\n\n\n\nDuring her undergraduate theatrical studies, a buddy pushed her to compete in a local beauty contest. That one move led to her being crowned\u00a0\u00a0Miss America\u00a0in 1955, a title that defined her public image while never limiting her goals.\n\n\n\n \u201cI still don\u2019t know why people voted for me. I\u2019m thinking it\u2019s because I selected a talent that got them to sit up.\u201d I played a 70-year-old Irish mother mourning the loss of her last son to the sea,\u201d she explained.\n\n\n\n \u201cI removed all of my makeup and dressed in a shawl and my father\u2019s black stockings, the same outfit I wore in the high school play. It was all I knew to do. \u201cI\u2019m an actress; that\u2019s what I wanted to be,\u201d the beauty explained\n\n\n\n During her reign, she became the first Miss America to be serenaded with \u201cThere She Is, Miss America\u201d by Bert Parks. Her year was filled with remarkable adventures, including collecting cash and awards totaling more than $60,000 and meeting prominent personalities such as Juan Per\u00f3n.\n\n\n\n Even though she dated baseball star Joe DiMaggio, her mother and journalist Walter Winchell strictly supervised the relationship. Despite the sparkle and glamour, she was aware that the title suggested certain prejudices.\n\n\n\n Many people believed that pageant winners lacked intelligence, but she was eager to prove otherwise. Soon after her reign ended, she joined \u201cThe Today Show\u201d as a pundit, partnering with Dave Garroway.\n\n\n\n Halfway through my Miss America tour, they called me from \u2018The Today Show\u2019 and said, \u2018We\u2019d like to have you as a regular member of our company.\u2019\u201d \u201cI was ecstatic,\u201d she remembered.\n\n\n\n The chance not only established her\u00a0\u00a0televisioncareer but also enabled her to use her scholarship money to study acting with famous teacher Lee Strasberg.\n\n\n\n Her journey from beauty queen to actor was quick. She made her TV debut on \u201cThe Philco Television Playhouse\u201d and landed her first film part in \u201cThe 4-D Man.\u201d\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" She won America\u2019s heart as a beauty queen and then wowed viewers in cinema for decades. Aside from the flash and glamor, her life has […]\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/runeecho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8730"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/runeecho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/runeecho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runeecho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runeecho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8730"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/runeecho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8731,"href":"https:\/\/runeecho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8730\/revisions\/8731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/runeecho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runeecho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runeecho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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She developed her acting, singing, and fencing abilities, preparing for a lengthy career in the entertainment world.\n\n\n\n
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