Word: missing
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Lolling in a cabana at Atlantic City, N.J. one day last week were four people who had graciously consented to be judges (no pay, but free room and board) at the Western Hemisphere's annual summit meeting of beauties-the 37th Miss America contest. The quartet: Book Publisher and TV Paneluminary Bennett (What's My Line?) Cerf, his wife Phyllis, Playwright-Producer-Director Moss Hart and his actress-wife Kitty Carlisle (of TV's To Tell the Truth). The following memorable dialogue took place...
Bennett: First I leaned toward Miss Canada. Then I liked Miss California, but she's too sure of herself. Now I like Miss Mississippi. After all, she has read Faulkner [published by Bennett Cerf's Random House...
...question was left unanswered. Fact is that in 13 years, the Miss America Pageant has turned from a leering pressagent's dream into a sort of solemn, deep-breathing Rorschach test, as stickily wholesome as Atlantic City's famed saltwater taffy. The girls are the chosen mascots of local civic and service clubs, are told to keep their eyes not on glamour but on more than $150,000 worth of scholarships contributed by business firms, and are constantly surrounded by ulcerescent chaperons, without whom they may not speak to any man, "including male members of their own families...
Undisturbed by fathers, the girls scissored across the stage in evening gowns and swimsuits, ate their breakfasts under the eyes of table-hopping judges (who watched for such lapses as overextended pinkies while holding a coffee cup). The contestants also sang, played musical instruments, recited. Miss Georgia (Jeannette Arlene Ardell, 19; 35½-24-36) punctured four balloons with her bow and only seven arrows; and Miss Maryland (Mary Roberta Page, 18; 36-24½-36) drew a horse in luminous chalk...
...last the girls, in white ball gowns, paraded across a tangle of TV cables for M.C. Bert Parks ("Aren't they all perfectly beautiful, ladeezandgennimun?"). The Cerfs and the Harts, with seven other judges, voted. The tearful winner: Miss Mississippi (Mary Ann Mobley, 21; 34½-22-35). As he packed his swimsuit and prepared to leave Atlantic City, Playwright Hart's heartfelt beach comment still hung in the air: "We're God's fools...