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Bess Myerson
Myerson in 1957
Born	July 16, 1924 The Bronx, New York, U.S.
Died	December 14, 2014 (aged 90) Santa Monica, California, U.S.
Nationality	United States
Alma mater	Hunter College
Occupation(s)	Model, city commissioner, TV show celebrity
Known for	Only Jewish American and first Miss New York elected Miss America
Height	5 ft 10 in (178 cm)
Title	Miss America 1945 Miss New York 1945
Spouse(s)	Allan Wayne Arnold M. Grant
Children	1

Bess Myerson (July 16, 1924 – December 14, 2014), was an American model, television actress, politician, and civil rights activist who was crowned Miss America in 1945.

At the time of her death, Myerson was the only Jewish Miss America. With World War II just ending and details regarding the atrocities committed against the Jewish people during the Holocaust finally being fully disclosed, Myerson winning the title was seen as a remarkable achievement. Myerson's winning the title of Miss America took on heightened significance in light of newly emerging information about the Holocaust. According to her obituary in the New York Daily News, Myerson's win made her "a hero to the Jewish community." Myerson biographer Susan Dworkin stated, "In the Jewish community, she was the most famous pretty girl since Queen Esther."

Seen frequently on television during the 1950s and 1960, Myerson was a regular on the celebrity quiz show I've Got a Secret. Upon starting a political career, she held the position of commissioner in the New York City government through two administrations and ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate from New York in 1980. During the late 1980s, she was tried in federal court on multiple charges, though she was later acquitted.

Early life

Myerson was born in the Bronx, New York. to parents Louis Myerson and Bella (née Podell), both Russian-Jewish immigrants. Myerson's father worked as a housepainter, handyman and carpenter. After Myerson's birth, the family moved from the South Bronx to the Shalom Aleichem Houses, a Yiddish housing cooperative completed in 1927. She had three siblings: a younger sister, Helen, an older sister, Sylvia, and a brother, Joseph, who died at three years of age before Myerson was born.

Myerson began studying piano when she was nine years old and was in the second class of New York's High School of Music and Art in 1937, graduating in 1941. She went on to Hunter College, graduating with honors in 1945 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in music. To support herself and her family while in college she gave piano lessons for fifty cents an hour, and worked as a music counselor at a girl's summer camp in Vermont.

Miss America

By the time she was 21, Myerson was 5 feet 10 inches (178 cm) tall with "luxuriant brown hair". Two accounts exist on how Myerson became a pageant contender. According to one, she wanted to buy a black Steinway grand piano and decided to compete for Miss America after someone joked that it would be a way to afford and buy the piano. According to the other, her sister entered her photo in the Miss New York City competition without her knowledge.

While competing as Miss New York in the 1945 Miss America pageant, she had been asked to use a pseudonym that "sounded less Jewish." Myerson refused and was subjected to substantial antisemitism. Controversy arose after she won the title on September 8, 1945 when three of the pageant's five sponsors withdrew from having her represent their companies as Miss America.

With the scholarship money Myerson won as Miss America she paid for graduate studies at Julliard and Columbia University.

At her death, the Religion News Service observed that at the time that she won the pageant, emaciated concentration camp survivors had only just shed their prison clothes. "Bess Myerson represented the resurrection of the Jewish body — the journey from degradation to beauty."

Activism, television, and politics

Myerson became an activist for civil rights, and spoke on behalf of the Anti-Defamation League in the period immediately after her winning the pageant. She was a vocal opponent of antisemitism and racism.

She began her television career as the "Lady in Mink" modeling the grand prize mink coat throughout the 1951 to 1959 network run of The Big Payoff game show. In 1954, Myerson was a panelist on the game show, The Name's the Same, and from 1958 through 1967, a panelist on I've Got a Secret. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Myerson's television career as a TV personality, actress and commercial pitchwoman for a number of products led to her becoming a consultant to several consumer products companies. From 1969 to 1973, she was the first Commissioner of the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs, becoming a pioneer in consumer protection law. She also served on several presidential commissions in the 1960s and 1970s. Throughout the late 1970s and the beginning of his mayoral ambitions, Myerson was a frequent public companion of then-Congressman Ed Koch and later chaired his campaign for New York City mayor.

In 1980, Myerson vied for Democratic nomination in New York's U.S. Senate race against Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, Queens District Attorney John J. Santucci, and former New York City mayor John Lindsay. Myerson lost to Holtzman by a slim margin. Holtzman was subsequently defeated by Alphonse D'Amato, who had defeated incumbent Senator Jacob Javits in the Republican primary.

The "Bess Mess"

After assuming a prominent role in the Koch administration in 1983 as Commissioner of the Department of Cultural Affairs, her career became overshadowed by scandal. She became romantically involved with a married sewer contractor, Carl Andrew Capasso. It soon emerged that the judge hearing Capasso's divorce, Hortense Gabel, had started socializing with Myerson, and that Gabel's daughter Sukreet was hired by Myerson. Gabel cut Capasso's child support payments, and investigators probed whether she had been bribed. Myerson was forced to resign her position in April 1987 after she invoked the Fifth Amendment. The scandal became known as the "Bess Mess".

