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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 (Barra Grant)

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. Myerson won the Miss America beauty pageant at a time when World War II had just ended. Myerson's winning the title of Miss America took on heightened significance in light of newly emerging information about the Holocaust. In her obituary from The New York Times, it was noted that she was seen as "a hero to the Jewish community." Myerson biographer Susan Dworkin said that "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. Tried in federal court during the 1980s on bribery and other charges, Myerson, along with two other defendants, was 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 Yiddish Cooperative Heimgesellschaft (today known as the Shalom Aleichem Houses), a housing cooperative completed in 1927. She had three siblings: a younger sister, Helen, an older sister, Sylvia, and a brother, Joseph, who died at the age of three before Myerson was born.

Her upbringing emphasized the importance of scholarship not physical beauty. In addition to tradesmen, her neighbors included poets, writers, and artists. Myerson reached her adult height when she was 12, towered over other children, and has said she felt "awkward and gawky" during her preadolescence. Myerson recalled one of her worst childhood memories was playing the Popeye character, Olive Oyl, in an elementary school play.

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 and activism

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. One is that 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. Another is that that, her sister entered her photo in the Miss New York City competition without her knowledge. Her Los Angeles Times obituary relates both accounts.

As Miss New York in the 1945 Miss America pageant, Myerson competed in the talent portion of the contest by performing the music of Edvard Grieg and George Gershwin. Prior to the competition she was pressured to use a pseudonym that "sounded less Jewish." Myerson refused and was ultimately subjected to substantial antisemitism. After she won the title on September 8, 1945, three of the pageant's five sponsors withdrew from having her represent their companies as Miss America.

With the pageant scholarship money, she paid for graduate studies at Juilliard and Columbia University. An aspiring pianist, she briefly gave recitals on the vaudeville circuit, before realizing audiences were more interested in seeing her in a bathing suit. She also played with the New York Philharmonic and appeared at Carnegie Hall.

While on her year-long tour as Miss America, Myerson encountered "No Jews" signs posted in places such as hotels and country clubs. Such experiences led her to conduct lectures on behalf of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) entitled "You Can't Be Beautiful and Hate". Myerson became a vocal opponent of antisemitism and racism and her speaking tour became the highlight of her Miss America reign. As a result of hearing her speak at an ADL function, television producer Walt Framer eventually offered Myerson a job on the 1950s game show, The Big Payoff.

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."

Television and politics

Myerson began her television career as the "Lady in Mink" modeling the grand prize mink coat, and introducing guests and prizes, throughout the 1951 to 1959 network run of The Big Payoff. Recognized for her wit and hard work, as well as her beauty, 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. She regularly substituted for Dave Garroway on the Today Show.

Myerson's television career as a TV personality, actress and commercial pitchwoman for a number of products throughout the 1950s and 1960s led to her becoming a consultant to several consumer products companies. From 1969 to 1973, she was appointed by Mayor John V. Lindsay to become 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 on violence, mental health, workplace issues, and hunger 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 successful 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 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 Hortense Gabel (the judge involved in Capasso's divorce case) had started socializing with Myerson. Judge Gabel's daughter (Sukreet) was also hired by Myerson. After Gabel cut Capasso's child support payments, investigations began as to whether or not she had been bribed. In April 1987, after she invoked the Fifth Amendment, Myerson was forced to resign her position with the Koch administration. The scandal became known as the "Bess Mess".

Indicted a year later by the office of then-U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani, 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. With Sukreet as the prosecution's chief witness, the main issue at the U.S. District Court trial was whether Myerson's decision to hire Sukreet constituted bribery. After four months of trial proceedings, all three defendants were acquitted.

Personal life

In October 1946, Myerson married Allan Wayne, a recently discharged U.S. Navy captain. 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 attorney Arnold Grant, and in 1962, he legally adopted her daughter. The couple 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.

References

1. ^ 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
2. Fermino, Jennifer (5 January 2015). "Ex-Miss America, New York City politician Bess Myerson dead at 90". The Daily News. Retrieved 7 January 2015.
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. 36
9. ^ 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.
10. Dworkin, p. 41
11. ^ "Jewish Women's Archive: Bess Myerson". Jewish Women's Archive. Retrieved September 4, 2011.
12. Dworkin, pp. 1, 57
13. ^ Berman, Susan (14 November 1977). "Bess Myerson Is One Tough Customer". New York. Retrieved 5 January 2015.
14. ^ People & Events: Breaking the Color Line at the Pageant
15. Halper, Donna (2014). Invisible Stars: A Social History of Women in American Broadcasting 2d ed. M. E. Sharpe. pp. 132–133. ISBN 9780765636706.
16. Kevin Eckstrom, Religion News Service (6 January 2015). "Bess Myerson on being the first (and only) Jewish Miss America". Washington Post. Retrieved January 7, 2015.
17. McCallister, Doreen (6 January 2015). "From Miss America To Tabloid Fodder: Bess Myerson Dies At 90". NPR.com. National Public Radio. Retrieved 7 January 2015.
18. "Bess Myerson, First Jewish Miss America, Dies at 90". Voice of America. 5 January 2015. Retrieved 7 January 2015.
19. Salkin, Jeffrey (6 January 2015). "Why Bess Myerson still matters". The Washington Post. Religion News Service. Retrieved 7 January 2015.
20. Lepson, Lisa. "Bess Myerson". Encyclopedia. Jewish Women's Archive. Retrieved 7 January 2015.
21. 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.
22. "Miss America Wins Again". Time Magazine. January 2, 1989. Retrieved November 26, 2010.
23. "Milestones, October 28, 1946". Time. October 28, 1946. Retrieved September 4, 2011.
24. "Bess Myerson Is Accused Of Shoplifting". New York Times. May 28, 1988. Retrieved January 14, 2011.
25. "Myerson Pleads Guilty to Shoplifting Charge in Pennsylvania". New York Times. July 16, 1988. Retrieved April 23, 2014.
26. Soloff, Emily D. (6 October 1995). "Bess Myerson reflects on fame, Miss America and Judaism". JWeekly.com. Retrieved 5 January 2015.
27. 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.
28. 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.

Further reading

• Alexander, Shana (1990). When She Was Bad: The Story of Bess, Hortense, Sukhreet & Nancy. New York: Random House. ISBN 0394576063.
• Dworkin, Susan (2000). Miss America, 1945 : Bess Myerson and the year that changed our lives (1st pbk. ed.). New York: Newmarket Press. ISBN 1557043817.
• Morrisroe, Patricia (30 March 1987). "Bess and the Mess" (PDF). New York magazine.
• 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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