The board of directors was almost ready to exonerate her – until a Fed Ex package containing the pictures arrived during their meeting. According to Marks, when Vanessa first told him about the photos, she made the session sound fairly innocuous – ”a little pearl here, a few drapes there,” he recalled. Marks, Jr., the pageant’s non-salaried chairman. When word got out that Penthouse’s 15th anniversary edition would reveal that the empress wore no clothes, Vanessa closeted herself in a conference with 71-year-old Albert A. In July 1984, her tour on the circuit came screeching to a halt. You realize it once you are on the circuit.” I think of myself as a feminist and pretty liberal, and there are aspects that are pretty exploitative. I was certainly one of those people who said it was a joke. Looking back on that time eight years later, she told Entertainment Weekly, “Maybe it was to my advantage that I wasn’t as hungry as those other girls, the ones who were bred to do this. But even then there was something else about Vanessa that set her apart. Almost as widely reported was the fact that she was the first Miss America who did not cry during her inaugural walk.įor the next ten months, she faithfully discharged her duties as the nation’s first black, non-crying Miss America. Although she was certainly proud of her breakthrough status, it still rankled Vanessa when reporters emphasized her race above all else. Then she went on to compete for the Miss America title in September 1983, becoming the first black woman to win the crown. After the funds ran out in 1983, Vanessa entered the Miss New York race in order to win more scholarship money. She became involved with theater in high school, winning a musical-theater scholarship to Syracuse University in 1981. A minor crack-up resulted, wherein our heroine chipped a tooth and permanently scarred one leg. When she was ten, she defied her mother’s orders not to give anyone a ride on the back of her bicycle. According to Mainstream America magazine, Vanessa has to practice the piano daily, and at age seven, she showed her displeasure by packing her stuffed animals and hitting the road – only to return before nightfall. But there is one former Miss America whose champagne wishes and caviar dreams came true in a very big way.Īnd she’s the one they said was all washed up.īorn on MaVanessa Williams was raised in Millwood, Westchester County, New York, by her public school music-teacher parents, Milton and Helen. But after schmoozing with Johnny, Jay, or David, it’s usually pretty much downhill over the years – a rubber chicken ride to Rotary Club oblivion. Sadly, the high point of a Miss America’s reign comes during her first week, a whirlwind of major-league talk-show appearances. Because although most of the anointed hope to parlay their title into a showbusiness career, the runway is littered with the detritus of disappointments and dashed dreams. How about any four out of the last dozen? If you are able to answer these questions, you’re probably in the minority. Photographs by Tom Chiapel and Jonathan Aaron Quick - can anybody name our reigning Miss America? Most Famous Miss America in History
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