MISS WORLD MASTER CLASS

The Mysteries of the World Revealed

Part One

Presented by Donald West,
Chair of the Department of Miss Word Studies

In the picture above, we see the Lyceum Ballroom as set up for the Miss World 1962 contest. On stage for the evening gown competition are all 33 delegates. The eventual winner, Holland's Catharina Lodders, is at the bottom of the group of 7 delegates on the left side at the back of the stage, nearest the male announcer in the tuxedo.

INTRODUCTION

A few weeks before the U.S. presidential election, Beauty School held its own mock election. The results were an eerie foreshadowing of what happened in Florida on November 7: Republican George W. Bush polled 48.9% of the vote and Democrat Al Gore polled 48.9% of the vote. However, in our mock election, third-party candidate Ralph Nader received no votes. Instead, write-in candidate Irene Saez received 3% of the vote. In order to break the tie, Beauty School called on Eric Morley to implement his majority vote system and determine the winner of our mock election, the identity of whom we are not at liberty to divulge at this time.

We also called on the Chair of Beauty School's Miss World Studies Department, Dr. Donald West, to give us all a lecture on the majority vote system. In the following paragraphs, Dr. West answers these difficult questions and more:

1) How the heck did Miss World begin?

2) Why does Morley use the silly Majority Vote System?

3) How on earth does the Majority Vote System work anyway?

4) 4 points may get a girl into the semi-finals? Hey, how's that??

5) Morley's Commonwealth favouritism ... true or false?

ORIGIN OF THE MISS WORLD PAGEANT

Britain spent six years recovering from World War II. The nationalization of many industries by the post-war government complicated the rebuilding of its economy. Britain also experienced problems with a few colonies - the partition of India, Jewish immigration into Palestine, and a dispute with Egypt over the Suez Canal. In the summer of 1951, the government staged the Festival of Britain as a statement to the world that Britain was once again a strong nation. An enormous exhibition hall was constructed in London to display the latest British industrial products and technological discoveries, as well as a festival hall to display the arts, and a large amusement park was constructed three miles away. Millions of visitors from home and overseas came to view the sciences and enjoy the arts.

A British movie magnate sponsored a Miss Festival of Britain contest to find the “typical British girl.” More than 3,000 young women participated in preliminaries throughout Britain. The winner was fresh-faced Judy Breen, the 20-year-old daughter of an Irish passport official living in London. Among her prizes was a trip around the world to promote the Festival.

Mecca Ltd., a leisure company that operated dance halls, restaurants and places of amusement all over Britain, ran the Lyceum Ballroom in London. Festival organizers asked Mecca if it might be able to come up with an idea to promote the Festival. That task was given to Mecca’s Publicity Relations director, Eric Morley, who after some thought suggested an international beauty contest. As there was not such an event at that time, the Festival organizers readily accepted this idea. The winner of the Festival Beauty Contest would be awarded a £1,000 first prize by Mecca’s trade newspaper. Morley decided to have the contestants judged in bikinis, a recent creation that was a sensation wherever it was worn. He wanted the pageant to reflect the modern times, attract the media and appeal to both the young and old.

Morley had experience organizing local beauty contests in Britain, but the task of arranging an international event and finding contestants from around the world was much more difficult. Many countries did not have national beauty contests during these times, nor had even heard of them. Morley spent hours by telephone or letters attempting to find overseas sponsors. When he located people with experience or involvement with beauty contests, most were usually unable to co-operate due to insufficient time or for some other reason.

Claude Berr, head of the Comite International Pour L’Election de Miss Europe which had been established in 1948, was very helpful. He sent as many national beauty queens as he could gather from the European continent. Despite all the effort, Morley ended up with only five foreign contestants - believed to be from Denmark, France, Holland, Sweden and USA - so he recruited 21 British beauty queens to increase the number. The Festival Beauty Contest generated enormous publicity in the world press and it was not long before news reporters referred to it as Miss World. Eric Morley liked the title enough to trademark it, after first checking to ensure that it did not exist anywhere in the world.

