The rise and fall of a Miss America

They picked a Mormon missionary girl right after me and then this drugged up Klan daughter the year after. Overreacting to an overreaction.

She came from a crazy family and was then put in another weird environment (the pageant world.)

She barely stood a chance at normality.

Wow. She's completely unrecognizable now, but I'm glad she's finally getting herself together. I wish her the best of luck.

Here she is on Letterman right after she won (starting at 15:45). She was very pretty and charming.

Beauty Pageants should be obsolete by now.

I find it hilarious Jake Cruise (yes, THIS Jake Cruise) was one of the Miss America pageant judges until relatively recently.

R6 Whaaa????!!! Is this true?

R7, my bad, he wasn't a judge, it was something else

[quote] As RadarOnline reported yesterday, Ric Alonso and longtime partner Ernie Koneck are both highly involved in the Southern California Scholarship Association — a nonprofit that produces the Miss Hollywood pageant, an official preliminary to Miss California and Miss America. The couple also owns Dancing Moose, the web design company that produces the Miss California site.

R8 That's still pretty funny. I had no idea.

Jesus - what an unnecessarily long article and backstory. It's an article - not a novel.

Don't have sympathy for rich pretty white girls whose relatives were all KKK and she went to racist Ole Miss.

No Jake cruise wasn’t a judge his romantic and business partner ran a local feeder pageant in the Miss California system. Jake Cruise (real name ric alonso) was listed as a sponsor/donor. Someone put two and two together and I guess told a gossip website who ran the story.

Sounds like her family was feast or famine money wise, and her mother was counting on her winning Miss America as the big moment when her ship would sail in.

I was a senior in high school in Mississippi when she won. It was a very big deal. I haven’t thought about her in years. Sorry to hear what she’s gone through but I’m glad she’s doing better.

Miss America’s teeth are missing

MARY!

Susan’s crowning moment.

Couldn’t get through that horribly written article.

[quote]R14 Susan’s crowning moment.

Miss Washington’s name is Honey Castro?

Okay.

I just looked up the past winners on Wikipedia to see who the subsequent winners were that OP referred to. It’s amazing how many names I remember from the pageant’s glory days. I worked with someone who was one of the 50 contestants and she had a great take on it — it was fun, a lark, but not something you could build your life around (true talents like Williams and some others notwithstanding).

That’s Kelley Cash, a later Miss America Op! Duh

[quote] Don't have sympathy for rich pretty white girls whose relatives were all KKK and she went to racist Ole Miss.

She’s responsible for her choice of parents?

Most of us aren’t unlucky enough to get the future we coveted as a child or adolescent. She was.

R19 - apple doesn't fall far from the tree - or orchard in this case.

She’s got nothing on me—o was raped repeatedly by my father right up until the night I won Miss America.

OMG R22 thats awful! Very sad.

R21. I wasn’t aware one of her life problems was being a racist or persecuting people in general.

I read the whole thing. I'd be interested to see DNA results

Are you retarded R18? The article is about Susan Akin Miss America 1986.

[quote]R18 That’s Kelley Cash, a later Miss America Op! Duh

[quote]R26 Are you retarded? The article is about Susan Akin, Miss America 1986.

Girls, GIRLS! You’re BOTH self righteously right!

OP’s pic is of outgoing Miss America Susan Akin crowning her 1987 replacement, Kellye Cash.

Retards make fun of R26: Film at 11.

Go dilate your coloncunt r28.

R17 I saw Vanessa Williams perform about 10 years ago, and she was interviewed about her Miss America experience. She had never competed in pageants until she was recruited in college by a pageant representative. She had no interest in being a beauty queen, but the thought of scholarship money for college was enticing, so she decided to enter. She won her local pageant, then went on to win Miss America.

She talked about the contestants who literally spent their lives on the pageant circuit (girls like Susan Akin), living only to be the next Miss America, and how resentful so many of the girls were when she just kind of breezed in, and with little effort, took the title.

R30, it's funny how she became the most famous Miss America and she didn't even get to keep her crown. Seriously, how many of the other American pageant winners are still remembered today? I think Kenya Moore is the only one, but she was Miss USA, not Miss America.

Everyone pretty much knew Vanessa was likely to win on the final night—except maybe for a one Mississippi pageant queen —Wanda Gayle-who only made 3rd runner-up.

Ironically(?), Vanessa’s predecessor Debbie Maffett (MA 1983) was the ultimate career pageant girl. She spent years on the Texas pageant circuit, never to win Miss Texas. It took a nose and chin job, some better tits, blonder hair and a move to California where she won the first time out. Apparently she was not very popular among her fellow contestants in Atlantic City.