In 1988, Myerson, Capasso, and Gabel were tried on federal charges of conspiracy, mail fraud, obstruction of justice, and using interstate facilities to violate state bribery laws. The main issue at the trial, in which Sukreet Gabel was the chief prosecution witness, was whether her hiring constituted bribery. All three defendants were acquitted after a four-month trial.

Personal life

In October 1946, Myerson married Allan Wayne, a recently discharged U.S. Navy captain. Together, they had one daughter, Barbara, in 1948. With their marriage marred by domestic violence, the couple divorced after eleven years. Myerson's second marriage was to Arnold Grant, an attorney; in 1962, he legally adopted her daughter. Myerson and Grant divorced in the early 1970s. Daughter Barbara later became an actress, director and screenwriter who is now known as Barra Grant.

In May 1988, before her federal trial began, Myerson was arrested for shoplifting in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. She pled guilty to retail theft and was ordered to pay a fine.

Myerson survived ovarian cancer in the 1970s and experienced a mild stroke in 1981, from which she made a full recovery. In 2013 she was reported to be suffering from dementia. Myerson died on December 14, 2014 in Santa Monica, California, at the age of 90. Her obituary states her final years were spent in "relative obscurity." Myerson's death was not announced immediately and was not publicly known until early January 2015.

Notes

1. Fermino, Jennifer (5 January 2015). "Ex-Miss America, New York City politician Bess Myerson dead at 90". The Daily News. Retrieved 7 January 2015.
2. ^ Nemy, Enid; McDonald, William (January 5, 2015), "Bess Myerson, New Yorker of Beauty, Wit, Service and Scandal, Dies at 90", The New York Times, retrieved 2015-01-07
3. ^ Green, David (2014-07-16). "This day in Jewish history/A Jewish Miss America who scandalized the press is born". Haaretz.
4. New York Historic Districts Council
5. Dworkin, 10-11
6. Adam Wisnieski (May 25, 2011). "Shalom Aleichem owner will fight to stay". The Riverdale Press. p. 2. Retrieved January 6, 2015.
7. Dworkin, pp. 10, 26
8. Dworkin, p. 41
9. ^ "Jewish Women's Archive: Bess Myerson". Jewish Women's Archive. Retrieved September 4, 2011.
10. Dworkin, pp. 1, 57
11. ^ Berman, Susan (14 November 1977). "Bess Myerson Is One Tough Customer". New York. Retrieved 5 January 2015.
12. ^ People & Events: Breaking the Color Line at the Pageant
13. Halper, Donna (2014). Invisible Stars: A Social History of Women in American Broadcasting 2d ed. M. E. Sharpe. pp. 132–133. ISBN 9780765636706.
14. Salkin, Jeffrey (6 January 2015). "Why Bess Myerson still matters". The Washington Post. Religion News Service. Retrieved 7 January 2015.
15. "Bess Myerson, First Jewish Miss America, Dies at 90". Voice of America. 5 January 2015. Retrieved 7 January 2015.
16. Lepson, Lisa. "Bess Myerson". Encyclopedia. Jewish Women's Archive. Retrieved 7 January 2015.
17. Murphy, William (5 January 2015). "Bess Myerson, first Jewish Miss America, television star and NYC's first consumer affairs commissioner, dies at 90". Newsday. Retrieved 6 January 2015.
18. "Miss America Wins Again". Time Magazine. January 2, 1989. Retrieved November 26, 2010.
19. ^ Woo, Elaine (5 January 2015). "Bess Myerson, Miss America who rose in politics and fell in scandal, dies at 90". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 6 January 2015.
20. "Milestones, October 28, 1946". Time. October 28, 1946. Retrieved September 4, 2011.
21. "Bess Myerson Is Accused Of Shoplifting". New York Times. May 28, 1988. Retrieved January 14, 2011.
22. "Myerson Pleads Guilty to Shoplifting Charge in Pennsylvania". New York Times. July 16, 1988. Retrieved April 23, 2014.
23. Soloff, Emily D. (6 October 1995). "Bess Myerson reflects on fame, Miss America and Judaism". JWeekly.com. Retrieved 5 January 2015.
24. Green, Michelle (29 June 1987). "Downfall of An American Idol: How Did Miss America Bess Myerson, Famous for Her Beauty and Brains, Get Entangled in a Growing Political Scandal?". People. Retrieved 5 January 2015.
25. Dillon, Nancy (2 February 2013). "Ed Koch's pal, former Miss America Bess Myerson, was a constant at his side". The Daily News. Retrieved 5 January 2015.

References

• Dworkin, Susan (2000). Miss America, 1945 : Bess Myerson and the year that changed our lives (1st pbk. ed.). New York: Newmarket Press. ISBN 1557043817.

Further reading

• Alexander, Shana (1990). When She Was Bad: The Story of Bess, Hortense, Sukhreet & Nancy. New York: Random House. ISBN 0394576063.
• Preston, Jennifer (1990). Queen Bess : the unauthorized biography of Bess Myerson. Chicago: Contemporary Books. ISBN 0809245302.
• Shindle, Kate (2014). Being Miss America: Behind the Rhinestone Curtain. Austin: Univ Of Texas Press. ISBN 0292739214.

External links

• Bess Myerson at IMDb

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