Alabama's First Miss America: Her Inspiring Story of Defiance and Staying True to Her Own Values

Her name was Yolande Betbeze. She was known by her friends and family as funny, smart, and beautiful. Most of all, she was a young woman who remained true to her own convictions. After she won the title of Miss America 1951, she refused to make public appearances wearing only a swimsuit. Her defiance and determination to be valued for more than just her physical beauty carved out a unique place in history for the Alabama native and changed the pageant world forever.

Yolande Betbeze, swimsuit competition photo, Miss America 1951Photo byAP Photo (archived by the Library of Congress)

Yolande Betbeze was from a middle-class family in Mobile Bay. Her mother was a homemaker, and her father was a well-known butcher who owned a local barbeque stand. Yolande was raised with a strict Catholic background and attended a local Catholic convent school. It was her conservative religious upbringing that instilled a set of values in Yolande—values that she never abandoned.

As a quiet and shy bookworm, Yolande Betbeze was an unlikely pageant winner. She was also of French Basque descent, with fiery dark eyes, an olive complexion, and raven-colored hair. In the age of the blonde bombshell, she didn't fit the image of the typical American Beauty Queen. In her own words, she was also a "late bloomer." She dated very little, rarely wore makeup, and had braces on her teeth until the very day she left Mobile to compete in the Miss America pageant.

Yolande Betbeze, Miss America 1951, newspaper clippingPhoto byTampa Bay Times, Sun. Nov. 16, 1969 (via Newspapers.com)

Yolande was a novice in the pageant world when she entered and won a small pageant in her hometown in 1949. Encouraged by a teacher and drawn to the prospect of winning scholarship money, Yolande saw opportunity in the pageant world. In a later interview, Yolande explained more about her modest Catholic upbringing. "I was not into pageants; nice young ladies in Mobile didn't do that." However, the Betbeze family was in a crisis concerning Yolande's tuition. Her father, the sole breadwinner for the family, passed away in 1949. Yolande entered the Miss Alabama Pageant in Birmingham in 1950, and to her surprise, she was crowned Miss Alabama. The twenty-one year old girl from Alabama was on her way to Atlantic City to compete for the title of Miss America.

During the Miss America competition, Yolande was hesitant to wear a swimsuit. Knowing that she would be disqualified if she refused, however, she bit the bullet, donned a very modest swimsuit, and turned on her southern charm. Once again, her goal was to obtain scholarship money and boost her career. Yolande wanted to be an opera singer and for the talent competition, she performed a classical aria. Ironically, she didn't win the talent competition, but she did win the bathing suit competition! She also dominated the competition overall to be crowned Miss America 1951. She was the first Miss America from Alabama.

Yolanda Betbeze of Alabama: Miss America 1951Photo byShared by George Carter (via findagrave)

The morning after Yolande was crowned Miss America, she met with sponsors and pageant executives. They laid out their expectations for her reign along with contracts for her commercial appearances. That was the moment Yolande showed her true southern grit. She politely refused to make public appearances in skimpy bathing suits as required by Catalina Swinsuits, a major sponsor of the pageant. Her decision was scandalous at the time, but Yolande stood by her principles. "I'm an opera singer, not a pin-up," she stated.

As a result, Catalina pulled their sponsorship from the Miss America Pageant and started the Miss USA and Miss Universe competitions. From that point forward, however, there was a difinitive shift in the pageant world toward recognizing the leadership qualities, goals, and intellect of the contestants rather than judging them for their looks alone. There was also a shift to focus more on scholarships for the contestants. The Miss Alabama who dared to tell powerful executives and sponsors, "no," changed the pageant world forever.

Yolande Betbeze aboard USS Monterey 1951Photo byUS Navy Public Domain (via wiki commons)

Although Yolande was inundated with offers from Hollywood, she remained on course with her original goals. She used her scholarship money to study voice and philosophy in New York City. She eventually toured with the Mobile Opera and later helped establish an off-Broadway Theatre. From her humble beginnings in Mobile that defined her modesty and values, her decision to abide by those values brought her more opportunity than she could have ever imagined.

Her defiance in the Miss America Pageant was not the only time that Yolande made waves and stayed true to her convictions. In fact, she earned quite a reputation as an activist throughout her life. In the 1960s, she joined picket lines in New York in support of the civil rights movement, she promoted peace without the use of nuclear weapons, and advocated for the all-white Miss America pagent to become open to all races. "How could we say it’s Miss America, if it’s not open to all Americans?" she told Roy Hoffman for his 2011 book: Alabama Afternoons: Profiles and Conversations.

After her reign as Miss America, Yolande married succesful movie mogul and millionaire, Matthew Fox, in 1954. They had one daughter and remained married until his untimely death in 1964. Yolande later moved to Washington DC and purchased the stately Newton D. Baker House, the former home of Jackie Kennedy Onasis. She was very well known in Washington DC but always kept a close relationship with family and friends in Mobile. She was known for her generosity and charity work throughout her life.

Yolande Betheze Fox passed away from lung cancer in early 2016. She will forever be remembered as the beautiful young lady from Alabama who stood her ground for the sake of her own principles. Prior to her death, Yolande donated her Miss America crown, sceptre, and sash to the Smithsonian Museum in 2006 who called her "the most unconventional Miss America ever."

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