This joke about no homely Miss Mississippi’s was pretty accurate at the time.

Vanessa’s mother said the same thing about the parents R30 when they asked them how long her daughter had been competing and they would say this is her first year. I think her time from the local pageant to Miss America was less than 6 months.

Designing women link.

R33 Vanessa Williams said she didn't even have a decent bathing suit for the competition, so a few days before the pageant, she went to Target and bought one. She ended up winning the bathing suit competition with her off the rack swimsuit, which pissed off a lot of the girls who had spent tons of money on custom-made suits.

There’s a great recap from 2021 in the WaPo that describes how she won the title—as noted, in a few short months from Miss Syracuse to Miss America. DL won’t let me share the link.

Her evening gown was killer (not the purple mermaid thing she wore for the final announcement).

The story..

Vanessa Williams is very, very beautiful and I admire her spirit. I saw her in the pre Broadway tour of INTO THE WOODS, though, and I don’t recall anything special at all about her performance. She was tall and graceful… that’s all I got.

This revival seemed extremely conventional across the board, though. But I like them using the maypole in the choreography! That Act 1 finale is one of my favorite parts of the score - even if you can never tell what people are saying : )

Here is Susan Akin crowning her successor Kellye Cash. She walked off the stage the moment after the put the crown on Kellyes head. Normally they stay until the new winner takes her walk and the emcee says goodnight.

They didn’t like Kellye in the dressing room—she was a very thirsty wannabe. Nepo baby of her time.

[quote]r40 Here is Susan Akin crowning her successor Kellye Cash.

Wow - Sue got that tiara onto her fast, straight, and tight.

Often that part’s pathetically scary!

Tell me about it! See @ 7:10

I remember 1984 and Vanessa Williams fucking up the title with her her muff diving, photo scandal. She made Miss America seem tawdry. Single-handedly, ruined the pageant and ironicly, brought favorable attention to lipstick lesbos.

Fun fact: Ann or Anne is the most common first or second name of Miss America winners.

Next most common: some version of Mary!

[quote] I read the whole thing. I'd be interested to see DNA results

Why? I'm curious. TIA.

[quote] “I feel at this time, intermixing could lead to more problems because we have a lot of marriage problems now — divorce,” Susan said. “Intermixing cultures and things ... of that aspect could lead to divorces, which I don’t like.”

She was against "intermixing." So, the apple didn't fall far from the KKK tree.

Also, she's saying that "intermixing" could lead to divorce. Her two white parents: divorced.

Also, it's cruel to have wild animals declawed and living in a back yard.

I'm not feeling very sorry for her.

Plot twist: she was a descendent of Mississippi’s first Black senator! That’s what drove her to las drogas!

By comparison getting your picture taken sniffing some chicks butt seems rather tame, doesn't it...

Susan Akin is briefly featured in this episode of UNSOLVED MYSTERIES (her L.A. neighbor was murdered in 1988)

See[bold] 23:22 [/bold]mark:

R50 I'm sure her guilt over not calling the police when her neighbor was being murdered didn't help her drug and alcohol addiction.

Gary Collins was a nasty drunk...

So is Chuck Woolery

Michael Moore’s Miss Michigan

Suzanne Sugarbaker is right. You will also never see a homely Miss Texas and rarely a homely Miss Arkansas or Miss Georgia.

Marilyn is cute as a bug. What an awful thing to live with. I’m glad she’s strong and supported by her family.

But never trust a Miss Valdosta Feed and Grain, R55

R35 for you from the article:

“The Miss Nebraska advisers, confounded by Kristin’s lean, athletic figure, showed her all the tricks with padding and tape and thickly lined bra cups — because nothing, they said, absolutely nothing must show. So Kristin had been stunned to see Miss New York stroll into preliminaries in an unreinforced, civilian-grade bathing suit, her silhouetted nipples leading the way. “I thought, ‘oh my gosh, this is not going to be good!’ ” Kristin says.”

From the story at R38:

[quote]Knowing this was an upside of hailing from a serious pageant state like Oklahoma, winner of the 1967 and 1981 Miss America crowns.

ExCUSE me, WaPo: Oklahoma also produced the 1926, 1996, 2006 and 2007 winners. Now I know this story was about the 1983 pageant but you can't just omit Norma Smallwood like that!

They were the then two “modern” winners. Pretty basic.

[quote]R59 you can't just omit Norma Smallwood like that!

[bold]#Justice4Norma

She had a great talent, but could last until first runner-up.

*couldn’t

I have OCD. If I won, I'd have to boil the crown and burn the scepter. Fake royalty so you don't know where the scepter has been. Has to pass the sniff test.