The 40s: The Story of a Decade

by The New Yorker Magazine

  I got in front, with Bob and Miss Nalepa. Frank got in back. On our way downtown, Miss Nalepa told me that we were to stop at Grand Central to pick up her chaperone, a Miss Neville. Miss Neville represented WKBW, the radio station in Buffalo that, with the blessings of the Miss America Pageant people but without any official blessings from Albany, had sponsored the New York State contest. A couple of weeks before competing in that one, which was held at the Crystal Beach Amusement Park, near Buffalo, Miss Nalepa had won the title of Miss Sullivan County in a contest held in the town of Monticello, thus qualifying for the state contest, and a week or so before that she had won the title of Miss White Roe Inn, the inn being situated outside the town of Livingston Manor, in Sullivan County. She had gone to the inn for a short vacation at the insistence of a friend who thought she could win the beauty contest there. Miss Nalepa had heard of such contests and of others held at local theatres but hadn’t ever entered one before. “I never had the nerve,” she told me. “I always knew I was pretty, but it always made me feel uncomfortable. When I was six, I remember a little boy in the first grade who used to watch me. I was terrified. I used to run home from school every day. At parties, when I was older, the boys paid a lot of attention to me, and I didn’t like it. I wanted the other girls to get attention, too.” Miss Nalepa went to a vocational high school, to study dressmaking; worked in a five-and-ten-cent store for a while after graduation; considered taking singing lessons but dropped the idea after her two sisters told her she had no singing ability; and went to the Rhodes School, in New York City, for a pre-nursing course and then to Mount Sinai Hospital, where she got her R.N. degree in 1948. She didn’t like to go out on dates with the hospital doctors. “Doctors are too forward,” she said.

  · · ·

  At Grand Central, Miss Neville, a pleasant, gray-haired lady, who said she had not been in Atlantic City for twenty years and was very enthusiastic about going there now, got in the back seat with Frank, and they began talking about chiropractic. As we headed for the Holland Tunnel, the three of us in the front seat discussed the contest. “Don’t expect much and you won’t be disappointed,” Miss Nalepa said, clutching Bob’s arm. She thought it would be nice to have some scholarship money and said that if she won any, she might use it to learn to play some musical instrument. No money had come with the Miss White Roe Inn title. She had received seventy-five dollars from the Sullivan County Resort Association for becoming Miss Sullivan County, and a picture of her in a bathing suit had appeared in the New York Daily News captioned “Having Wandaful Time.” When she was named Miss New York State, she was given three evening gowns and two pieces of luggage. She earned ten dollars a day nursing, but she hadn’t worked for more than a month—not since she started entering beauty contests—and she had had to borrow three hundred dollars from members of her family for clothes, cosmetics, jewelry, a quick, $67.50 course in modelling, and other things designed to enhance beauty, poise, and personality. She was worried about being only five feet three. The Miss Americas of the preceding six years had all been five feet seven or more. The contestants would be judged on four counts: appearance in a bathing suit, appearance in an evening gown, personality, and talent. Miss Nalepa was wondering about her talent. Her act, as she planned it, was going to consist of getting up in her nurse’s uniform and making a little speech about her nursing experience.

  “I don’t know what else I can do to show I’ve got talent,” she said. “All I know how to do is give a good back rub.”

  “Listen, what you need right now is a good meal,” Bob said.

  Miss Nalepa said she wasn’t hungry.

  “You’ve got to eat,” Bob said. “You’re too skinny.”

  “You’ve got to eat,” Frank repeated. “You’re too skinny.”

  We stopped for breakfast at a roadside restaurant. Miss Nalepa had only half a cheeseburger and a few sips of tea.

  · · ·

  In Atlantic City, Miss Nalepa and her chaperone headed for the hotel they had been assigned to, the Marlborough-Blenheim, where they were to share a double room. I said I was going to check in at the Claridge, across the street, and Bob offered to take my bag over. As the two of us walked over, he said that he and Frank were going to hang around for a short while and then go back to New York. “She’s not going to win,” he said. “I told her she’s not going to win. That nursing isn’t the right kind of talent. They’ll want singing or dancing or something like that.”

