Miss America 1984

Miss America 1984
Date	September 17, 1983
Presenters	Gary Collins
Venue	Boardwalk Hall, Atlantic City, New Jersey
Broadcaster	NBC
Winner	Vanessa Williams (resigned) Suzette Charles New York New Jersey

Miss America 1984, the 59th Miss America, pageant, was from on the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey on September 17, 1983 on NBC Network.

Results

Placements

	Contestant
Miss America 1984 - A	Vanessa Williams (Miss New York) (resigned)
Miss America 1984 - B	Suzette Charles (Miss New Jersey)
2nd runner-up	Pam Battles (Miss Alabama)
3rd runner-up	Wanda Geddie (Miss Mississippi)
4th runner-up	Pamela Rigas (Miss Ohio)
Top 10	Kim Boyce (Miss Florida) Lynn Thompson (Miss Kentucky) Barbara Webster (Miss Missouri) Kristin Lowenberg (Miss Nebraska) Dana Rogers (Miss Texas)

Preliminary Awards

	Contestant
Preliminary Swimsuit	Wanda Geddie (Miss Mississippi) Vanessa Williams (Miss New York) Pamela Rigas (Miss Ohio)
Preliminary Talent	Barbara Webster (Miss Missouri) Suzette Charles (Miss New Jersey) Vanessa Williams (Miss New York)

Controversy

The crowing of Williams made her the first-ever African American Miss America. For the first time in pageant history, a reigning Miss America was the target of death threats and angry racist hate mail.^[1]

Ten months into her reign as Miss America, she received an anonymous phone call stating that nude photos of her taken by a photographer prior to her pageant days had surfaced. Williams believed the photographs were private and had been destroyed; she claims she never signed a release permitting the photos to be used.^[2]

The photos dated back to 1982, when she worked as an assistant and makeup artist for Mount Kisco, N.Y. photographer Tom Chiapel. According to Williams, Chiapel advised her that he wanted to try a "new concept of silhouettes with two models." He photographed Williams and another woman in several nude poses. The photographs depicted mild overtones of simulated lesbian sex, which was quite controversial for its time.^[3]

Bob Guccione, the publisher of Penthouse, announced that his magazine would publish the photos in their September 1984 issue, and paid Chiapel for the rights to them without Williams' consent. After days of media frenzy and sponsors threatening to pull out of the upcoming 1985 pageant, Williams felt pressured by Miss America Pageant officials to resign, and did so in a press conference on July 23, 1984. The title subsequently went to first-runner up Suzette Charles, who is also African-American. In early September 1984, Vanessa filed an unheralded $500 million lawsuit against Chiapel and Guccione. According to a Williams family representative, she eventually dropped the suit to avoid further legal battles choosing to move on with her life. Vanessa is quoted as saying "the best revenge is success."

Although she resigned from fulfilling the duties of a current Miss America, she was allowed to keep the bejeweled crown and scholarship money and is officially recognized by the Miss America Organization today as "Miss America 1984 - A" and Suzette Charles as "Miss America 1984 - B."^[4]

External links

• Miss America official website

References

1. ^ pbs.org
2. ^ time.com
3. ^ Tom Chiapel (September, 1984). "Here she comes, Miss America". Pictorial (Penthouse): pp. 66–75. ISSN 0090-2020. 
4. ^ "1980's - Decade in Review". Miss America Organization. http://www.missamerica.org/our-miss-americas/1980/review.aspx. Retrieved July 26, 2010.