I did things actors do when they’re starting out. You pass out literature at conventions, you do print ads, you pound the pavements, you send out your resumes. I had come to a model agency one cold day, and an agent came out and said: “I want you to enter a beauty contest.” I said: “No, uh-uh, never, never, never. I’ll lose, how humiliating.” She said: “I want some girls to represent the agency, might do you good.” So I filled out the application blank: hobbies, measurements, blah, blah, blah. I got a letter: “Congratulations. You have been accepted as an entrant into the Miss Illinois-Universe contest.” Now what do I do? I’m stuck.
You have to have a sponsor. Or you’re
gonna have to pay several hundred dollars. So I called up the lady who was
running it. Terribly sorry, I can’t do this. I don’t have the money. She calls
back a couple of days later: “We found you a sponsor, it’s a lumber company.”
It was in Decatur. There were sixty-some
contestants from all over the place. I went as a lumberjack: blue jeans, hiking
boots, a flannel shirt, a pair of suspenders, and carrying an axe. You come out
first in your costume and you introduce yourself and say your astrological sign
and carry from shoulder to waist a banner that has the sponsor’s name on it.
Then you come out and do your pirouettes in your one-piece bathing suit, and
the judges look at you a lot. Then you come out in your evening gown and
pirouette around for a while. That’s the first night.