Berr was concerned because he had already envisaged an international beauty pageant, having in 1950 promoted his idea to the management of the Hollywood Bowl in California. The Americans were interested enough to begin arrangements to hold the event in the following year, switching the venue to Long Beach where better facilities existed. They lined up many sponsors, among them Catalina Swimsuits who had recently quit sponsorship of the Miss America pageant. This pageant would be called Miss Universe.

The Miss World contest with its publicity and timing unintentionally stole attention away from Miss Universe, causing it to be delayed by a year to 1952. After all his hard work, Morley was unwilling to let the Americans claim that they were first with a world beauty contest. Encouraged by positive reaction in letters of praise from countries in the British Commonwealth, Europe and America, he decided to run Miss World as an annual event.

The scoring system at the first Miss World pageant was very simple. The judges scored 50% for figure, 20% for facial beauty, 20% for poise and 10% for audience acclaim. The winner, Sweden’s Kiki Haakanson (left), who not only sparkled with personality but also looked great in a bikini, was a very popular choice.

MISS EUROPE PAGEANT AND THE POINTS VOTE SYSTEM

In 1952, Judy Breen represented England in the Miss Europe contest in Naples, Italy. Morley, who wanted to observe how that contest was run, accompanied her. He found out that the scoring system was run on a points system, with the country of each competitor having one vote. The sponsor from each country was given a card with a list of names, with a blank space beside each, in which to enter scores. If there were twelve competitors, marks from 1 (twelfth place) to 12 (first place) were used, and the competitor with the highest total of marks would be placed first, the woman with the next number placed second and so on.

The chaperon of Miss Ireland complained to Morley that sponsors from a few countries had offered to give her delegate a vote if she voted for their girls. Morley observed the lobbying carried out by some of them, especially those of Miss Turkey - the eventual winner - in an effort to get their girls highly placed. The points system set up a situation where several judges would get together and influence the final result, by marking low the contestant from a rival country and voting for several contestants who obviously had no chance of winning. This would give their girls a better chance in a less strong group of finalists.

Suppose there was the following points vote results among three of the seven finalists in a contest being decided by nine judges:

Contestant #1 is obviously the clear choice of 6 of the 9 judges - a two-thirds majority. However, two judges scheme to have Contestant #2 win, so they award her 10 points each and give #1 their lowest mark - 4 points. Thus Contestant #2, whom six judges did not select for first or second place, wins with 76 points, and Contestant #3, who has only one first-place vote, becomes runner-up with 75 points. The girl whom two thirds of the judges have selected as the winner ends up in third place, with 74 points. Lacking anything better, but determined to find an alternative, Eric used the points system in the second Miss World pageant in 1952. Fortunately the winner, another outstandingly beautiful Swede named May-Louise Flodin (left), proved to be a worthy Miss World titleholder.

In 1953, Eric Morley accompanied Miss England, Marlene Dee, to the Miss Europe contest in Istanbul, Turkey. He discovered to his dismay that some of the sponsors again plotted with the judges to try and get their contestants placed highly. For the first and only time in his life, Eric had to do some quick back-stage lobbying to ensure that beautiful Marlene was among the finalists. He arranged to vote for the girls with little chance of winning if their backers voted for Miss England. His efforts resulted in her eventually placing second, only one point behind the winner, Italy's Eloise Cianni. His experience increased his dissatisfaction with the abuses of the points system.

For the Miss World contest of 1953, Morley decided to try the Majority Vote System, used in ballroom dancing and ice-skating competitions. This system ensured that the wishes of the majority prevailed, and the dishonest judges could not manipulate the winner. To prevent a tie, this system is used with an uneven number of judges so that there is always a casting vote.

Lobbying for Marlene Dee at the 1953 Miss Europe Pageant