Miss America Resigns
On this day in 1984, 21-year-old Vanessa
Williams gives up her Miss America title, the first resignation in the
pageant’s history, after Penthouse magazine announces plans to publish
nude photos of the beauty queen in its September issue. Williams originally
made history on September 17, 1983, when she became the first black woman to
win the Miss America crown. Miss New Jersey, Suzette Charles, the first
runner-up and also an African American, assumed Williams’ tiara for the two
months that remained of her reign.
Vanessa Lynn Williams was born March 18, 1963,
in Millwood, New York, to music teacher parents. She attended Syracuse
University and studied musical theater. In 1982, while working a summer job as
a receptionist at a modeling agency in Mt. Kisco, New York, photographer Thomas
Chiapel took the nude pictures of Williams, telling her they’d be shot in
silhouette and that she wouldn’t be recognizable. After Williams became Miss
America, the photographer sold the pictures to Penthouse without her
knowledge. Williams later dropped lawsuits against the magazine and
photographer after it was learned that she had signed a model release form at
the time the photos were taken.
The Miss America pageant, which prides itself
on projecting a wholesome, positive image of women, began in 1921 in Atlantic
City, New Jersey, as a stunt developed by local businessmen to extend the
summer tourist season. In 1945, the Miss America Organization handed out its
first scholarship. Today, it provides over $45 million each year in cash and
tuition assistance to contestants on the national, state and local levels. In
1954, the competition was broadcast live for the first time. Beginning in the
1980s, contestants were required to have a social platform, such as
drunk-driving preventionor AIDS awareness, and Miss America winners now travel
an estimated 20,000 miles a month for speaking engagements and public
appearances. In 2006, following a decline in TV ratings, the pageant moved from
Atlantic City for the first time in its history and took place in Las Vegas,
where a new Miss America was crowned in January instead of September.
Vanessa Williams rebounded from the Miss
America scandal and went on to a successful entertainment career as an actress
and recording artist, performing on Broadway as well as in movies and
television and releasing a number of popular albums.