THE AMERICAS: Fire v. Ice

Where are the lissome, patrician blondes of yesteryear? From the piney suburbs of Oslo, the filing cabinets of Bremerhaven and the swimming pools of Stockholm they came. They brought their marimbas, their mothers and snug bathing suits, and they headed for the place where men waited with jeweled crowns, ermine robes, cameras and public-address systems—all to the glory of the cosmetics and bathing-suit industries. They were on their fair-haired way to glory as Miss Universe—or as starlets and models.

On the footlighted runways of Long Beach, Calif., where Miss Universes have breathlessly accepted contracts, crowns and convertibles since 1952, the Nordic types had things pretty much their own way for five years. Glacial Grace Kelly was setting a world standard of beauty, the winning faces were aloof, the busts visible but not too obvious, the legs long and slim. Last year things suddenly went dark. Fire, not ice, won going away; Miss Universe was dark-haired, liquid-eyed Gladys Zender, 18, of Peru; second place went to a warm-skinned Miss Brazil, and the fourth-place trophy went home to Havana with a raven-tressed Miss Cuba.

Last week the bold smolder won again; Miss Universe was Luz Marina Zuloaga, 19, of Manizales, Colombia, where the coffee comes from. And for the second year running a Miss Brazil came in second. Luz won $11,000 and a new car.

Amid the usual postvictory fuss (Miss Colombia has only been kissed once, said her mother, and that was a chaste peck for a publicity still with “that actor”(Hugh O’Brian, TV’s Wyatt Earp), those who had tentatively picked blondes tracked back to discover where things had gone wrong. A precrowning favorite was Miss U.S.A., Eurlyne Howell of Bossier City, La. Five feet six inches tall in her stocking feet, and even more statuesque in high heels, she was tailored to the Kelly pattern. Her shoulders were slim, her hair simply arranged, her 36-23½-35½ measurements politely de-emphasized. The expression on her composed, heart-shaped face seemed to say that she did not mind being seen in that bathing suit because she was above that sort of thing anyway.

Miss Colombia came in a peppier package. Officially measuring two inches shorter than Miss U.S.A. and looking even less than that, she made no attempt to disguise the fact that she measured 35½-23½-35½ and was proud of it. She was poised, but it was poise with a background warmth. “She has nothing but love in her heart for the man she will some day marry,” said her mother, and the inner fires certainly impressed the judges.