Beauty or a baby

PETER BUFFA

Want to be Miss Costa Mesa? I don’t. But if you do, this is your

chance.

The Costa Mesa-Newport Harbor Lions Club will once again host the

“Miss Costa Mesa” competition as part of the club’s fabulous Fish Fry

bash at Lions Park on June 4-5.

If you want to take a run at being Miss Costa Mesa, you should be

female, 16 to 25 years old and must live, work or attend school in

Costa Mesa. You also need to be available for a full year of ribbon

cutting, picture taking, royal waving and endless smiling.

Is it just a labor of love? It is not. The new Monarch of Mesa

receives a $500 scholarship to further her education, which ain’t

bad. The Miss Mesa wannabes will duke it out at 2:15 p.m. on June 4.

But wait. There’s more. Are you a baby? Are you really, really

cute? Then make sure you get your little pampered butt down to the

Fish Fry baby contest on June 5, also at 2:15 p.m.

Apparently, there is some magic about 2:15.

If you want to enter, you should be a baby, and you must be

between 6 and 24 months old -- at which point you are officially no

longer a baby but a toddler, which is a whole different thing. Babies

need not live or work in Costa Mesa, but they must be cute in the

extreme. But then, what baby isn’t?

I was a judge for the Miss Costa Mesa contest a couple of times

when I was still in the mayor business. To be honest, I hated it. The

problem was me, not the contest. All the contestants were nice,

polite, personable young women -- most of them quite articulate --

but I just didn’t have the stomach to vote for one over the other.

It’s an odd business these beauty pageants, no? Of course, you

can’t call them beauty pageants anymore. That’s not allowed. But

whatever you call them, it all began on the Boardwalk in Atlantic

City a long, long time ago.

Atlantic City was the happening place in the early 1900s. But as

the hotels were aware, no matter how crowded the place was in those

crazy days of summer, it was a ghost town after Labor Day.

In 1920, the hotel association cooked up a special event called

the “Fall Frolic” for Sept. 25. More than 300 of the Boardwalk’s

trademark wicker rolling chairs would be decked out with flowers and

ribbons, pushed along by the best looking manly men they could find.

Each chair would carry a “maiden” dressed in symbolic costume.

The crowd did not go wild, so the hotels came up with another

idea.

Next year, they would get the girls out of the chairs and the long

robes and into bathing suits. Oddly enough, in those days, if you got

a lot of really good-looking girls together in bathing suits, you

could attract a crowd. How times have changed.

The hotels promoted the pageant up and down the East Coast. The

promotional materials for the Atlantic City “Pageant of Beauty”

stressed that it was a tribute to “the wholesomeness and virtue of

the young women of America.” Yeah, that’s it.

When a local reporter wrote that they were really looking for

“Miss America,” the label stuck.

And so, in 1921, the first “Miss America” pageant was held, with a

grand total of eight contestants. The winner was Margaret Gorman, a

16-year old from Washington, D.C., who supposedly was a dead ringer

for Mary Pickford. The new Miss America was crowned and took her turn

on the Boardwalk, wrapped in an American flag.

Labor leader Samuel Gompers told the New York Times, “She

represents the type of womanhood America needs: strong, red blooded,

able to shoulder the responsibilities of homemaking and motherhood.

It is in her type that the hope of the country rests.”

Geez, Sam. Lighten up. In 1922 and 1923, Mary Katherine Campbell

became the only woman to win the Miss America title two years in a

row, but a rule change made quick work of that.

Today, beauty pageants are big business, from the local contests

like Miss Costa Mesa, to the big-time, high-intensity competitions

like Miss Universe, Miss World, Mrs. America and Mrs. World.

For a young woman who has any designs on the media or show

business, it can actually work. Here are a few contestants and/or

winners of beauty pageants whose names might ring a bell: Halle

Berry, Sharon Stone, Vanessa Williams, Kathie Lee Gifford, Delta

Burke, Marla Maples, Cloris Leachman, Raquel Welch, Susan Anton, Loni

Anderson, Phyllis George, Ali McGraw, Mary Hart, Mary Ann Mobley and

from the anchor desk -- Diane Sawyer, Paula Zahn and Deborah

Norville. Oh yes, two beauty queens that might surprise you -- Oprah

Winfrey and Imelda Marcos.

There have been a boatload of Miss America stories and scandals

over the years, but my favorite was the 1923 “Miss Alaska,” Helmar

Leiderman.

During an interview, Helmar did pretty well except for one tiny

little detail -- she couldn’t remember the town she was from. It

didn’t take the reporter long to find out that not only was “Miss

Alaska” not from Alaska, but she wasn’t a “miss” either. She was a

married woman -- from Brooklyn, which is just like Alaska, only less

snow.

So there you have it. If you’ve always wanted to be a beauty

queen, or you’re about 20 inches long and really cute, just call

former Costa Mesa mayor Arlene Schafer at (714) 546-1429 for an entry

form or more information.

Keep your head up, smile and if you’re a baby, don’t burble on the

judges. I gotta go.

* PETER BUFFA is a former Costa Mesa mayor. His column runs

Sundays. He may be reached by e-mail at [email protected].