Basque Beauty Queen

I was reading not too long ago at a friend's blog that she had no clue Linda Carter, known to the world as "Wonder Woman", was in fact a Mexican American.

Well, how about a Basque Miss America?

There was one, back in the fifties, as this article titled "Miss America past its prime (time)" that appeared at The Clarion Ledger tells us:

Then, 1951's Miss America, Yolande Betbeze Fox, contacted the museum and offered not only her crown but also her scepter and Miss America sash.

Fox may have been the most unconventional Miss America ever. Born Yolande Betbeze in Mobile in 1930, she comes from Basque ancestry, and her dark, exotic looks were hardly typical of beauty contestants in the '50s. But her magnetism, and a well-trained operatic voice, focused the judges' attention.

Lets see, the most unconventional Miss America ever, yes indeed, sounds like a Basque character to me.

If we continue to read, we find out why:

Betbeze wore the fabled crown uneasily. In 1969, she recalled to the Washington Post that she had been too much of a nonconformist to do the bidding of the pageant's sponsors.

One of her first acts was to inform the Catalina bathing suit company that she would not appear in a swimsuit in public unless she were going swimming. Spurned, Catalina broke with the Miss America Pageant and started Miss Universe.

So there you go, one more thing to credit a Basque for, the Miss Universe pageant. My guess is that the male population out there should be grateful.

But that was not all of it, the article provides some more info about Yolande Betzebe:

When Betbeze's yearlong reign came to an end, she studied philosophy at New York's New School of Social Research. She continued to sing, appearing with the Mobile Opera Guild in The Tales of Hoffmann.

In 1954 she married Matthew Fox, a businessman and movie producer, and began mounting plays in an off-Broadway theater she helped found. Today, Fox, a widow, lives much of the year in a Washington, D.C., house once owned by Jackie Kennedy.

Luckily for the Smithsonian, says Shayt, she admits to being a "bit of a pack rat," so, though she eschewed the pomp (and circumstances) of her Miss America victory, she never relinquished her crown, now part of America's cultural heritage.

Is she related to Mexican President Vicente Fox?

Who knows.

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