1954, the Miss America Pageant was as organized as it had ever been. Although the businessmen of Atlantic City definitely didn’t know what they were getting themselves into when they decided to turn a young woman into American royalty, transformational winners pushed the pageant closer to their own ideas about femininity and the aspirations of women. Venus Ramey (1944) would eventually run for president of the United States—to say nothing of the fact that at age eighty-two, she enjoyed a brief return to celebrity after blithely shooting out the tires of a tres
passer trying to burglarize her Kentucky barn. Evelyn Ay (1954), the last Miss America of the pageant’s first era, was such an accomplished and natural speaker that she legendarily “outtalked Billy Graham.”

The Miss Americas of the 1920s through 1954 were certainly not a monolithic entity; their contributions and influence on the pageant’s identity varied widely. To answer a common criticism about Miss Americas: the compliant winners—those who contentedly smiled, waved, kissed babies, and posed with refrigerators—probably outnumbered those who pushed the envelope. But as a whole, they helped to build the first lasting nonprofit that allowed women to trade on their talent, ambition, looks, brains, and charisma in order to get themselves to college and become voices in the public discourse. For the most part, this occurred in relative privacy; although Miss America was famous, she would still generally go unrecognized by name or face in most corner drugstores.

In September 1954, the crowning of Lee Meriwether would introduce a whole new ball game.

THREE

If there were some kind of pageant for the questions people ask me most frequently, the runaway winner would certainly be a version of “how was that year, anyway?” As if it’s one standard experience or there’s a neat way to sum things up in a couple of sentences. It’s a year of your life; it’s a jumble of everything a person lives through in a year, but in public and with (usually) much higher stakes. It’s not like you can just say “it was amazing,” because there are definitely times that it sucks. On the other hand, saying “it sucked” not only won’t win you many adoring fans, but is equally inaccurate
.

And after months or years or whatever of working toward the goal, you become acutely aware that it’s a grownup job you’ve just tap-danced and talked and strutted and willed your way into. You kind of expect that it’ll be like Cinderella’s Ball, and for a while it is—but then it’s more like the love child of Cinderella’s Ball and that movie
Groundhog Day.
When you put on the pretty dress every day, it feels a lot less glamorous after a while. Particularly when the carriage turns back into a pumpkin every night, and you have to shove all your belongings into suitcases again to go to the
next place. And get dressed up and smile again, as if it’s the first time. Et cetera
.

The things that seem the coolest at the beginning of the year—gorgeous hotels, great clothes, gifts—are precisely the things whose allure wears off first (except flying first-class, which seriously never gets old). Don’t get me wrong, I like a beautiful dress as much as the next girl, and if someone gives it to me for free, even better. But the more you acquire, the more you have to pack every thirty-six hours. Of course, you can ship it to your family’s house (after all, you’ve probably given up your own apartment for the year), but here’s hoping they have a place to put it. Because it’s a
lot
of stuff. You wind up with a t-shirt, a keychain, and maybe a hat or a pin at every event you attend. Then there are the cute little souvenirs—glass figurines, wooden replicas of the Town Hall, silver-plated paperweights, keys to the city. If you are given an award or trophy for your work, your hosts are usually generous enough to ship it for you. (Today, I have about three cabinets full of that stuff.) And framed proclamations—I swear to God, the first time I get a plaque saying it’s officially Kate Shindle Day in one city or another state, signed by the mayor or the governor or whomever, I practically need to call for smelling salts. It is just that cool. And then somehow I acquire, like, thirty. And where will I put them? In the living room of my apartment, when I go back for my senior year? ’Cause
that’s
not at all awkward if you want to have friends over . . 
.

I think most people like to give Miss America gifts because it means she’s taking a piece of them with her when she leaves. To them, she is Americana manifested, so she collects bits of America wherever she goes. They want to feel like their story matters, that they matter, that she will remember them. And that’s kind of beautiful. But it’s still not a great excuse for a lot of the crap you accumulate over the course of the year. Your hosts (quite reasonably, in my opinion) don’t want to spend eighty-five bucks on flowers you’ll
enjoy for the three hours you’re actually in the room before they default to the maid or the limo driver’s wife. So you get lasting souvenirs of all shapes and sizes
.

And in this department—the giving and receiving of tchotchkes—the Miss America Organization has achieved an innovation. Right after the pageant you fill out a questionnaire, and one of the questions is “what do you collect?” That way, they can tip off the giver as to what Miss America would most like to receive. I decide that it would be rather impolitic to give the real answer (shot glasses), and kind of tacky to ask for something useful (nail polish remover, razor blades, cash). But I’ve always liked those little blown-glass fake-antique perfume bottles, so that’s what I put. Well, somewhere along the line, there’s a breakdown in communication; I arrive at a hotel in Boston a couple weeks later and am greeted by a ginormous basket with probably a thousand dollars’ worth of every Calvin Klein scent on the planet. CK One in lotion, perfume, body mist, you name it. CK Be. If this were to happen today, I’d probably bag it up and take it to a department store for a merchandise credit. But when you’re twenty and green and excited, all you think is “How do I do something with this before someone realizes they just spent way too much money on me?!” Answer: ship it home
.