  In the lobby there were large photographs of Miss America of 1948, and of the current Miss Arizona, Miss Florida, Miss Chicago, and Miss District of Columbia, all of whom, I learned from my bellhop, had been assigned to that hotel. “Big crowd comes down every year to see the crowning of Miss America,” he said. “This is America’s Bagdad-by-the-Sea. The only place on the ocean where you’ll find a big crowd relaxing at recreations in the fall.”

  On my bureau was a small paper cutout doll labelled “Miss America, Be Be Shopp, in her official gown of Everglaze moire for the Miss America Pageant, September 6–11, 1949.”

  “You seen Be Be yet?” an elevator boy with round shoulders and watery eyes asked me as I was going back down. “Be Be’s staying with us. Be Be looks real good. Better than last year. You seen Miss Florida yet?” I shook my head. “She’s something!” he said.

  I went out to the boardwalk, where booths for the sale of tickets to the Pageant had been set up in a line running down the middle, between two rows of Bingo Temples, billboard pictures of horses diving into the ocean from the Steel Pier, and places named Jewelry Riot, Ptomaine Tavern, and the Grecian Temple. The roller chairs were rolling in and out among the ticket booths. “Get your ticket now to see the beauties at the parade!” a middle-aged lady called to me from one of them. “Bleacher seats are twenty-five cents cheaper than last year!”

  The contestants were registering for the Pageant at the Traymore, so I went over there. A couple of dozen policemen were standing outside the registration room. I asked one of them if Miss New York State had arrived. “Not yet, sister,” he said. “Stick around. I got my eye on all of them.”

  A white-haired gentleman wearing a green-and-purple checked jacket asked him how the registration was going.

  “You want to see the beauties, buy a ticket to the Pageant,” the policeman said.

  “They got any tall ones?” asked the gentleman.

  “Yeah, they got some tall ones,” the policeman said. “Utah is five, ten. She comes from Bountiful—Bountiful, Utah.”

  “Hope it won’t rain for the parade tomorrow,” said the gentleman.

  “It don’t look too promising,” observed the policeman.

  Miss Nalepa and her chaperone turned up, and I went inside with them. The contestants were standing in an uneven line, looking unhappily at each other, before a table presided over by a middle-aged woman with a Southern accent. She was Miss Lenora Slaughter, the executive director of the Pageant. The atmosphere was hushed and edgy, but Miss Slaughter was extravagantly cheerful as she handed out badges and ribbons to the contestants. When Miss Nalepa’s turn came to register, Miss Slaughter gave her a vigorous hug, called her darling, handed her a ribbon reading “New York State,” and told her to wear it on her bathing suit, from the right shoulder to the left hip. I introduced myself to Miss Slaughter, and she shook my hand fervently. “You’ll want to follow our working schedule,” she said, giving me a booklet. “All the girls are going upstairs now to be fitted with their Catalina bathing suits, and then they get their pictures taken, and tonight we’re having a nice meeting with all the girls, to tell them what’s what. The Queen—Miss America of 1948; we call Miss America the Queen—will be there. You’re welcome to come.… Miss California!” she cried. I moved on and Miss California took my place. Miss New York State clutched at my arm again and nodded toward Miss California, who had a large, square face, long blond hair, and large blue eyes. (Height, 5’6¼; weight, 124; bust, 36; waist, 24¼; thigh, 20; hips, 36; shoe size, 6½-AA; dress size
, 12; age, 19. Reason for entering the contest: “To gain poise and develop my personality.”) Miss New York State stood still, staring at her. “Come on, Wanda,” said her chaperone. “We’ve got to get you that bathing suit.”

  The bathing suits were being handed out and fitted in a two-room suite upstairs. The contestants put on their suits in one room while the chaperones waited in the other. The fitting room was very quiet; the other was filled with noisy, nervous chatter.

  Miss Alabama’s chaperone was saying, “I’m grooming one now. She’ll be ready in two years. She’s sure to be Miss America of 1951.”

  “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 anything. 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. Rol
ler 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.