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Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Miss America 1945 Bess Myerson's Own Story by Susan Dworkin Miss America 1945: Bess Myerson's Own Story by Susan Dworkin. Model (16-Jul-1924 — 14-Dec-2014) SUBJECT OF BOOKS. Susan Dworkin . Miss America, 1945: Bess Myerson's Own Story . New York: Newmarket Press. 1987 . 229pp. Jennifer Preston . Queen Bess: An Unauthorized Biography . New York: Contemporary Books. 1990 . AUTHORITIES. Below are references indicating presence of this name in another database or other reference material. Most of the sources listed are encyclopedic in nature but might be limited to a specific field, such as musicians or film directors. A lack of listings here does not indicate unimportance -- we are nowhere near finished with this portion of the project -- though if many are shown it does indicate a wide recognition of this individual. The One and Only Jewish Miss America. On August 15, 1945, seventy-one years ago yesterday, Bess Myerson became the most beautiful woman in America. Myerson became the first postwar Miss America, winning the same year the beauty pageant started offering its scholarship program. And she was the first ever Jewish Miss America. She was also the last ever Jewish Miss America. Born in 1924 to Russian Jewish immigrants, Myerson was raised in New York City to appreciate Yiddish culture and art. At her mother’s insistence, she became highly skilled at the piano. By the time she was 12 years old, she stood at 5’10″ tall. Myerson never felt comfortable in her own skin, and though she initially had no intention of participating in the Miss New York City contest, she was entered by her sister and her friend without her knowledge. Myerson described herself as “the wrong person in the wrong place” when she competed wearing a borrowed bathing suit. She was more interested in the scholarship money than in the competition itself. She still won advancing to the Miss America pageant. One of the defining moments in Myerson’s career as a public figure occurred before she was ever even crowned Miss America. The director of the pageant had pulled her aside and told her she had a real chance of winning, but suggested she change her last name to something more “attractive.” What he meant was “less Jewish.” In the 1987 book by Susan Dworkin titled Miss America, 1945: Bess Myerson’s Own Story , Myerson described the decision to ignore that advice as one of the most important she ever made. “Already I was losing my sense of who I was; already I was in a masquerade, marching across stages in bathing suits,” she said. “Whatever was left of myself in this game, I had to keep, I sensed that. I knew I had to keep my name.” Myerson’s coronation as Miss America took place just days after Japan’s surrender and the end of World War II. Back then, the role of beauty queen still held huge cultural significance. During the war, the Miss America pageant had gone through a kind of rebranding. The country needed to be united in the fight against the enemy, and Miss America became a valued national icon. She was a beautiful patriotic symbol to sell war bonds and bolster the American spirit, both at home and overseas. In a time of overwhelming hardships, who wore the crown bore great significance. What made Myerson’s reign particularly significant was it came at one of most important times in all of Jewish history. Towards the end of 1945, once the war was won, everyone was discovering just how deep the atrocities against the Jewish people ran. All Jews — from the European refugees directly affected to the American Jews being blamed by Anti-Semites for causing the war — were just starting to come to terms with the sheer magnitude of loss. Jews at the time were also dealing with logistical questions of what to do next, where to go, and how do I keep my faith when something like this happens. The image of the Jewish body in this time began to take on a horrifying shape. It’s a picture that persists to this day when people think of a Jew during World War II — the image of a starved body: gaunt, hollowed, abused. Dead or dying, with little to indicate the difference. For many Jewish Americans post-World War II, Myerson’s win as Miss America gave the world a different view of the Jewish body — beautiful, gifted, and full of hope. Her year as Miss America, however, started off pretty rocky. Touring the country on the vaudeville circuit was unsatisfying — the crowds were more interested in her bathing suit than her musical talents. She faced anti-Semitism from all corners: businesses refused to offer her sponsorships as was customary for pageant winners, she was denied entrance to many places, and encountered open hostility for being a Jew. She