Category:
Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests
In 1949, Terry Leah won the title of "Miss Dial" in a contest sponsored by Dial Soap. As far as beauty titles go, this one wasn't that unusual. But what was unusual was that, as part of the responsibility of being Miss Dial, Terry had to take a bath, using Dial Soap, in the window of Eckerd Drug Company in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Adding to the public exposure, Dial promised that the person who took the best photo of Terry as she bathed would win $25.
Charlotte News - July 7, 1949
Charlotte Observer - July 8, 1949
Young Dickie Higgins was determined to win that prize. I'd bet that was the most exciting day of his life up until then. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find out who did win the photo prize.
"Dickie Higgins takes a shot of dancer Terry Leah, who is posing in a bubble bath in a Charlotte, North Carolina, store window advertising a new line of bath soap."
NY Journal American - July 28, 1949
(left) Greenville News - July 9, 1949; (right) Raleigh News and Observer - July 14, 1949
We've looked at the humor of DJ Rege Cordic at Radio Station KDKA
in a previous post.
The home page of Rege Cordic.
But here's a stunt not covered there.
He decided to stage a gag beauty contest for "Miss Brick Throw of 1959."
It was announced in 1958 in BILLBOARD.
Eventually a winner was chosen, "Miss Twerpie Walker," and a fake magazine was printed for the occasion.
Listen to three minutes of the gag here. NOTE: sound file begins to play automatically.
In 1944, a newspaper in Gary, Indiana held a beauty contest to select a "Miss Gary Cigaret." The public were encouraged to vote, with each vote costing five cents. All the funds raised would be used to send cigarettes to American soldiers.
Over $15,000 was eventually raised, which was able to buy six million cigarettes (or 300,000 packs).
The contest winner, Irene Kuchta, got to model a bathing suit made of cigarettes.
Vidette-Messenger of Porter County - Sep 22, 1944
Windsor Star - Sep 9, 1944
The title was supposed to be bestowed on an employee of British Reinforced Concrete, but it was given to non-employee Nanette Keay by mistake:
"Just as the contest was starting some of the men pushed me into the line for a joke.
"They wouldn't let me leave and so I had to walk past the judges. I was absolutely astonished at winning."
Despite not being an official contestant, they let her keep the title.
Glasgow Daily Record - Apr 6, 1953
Advertising Age ran a photo of "Miss Electric Bedding" in its Nov 10, 1952 issue. But it didn't give her name.
Advertising Age - Nov 10, 1952
A month later, reports appeared in a number of newspapers stating that actress Viveca Lindfors had declined to be crowned "Miss Electric Bedding."
Daily Mirror - Dec 16, 1952
I'm not sure if that's Viveca Lindfors in the
Advertising Age photo, but it definitely could be. I'm leaning towards thinking it is. And if it is, it's confusing why it was reported that she declined to be Miss Electric Bedding. After all, there she is.
My best guess: the
Advertising Age photo shows her modeling as Miss Electric Bedding for the Chicago Electric Association. The later news report says she refused an offer from the New York Electric Assn. So she must have done the electric bedding modeling gig in Chicago, but then declined to do it elsewhere.
Viveca Lindfors - image source: wikipedia
In the summer of 1945, the Cleveland Health Museum put a statue of "Norma" on display. Norma was said to be the "norm or average American woman of 18 to 20 years of age." Accompanying her was a statue of Normman, her equally average brother. The two statues had been sculpted by Abram Belskie, based on data gathered by Dr. Robert L. Dickinson.
The statues were celebrated at the time but seem like oddities now because a) their idea of 'average' didn't include any minorities, and b) they seem to represent a mid-20th-century obsession with being average or normal.
As the saying goes, the real weirdos are those who think they're normal.
Natural History magazine - June 1945
More details from
The End of Average: How We Succeed in a World that Values Sameness by Todd Rose:
The Cleveland Plain Dealer announced on its front page a contest co-sponsored with the Cleveland Health Museum and in association with the Academy of Medicine of Cleveland, the School of Medicine and the Cleveland Board of Education. Winners of the contest would get $100, $50 and $25 war bonds, and 10 additional lucky women would get $10 worth of war stamps. The contest? To submit body dimensions that most closely matched the typical woman, "Norma," as represented by a statue on display at the Cleveland Health Museum. . .
In addition to displaying the sculpture, the Cleveland Health Museum began selling miniature reproductions of Norma, promoting her as the "Ideal Girl," launching a Norma craze. A notable physical anthropologist argued that Norma's physique was "a kind of perfection of bodily form," artists proclaimed her beauty an "excellent standard" and physical education instructors used her as a model for how young women should look, suggesting exercise based on a student's deviation from the ideal. A preacher even gave a sermon on her presumably normal religious beliefs. By the time the craze had peaked, Norma was featured in Time magazine, in newspaper cartoons, and on an episode of a CBS documentary series, This American Look, where her dimensions were read aloud so the audience could find out if they, too, had a normal body.
On Nov. 23, 1945, the Plain Dealer announced its winner, a slim brunette theatre cashier named Martha Skidmore. The newspaper reported that Skidmore liked to dance, swim and bowl — in other words, that her tastes were as pleasingly normal as her figure, which was held up as the paragon of the female form.
Martha Skidmore, "Norma" Contest Winner. Cleveland Plain Dealer - Sep 23, 1945