The Evening Star (September 8, 1946)
California drama student wins ‘Miss America’ title for 1946
Accent on education produces winner at Atlantic City
By George Kennedy, Star Staff Correspondent
ATLANTIC CITY, New Jersey, Sept. 7 – The intellectual movement in the Atlantic City bathing beauty contest won out tonight.
Marilyn Buferd, a tall, blond drama student from Los Angeles who has been doing bit parts in the movies, became “Miss America of 1946” with a dramatic recitation from “Accent on Youth.”
Mrs. Marion Wade Doyle, president of the District of Columbia Board of Education, and Dr. Edward M. Gwathmey, president of Converse College, Spartanburg, South Carolina, the educational faction among the 13 judges, were highly pleased. So was Dr. Guy E. Snavely, 900 Hudson Ave., Takoma Park, Maryland, who presented the crown to Miss Buferd.
Dr. Snavely, executive director of the Association of American Colleges, started the intellectual movement in the bathing beauty contest last year as national counselor of the pageant and was rewarded when tall, brunette Bess Myerson of New York won by playing a Grieg piano concerto.
But the movement almost suffered a setback tonight when Rebecca Jane Becky McCall, brunette “Miss Arkansas,” wowed the audience of 10,000 in the vast Convention Hall on the Boardwalk by giving them the real lowdown in singing “Put the Blame on Mame.” She was the runner-up to Miss Buferd.
The new Miss America’s measurements are: Height, 5 feet 8 inches; bust, 35½; waist, 25½; hips, 36. She weighs 123 pounds.
Miss Buferd, who is 21 and studies drama at the University of California at Los Angeles, will get a $5,000 scholarship. She also will profit by the increased interest which the Hollywood studios are certain to show in her career.
Janey Miller, “Miss Atlanta,” who sang an aria from “Tosca,” was third; Marguerite McClelland, “Miss Louisiana,” who sang “Voices of Spring,” was fourth, and Amelia Ohmart, “Miss Utah,” a torch singer, was fifth.
Didn’t expect to win
Miss Buferd was speechless when she was called up to receive her crown, but she said later she was “very much surprised.”
“I didn’t expect to be selected because there are other girls here with so much more talent than I,” she said.
Miss McCall wept as she crossed the stage to take second place, and later said she was “so very, very happy” to have been selected.
MIrs Miller said she was “just sorry for Atlanta” that she did not win.
Miss McClelland related later that she had not expected to win and was “about ready to go home” when her name was called. Miss Ohmart said she was “proud for Utah” to have placed.
Native of Detroit
The new “Miss America” is a native of Detroit. She said she enjoys drawing and sewing, and also likes swimming, riding and fencing. Miss Buferd said she wanted the $5,000 scholarship “to further my education in dramatics.”
The first runner-up received a scholarship for $3,000; second, $2,500; third, $2,000 and fourth, $1,500.
The other 11 finalists received $1,000 scholarships, and Lennie Josephine Nobles, “Miss Mississippi,” received a special $1,000 scholarship award as the most talented contestant who did not reach the finals.
In the Atlantic City pageant the judges, as well as the bathing beauties, walk the runway. Mrs. Doyle, who had arrived with the other judges with a motorcycle escort from the Hotel Claridge, came out when Bob Russell, master of ceremonies, introduced her, and took her place. Mrs. Doyle was wearing a black lace evening gown with a large cross pendant.
Scrolls were prepared
Typewriters and telegraph keys were clicking along the press tables and broadcasters were talking into microphones as at a prize fight. Five employees of the China Film Enterprise – Y. C. Chen, Lily Lee, H. C. Weng, Sun Yu and Nelson Wu – gave the event an international flavor.
Dr. Snavely showed this reporter the illuminated scrolls he had drawn up conferring scholarships on the girls with “personality, talent, intelligence, charm, health and beauty of face and figure.”
Just then the parade of girls in bathing suits started down the runway. “I’m going to take the emphasis off that,” he said.
Of the 48 girls who had been contesting, the 16 selected to complete tonight had been chosen by a judging formula of points so complicated that two certified public accountants were used to determine the leaders. When the 16 were called, Jeanne Carlson, “Miss Washington, D.C.” was not one of them. She later paraded the runway with other consolation prize winners, all smiling, and wearing blue ribbons from a gold seal similar to those used in county fairs. Miss Carlson was wearing a white lame evening gown with a bustle.
The intellectual movement was much in evidence among the contestants. Patricia Fenton, “Miss Louisville,” who is a two-year scholarship student at an Indianapolis art school, lectured on her work, some very professional Genre paints displayed on easels. Eileen Henry, “Miss New York,” gave a dramatic recital of Bernard Shaw’s “Saint Joan Before Her Judges,” and Norma Salisbury, “Miss West Virginia,” recited rhymed couplets (her own), entitled “Who Is Miss America.” The real Miss America, the verses disclosed, was the Army nurse wounded on Saipan, the soldier’s widow, the Gold Star mother.
Others in finals
In addition to those named, tonight’s 16 finalists included:
Cloris Leachman, “Miss Chicago;” La Vonne Bond, “Miss Cincinnati;” Joan Elizabeth Turner, “Miss Connecticut;” Jacquelyn Marie Jennings, “Miss Florida;” Patricia Jeanne Frye, “Miss Illinois;” Violet Mellar, “Miss New York State;” Eleanor D. Kramer, “Miss Pennsylvania,” and Antonie Bernice Lunde, “Miss Wisconsin.”
Contest officials announced that Joyce Eleyne Blakemore, 18, of Liberal, Kansas, who is “Miss Kansas,” was withdrawn from competition because of a bad cold.
The interim, while the certified public accountants were adding up the final score, was filled by a medley of popular songs by the master of ceremonies and a little talk by Dr. Snavely.
There was a Greek slave in Rome who wrote great poetry, Dr. Suavely said. His name was Ovid and he outlined the ages of history ending with the Golden Age. We were living in the golden age, the educator said, but the explosion of the bomb at Hiroshima had begun another age, the atomic age.
“And,” Dr. Snavely said, “the committee last year anticipated the coming of the atomic age by rejuvenating and strengthening the Miss America pageant by offering scholarships to the winners.”
The taxi driver waiting outside the Convention Hall had another idea. “I don’t think it’s fair,” he said. “Judging beauties by talent. I think it’s a lot of baloney.”