I’m still using it, by the way. I’ve had it for well over a decade. So, yes, Boston, thanks, I remember you, on many occasions when my skin needs a little hydrating
.

I have trophies from all the pageants I ever won anything in (total: four). Talent awards, a single shining (shocking) swimsuit award, the winner’s trophy. My entire competition wardrobe and three crowns—Miss Lake-Cook, Miss Illinois, Miss America. File cabinets and suitcases stuffed with videos, boxes of photos, press clippings, a few stacks of eight-by-ten photos that will probably never need to be signed for anyone. An autographed football from Gale Sayers, and one from Mike Ditka. A Tampa Bay Buccaneers jersey that says “Miss America” on the back. Vintage salt and pepper shak
ers from Atlantic City, one of them shaped like the state of New Jersey and the other one like a pinup-posed Miss America
.

I have a tribal stick—sorry, that’s probably not the correct way to describe it, but it’s the best I can do—from a Native American group in Oklahoma. On this day in Tulsa, I stand in the middle of a circle in a hotel ballroom while they chant a prayer (if I recall correctly), and then they give the stick to me to keep. I have a gigantic painting of my own head, commissioned by a group in Atlanta and executed by a well-known local artist who does billboards. As one might expect, to say that it’s best viewed from a distance is an understatement. Every couple years, I wrap it and give it to a different member of the family for Christmas—most recently, I wrapped it up for my brother and his new girlfriend. We all laugh our asses off every time, which is great—and then another 364 days go by while it just sits in a room
.

Life on the road, 20,000 miles of travel each month for a year, is exhilarating and draining. Someone travels with you at all times, and you have adjoining hotel rooms. Your friends aren’t allowed to crash on the couch if they’re nearby. You’re not alone unless you literally go into your room and shut the door. If you go out, someone is keeping tabs—I nearly give one traveling companion an aneurysm when I go running around Geneva, Switzerland after a banquet one night. I tell her that I simply needed exercise; I was fine, I was safe. She is pissed
.

After a couple months in hotels, I’m way more interested in a twenty-four-hour gym and a laundry room than chocolates on my pillow at bedtime. Sure, the Intercontinental and the Waldorf Astoria are freaking awesome, but eventually I sure am happy on the rare occasions when we check into an Embassy Suites. Nobody really thinks of how Miss America is supposed to do her laundry. I’m pretty independent and find a laundromat every week or so—but a mind-boggling number of Miss Americas talk fondly about FedEx-ing their
dirty laundry home for their moms to wash and send back. On a regular basis. For a year. Sure, some of them have been eighteen or nineteen and barely out of their childhood homes . . . and others have been in grad school by the time they’re crowned. But for whatever reason, this has emerged as their best solution
.

Here’s the amazing thing: as much of a pain as all that stuff can be—the unrelenting pace and the constant travel and the Miss America office being wildly disorganized and catty and passive-aggressive—I absolutely love the hell out of the job. Not just because it’s fun, although there is kind of a thrill in seeing how fast I can get a read on a city I’m only spending a day in, most of it inside. And not just because some appearances are totally awesome, like going to the Super Bowl and all the assorted events that lead up to it
.

There is, quite simply, one thing that makes it just about the best job I’ll ever have: I get to change the world. When you get to do that, you manage to find ways to ignore the petty annoyances. And you eventually figure out a way to get over yourself for the sake of the big picture
.

I am psyched when it’s over; I swap my crown for my freedom, and get to go back to my own life . . . or try to, anyway, because that turns out not to be so easy after all. But I wouldn’t trade that year for anything. I’m really proud of it
.

FOUR

By all accounts (and there have been many), it’s impossible to argue that the Miss America Pageant did not experience massive change when it first began airing live on television in 1954.

It was not the first time that those west of the Garden State had laid eyes on the lucky young lady during her special moment, of course; the newsreels had wide reach and significant distribution. Certainly, the pre-1950s Miss Americas had been able to secure screen tests and well-paid appearances.

But in 1954, with television marching inexorably forward as a medium for the masses, Slaughter and company decided it was time for the entire country to witness the Miss America phenomenon. After a false start in 1953, a deal was struck with ABC about two months before the September 1954 pageant.

That first television contract ran into some difficulties of its own, however. For one thing, the Miss America board of directors delayed approving the broadcast because they feared that if the local audience had the option of watching the pageant at home, ticket sales for the live show at Convention Hall would drop precipitously. For another, in the
end, the deal was made not by Lenora Slaughter (although one suspects she had some input) but by Miss America president Hugh Wathen. Apparently, Slaughter’s vision and leadership were sufficient for the day-to-day administration of the pageant’s affairs—but when it came time for big business, the men stepped in and relegated her to the background. It’s a tiny detail, to be sure, but an early indicator that the pageant leaders did not entirely buy the educated, independent female image that they were selling.