The Strutters

The big official prize in the Miss America contest was a $5,000 scholarship to any school of the winner's choosing. But there appeared to be little Ph.D. timber among the 54 entrants (representing 39 states, 14 cities and Canada).

To be sure, the girls had only one chance to display their intellectual attainments. This was on a radio quiz show. "On what river is the U.S. Naval Academy located?" asked the quizmaster. Why, said Miss Utah, on the Mississippi River. Miss Chicago was convinced that Maryland had been named for Queen Elizabeth, and that Napoleon had been crowned Emperor by the French people (correct, the judges decided, because Napoleon, who crowned himself, was one of the French people).* Miss Chattanooga was asked: "What is the capital of Massachusetts?" She shifted uneasily, hesitated, finally burbled something which sounded very much like "Petroleum."

No Painted Girls. I.Q.s aside, the beauty queens at Atlantic City last week were a dazzling flock. They were handsomer, shapelier, fresher--and looked less like a group of painted chorus girls--than in many a previous year. Chaperons tagged constantly at their heels, shielding them from men, strong drink and the temptation of chewing gum.

There was little time for frivolity, anyway. The girls put in five grueling days of promenading on the boardwalk, posing for pictures, smiling their patented smiles and strutting before a board of eleven judges. The field was gradually narrowed down to five contestants--the Misses California, Canada, Minnesota, Alabama, and Memphis.

After that, it was nip & tuck. The five finalists looked almost equally spectacular in evening dresses or in bathing suits (two-piecers, exposing the midriff, were worn for the first time). "Talent" proved the deciding factor.

No Hifalutin Ideas. Well-poised Miss Memphis, Barbara Jo Walker, had the most of that. To her own piano accompaniment, she sang The First Kiss, and Un Bel Di Vedremo from Madame Butterfly. For good measure, she presented the judges with three pastel art works of her own creation. At 47 minutes after midnight on the pageant's fifth night, the dark-haired singer from Memphis was crowned Miss America of 1947.

The new queen of queens, the 21-year-old daughter of a dental technician, had no hifalutin ideas for the future. While her measurements (height 5 ft. 7 in., weight 130 lbs., bust 35 in.) flashed across the land and the usual flood of show-business offers poured in, she an nounced that she planned to take the $5,000 scholarship and use it to finish her studies at Memphis State College. Hollywood was definitely out, she said. Already engaged to a medical school student, she explained: "I'm only interested in one contract -- the marriage contract."

*Napoleon's becoming emperor was very much his own idea, but it was approved by the French Senate and by a plebiscite. Pope Pius VII journeyed to Paris for the coronation, but when it came time to put on the crown, Napoleon took it from the Pontiff's hands and put it on himself.

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