Yolande Margaret Betbeze Fox (November 28, 1928 – February 22, 2016) was an American singer and

beauty pageant A beauty pageant is a competition that has traditionally focused on judging and ranking the physical attributes of the contestants. Pageants have now evolved to include inner beauty, with criteria covering judging of personality, intelligence, ...

titleholder who was crowned Miss America 1951.

Early life

Betbeze was born on November 28, 1928 in

Mobile, Alabama Mobile ( , ) is a city and the county seat of Mobile County, Alabama, United States. The population within the city limits was 187,041 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, down from 195,111 at the 2010 United States census, 2010 cens ...

, to William, a butcher, and Ethel Betbeze. Betbeze was raised in a

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

family of French Basque descent, and she attended convent schools.

Career

She captured her first crown in 1949 when she won Mobile's "Miss Torch" pageant. In 1950, Fox (then Betbeze) entered

Miss Alabama The Miss Alabama competition is the pageant that selects the representative for the state of Alabama in the annual Miss America Competition. Alabama has won three Miss America titles: Deidre Downs in 2005, Heather Whitestone (the first deaf w ...

for the scholarship opportunities the pageant presented. As Miss Alabama, she traveled to Atlantic City, New Jersey, to compete in the Miss America 1951 pageant. Having been educated in a

convent school Catholic schools are pre-primary, primary and secondary educational institutions administered under the aegis or in association with the Catholic Church. , the Catholic Church operates the world's largest religious, non-governmental school syste ...

, she was reluctant to pose in a swimsuit and refused to do so after she won Miss America. That led the swimsuit company,

Catalina Catalina may refer to: Arts and media * ''The Catalina'', a 2012 American reality television show * ''Catalina'' (novel), a 1948 novel by W. Somerset Maugham * Catalina (''My Name Is Earl''), character from the NBC sitcom ''My Name Is Earl'' ...

, to withdraw their

sponsorship Sponsoring something (or someone) is the act of supporting an event, activity, person, or organization financially or through the provision of products or services. The individual or group that provides the support, similar to a benefactor, is k ...

of the Miss America pageant and eventually brought about the creation of the rival

Miss USA Miss USA is an American beauty pageant that has been held annually since 1952 to select the entrant from United States in the Miss Universe pageant. The Miss Universe Organization operated both pageants, as well as Miss Teen USA, until 2020, ...

pageant.

Miss America Yolande Betbeze aboard USS Monterey (CVL-26) in 1951

Fox's

Miss America Miss America is an annual competition that is open to women from the United States between the ages of 17 and 25. Originating in 1921 as a "bathing beauty revue", the contest is now judged on competitors' talent performances and interviews. As ...

title, although won in 1950, was for 1951 and is the first Miss America title to be "postdated" in this manner. Due to the change, there was no Miss America 1950. The Miss America Organization has claimed that Fox's (then Betbeze's) actions were pivotal in directing pageant progress towards recognizing intellect, values, and leadership abilities, rather than focusing on beauty alone. From then on, the

pageant concentrated more on scholarship than beauty. Fox was active in the

feminist movement The feminist movement (also known as the women's movement, or feminism) refers to a series of social movements and political campaigns for Radical politics, radical and Liberalism, liberal reforms on women's issues created by the inequality b ...

. After her one-year reign as Miss America, she was active in the

NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...

, CORE (

Congress of Racial Equality The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States that played a pivotal role for African Americans in the civil rights movement. Founded in 1942, its stated mission is "to bring about ...

), and SANE (The Committee for a SANE Nuclear Policy); and studied philosophy at the

New School for Social Research The New School for Social Research (NSSR) is a graduate-level educational institution that is one of the divisions of The New School in New York City, United States. The university was founded in 1919 as a home for progressive era thinkers. NSSR ...

in New York City. Fox was an

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...

singer and did gain a reputation in that area. She continued to sing, appearing with the Mobile Opera Guild (now the Mobile Opera), and helped found an off-Broadway theater. Newton D

Personal life

She married movie magnate Matthew Fox, the former president of

Universal Pictures Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...

, in 1954. They had one daughter, Yolande "Dolly" Fox Campbell. Her husband died after 10 years of marriage. After her husband's death, she moved to

Georgetown, Washington, D.C. Georgetown is a historic neighborhood, and commercial and entertainment district located in Northwest Washington, D.C., situated along the Potomac River. Founded in 1751 in the Province of Maryland, the port of Georgetown predated the establish ...

, purchasing the

Newton D. Baker House Newton D. Baker House, also known as Jacqueline Kennedy House, is a historic house at 3017 N Street NW in Washington, D.C. Built in 1794, it was home of Newton D. Baker, who was Secretary of War, during 1916–1920, while "he presided over Ame ...

from

Michael Whitney Straight Michael Whitney Straight (September 1, 1916 – January 4, 2004) was an American magazine publisher, novelist, patron of the arts, a member of the prominent Whitney family, and a confessed spy for the KGB. Early life Straight was born in New Yor ...

and his then wife

Nina Gore Auchincloss Nina Gore Auchincloss Straight (formerly Steers, born January 10, 1937) is an American author, journalist, and socialite. She is the mother of writer/director Burr Steers and artist Hugh Auchincloss Steers, half-sister of Gore Vidal, step-sister of ...

. The home had previously been the residence of Jacqueline Kennedy after the assassination of

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...

in 1963. Fox had a relationship with Cherif Guellal, with whom she raised her grandchild, Yolande Paris Campbell, until Guellal's death in 2009. In the early 1990s Yolande Fox was contacted by the writer

Philip Roth Philip Milton Roth (March 19, 1933 – May 22, 2018) was an American novelist and short story writer. Roth's fiction—often set in his birthplace of Newark, New Jersey—is known for its intensely autobiographical character, for philosophicall ...

, who was researching the Miss America beauty pageant for his novel '' American Pastoral''. Roth studied Fox's scrapbooks and interviewed her about the culture surrounding the pageant in the late 1940s; he later said, "She was very smart, very funny....She just opened up whole ideas for me that I couldn't have had on my own."Sykes, Christopher
"Researching Miss America,"
Web of Stories, Mar. 18 2013. Fox died on February 22, 2016 in Washington, D.C. of lung cancer. She was survived by her daughter and granddaughter.

References

External links

Yolande Betbeze's bio on the Miss America site

Miss Alabama official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fox, Yolande 1928 births 2016 deaths Miss America 1950s delegates Miss America Preliminary Swimsuit winners Miss America winners American opera singers American people of Basque descent Feminist musicians Musicians from Mobile, Alabama American anti–nuclear weapons activists American feminists Deaths from lung cancer Deaths from cancer in Washington, D.C. People from Georgetown (Washington, D.C.) Singers from Alabama