was approached by the Anti-Defamation League to speak on bigotry and tolerance around the country. She spent her year as Miss America speaking at high schools and housing projects with a speech titled “You Can’t Be Beautiful and Hate”, saying, “…hate is a corroding disease and affects the way you look. … You can’t hide it – ever. It shows in your eyes. It warps your expression.” It was on this lecture tour where she was discovered by a television producer who launched her career as a TV personality and later as the commissioner of New York City’s Department of Consumer Affairs. Throughout her long career she always presented herself as a Jewish public figure, and later in life donated much of her money to charities, including over a million dollars to the Museum of Jewish Heritage: A Living Memorial to the Holocaust. She died on December 14, 2015. Myerson was a vital part of the Jewish American story, simultaneously changing and being affected by the discourse surrounding the Jewish community in the tumultuous post-War era. The current Anti-Defamation League national director Abraham H. Foxman spoke of how integral she was to the narrative, calling Myerson a “treasure trove” to the ADL’s goal. “Miss America was a much bigger thing back then than it is today, and she represented the promise of that contest and the reality that the country was still racist, anti-Semitic and bigoted,” Foxman said. “She had the guts and the courage to be a proud Jew and to stand up for it.” Cookie Consent and Choices. NPR’s sites use cookies, similar tracking and storage technologies, and information about the device you use to access our sites (together, “cookies”) to enhance your viewing, listening and user experience, personalize content, personalize messages from NPR’s sponsors, provide social media features, and analyze NPR’s traffic. This information is shared with social media, sponsorship, analytics, and other vendors or service providers. See details. You may click on “ Your Choices ” below to learn about and use cookie management tools to limit use of cookies when you visit NPR’s sites. You can adjust your cookie choices in those tools at any time. If you click “ Agree and Continue ” below, you acknowledge that your cookie choices in those tools will be respected and that you otherwise agree to the use of cookies on NPR’s sites. Bess Myerson life and biography. Date of birth : 1924-07-16 Date of death : - Birthplace : Bronx, New York, U.S. Nationality : American Category : Arts and Entertainment Last modified : 2010-07-15 Credited as : Former Miss America pageant, , Bess Myerson (born July 16, 1924 in the Bronx, New York) became in 1945 the first Jewish woman to win the Miss America pageant. She appeared on various television shows in the 1950s and 1960s. In the 1970s and '80s, she was involved in New York City politics. While competing in beauty pageants, Myerson refused, despite entreaties, to employ a pseudonym that "sounded less Jewish." She faced prejudice even after winning the Miss America title, with many sponsors and events long associated with the pageant refusing to deal with her. She later campaigned for civil rights, in particular, working with the Anti-Defamation League. In 1954, Myerson was a panelist on The Name's the Same television game show. From 1958 through 1967, she was a panelist on I've Got a Secret. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Myerson enjoyed a successful television career as a TV personality, actress and commercial pitchwoman for a myriad of popular products. She survived ovarian cancer after being diagnosed with the disease in 1973. She also suffered a stroke many years later. Cover of Miss America, 1945: Bess Myerson's Own Story by Susan Dworkin. Myerson was New York City's first Commissioner of Consumer Affairs (under Mayor John Lindsay), later serving as Commissioner of Cultural Affairs under Mayor Ed Koch. Throughout the late 1970s and the beginning of his mayoral ambitions, Myerson was a frequent public companion of Ed Koch. In 1980, Myerson ran for the Democratic nomination for New York's U.S. Senate seat against Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, Queens District Attorney John J. Santucci, and former New York City mayor John Lindsay. Myerson lost to Holtzman by a slim margin. Meanwhile, Alfonse D'Amato had defeated Jacob Javits, the incumbent, in the GOP primary. The ailing Javits ran as a Liberal, splitting the left of center opposition to d'Amato, who narrowly defeated Holtzman. After her loss, Myerson reasoned that she seemed "too tall and beautiful" to be a Senator. Later years. In the 1980s, Myerson's life was darkened by a messy legal controversy (colloquially known as "the Bess Mess").

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