MISS AMERICA WILL RETURN TO VEGAS NEXT YEAR—WITH EXPANDED REALITY SHOW
From my reporter’s notebook:
*Planet Hollywood is not only in negotiations with the Miss America Organization for a multi-year annual stay on the Vegas strip, but the new TV affiliation with TLC will expand next year to a 10-hour reality series. This year’s four one-hour shows were such a ratings success that TLC has already pacted for the expanded schedule next year!
Sam Haskell, head honcho of Miss America said, “We’re going through a lot of change—our very first pageant was the same year when women got to vote. Now it’s become a great dream machine for girls between 17 and 24 who want to be anything they dream of becoming. The belief in what we do helps us raise millions of dollars each year for scholarships. We are bringing it back to national notoriety. We know a dull sheen got on the crown, but we’re making it sparkle again. It took us a lot of guts to leave Atlantic City for Vegas. I know that change can cause angst and frustration, but it can also bring a lot of comfort. Whatever happens though our philanthropy will always remain the most important facet.”
*For the second straight day, newly crowned Kirsten Haglund is in New York City making TV appearances.
After also appearing on Inside Edition last night, today Kirsten is on FOX & Friends with my friend, show host Gretchen Carlson, who is a former Miss America herself. Joining them are former Miss Americas Debbye Turner, Susan Powell and Kate Shindell. Then follow the raw and unscripted online streaming video of what goes on with them all in the “After the Show” feed ( http://foxnews.com.foxfriends.index.html ) with its eye-opening candid revelations. Kirsten returns later to Happy Hour on FOX’s new Business Channel.
*Former Miss America and network TV host, Phyllis George revealed that a new line of jewelry featuring the famed title-crown has been designed by Ann Hand. It includes rings, two different necklaces, bracelets, a watch and men’s cufflinks. Phyllis presented Vegas hostess Lynn Weidner, Miss America board member, with one of the compact-mirrors when they held a luncheon for former Miss Americas at our Neiman Marcus Mariposa restaurant in the Fashion Show Mall.
Phyllis, who will be back in Vegas for the Feb. 9 Power of Love gala dinner for our Lou Ruvo Brain Institute Alzheimers fundraiser, told me she’s writing a book and making a documentary movie about care-giving for Alzheimer patients as a result of her mother’s own devastating death from the disease.
*While at the luncheon, CEO Sam Haskell revealed he’s writing his biography of his years helming Miss America for Random House next year—and that official Miss America traveling companion, Bonnie Sirgany, who is retiring after 18-years, is also writing one. Five Miss America winners from Oklahoma—known as the Fab Five, including 2007 winner Lauren Nelson—presented Bonnie with a bracelet containing a different charm from each of the beauty-queens!
Bonnie told me she will actually retire April 1, but will spend the next two months on tour with Kirsten and training the new replacement traveling companion. She revealed that during her years on the road she’d slept in everything from a cardboard box—with Miss America Kim Aiken to protest homelessness—to a $15,000 penthouse suite, and went from a needle exchange program for Baltimore drug addicts to lunch at the White House.
*My 20+-year-friend, Entertainment Tonight show host, Mary “million-dollar legs” Hart sat beside me at the luncheon. “I’m learning more about Vegas every time I come here,” she said. Mary, who was Miss South Dakota in 1971, eventually lost to Phyllis George—“but we’ve been best friends ever since!”
She revealed that her ET co-host Mark Steines, who was hosting Miss America this year, had met his wife, ET reporter Leanza Cornett who won Miss America in 1993. They’ve been married 12 years! Mary also told me that when she entered her first beauty contest she was just 18 and her dad said he’d “paddle my backside for doing it.” “It was sheer defiance on my part, but an opportunity of a lifetime to go to the Miss America pageant. To this day my dad still reminds me I defied him, but he’s forgiven me and is now very proud of all my success.”
*Also at the luncheon, former Miss Americas revealed their up-to-date happenings.
Ericka Dunlop said she’s now been married 11 months and is joining the ranks of country music singers in Nashville. Katie Harmon said she’s running a productive five-acre farm in Oregon. Lee Meriweather said she’s still acting and her film Ultimate Gift with James Garner was just released on DVD, Heather French said she’d retired from work to run a foundation for military veterans and will be showcasing it at the next Vegas 2009 Pageant. The most recent was 2006 winner, Miss Oklahoma Jennifer Berry, who said she has now been married nine months, started her own promotional marketing company and was already the national spokesperson for ProActive’s TV infomercials.
*At the Evening of Dreams gala I emceed as a fund-raiser for Miss America scholarships and the Children’s’ Miracle Network, I pulled a surprise on the three pop-operatic members of the Destino group. The young tenors—Leon Leontaridis, Joey Niceforo and Paul Oulette—who have sung for the Pope and at Carnegie Hall, won standing applause. Then I asked them to spontaneously switch gears. First I thought about Elvis, but decided to challenge them to sing Frank Sinatra’s “Fly me to the Moon” and I invited all 52 contestants to sit beneath them on the final night before the nerve-wracking contest.
*Miss Utah Jill Stevens was the oldest contestant—and as a seven-year-member of the Utah National Guard she served for 12 months as a combat medic at the infamous Bagram military base in Iraq. Jill is a nurse and so wound-up in surgery caring for injured soldiers. She stunned viewers with her 20-impromptu push-ups on stage during the Pageant, but that shouldn’t be a surprise because not only has she competed in 12 marathons, she won the women’s division of the first Afghanistan Marathon after our troops overturned the Taliban.
I was disappointed that our hometown hero, Miss Nevada Caleche Manos didn’t make it further into the finalists, but she’s got all those qualities of a big future winner in the beauty pageant business.
However, she did win the highly prestigious Quality of Life award and a $6,000 scholarship for her work for MADD by the Miss America Organization. She was only 17 when her 19-year-old brother, Calen Manos was killed in a tragic drunk driving accident. I chatted exclusively with her after she received her trophy.
“When I heard I was getting the award I felt overwhelmed with emotion. All my hard work that I have been doing was recognized. It was my tribute to my brother and it’s a double-edged sword. You win an award but simultaneously it makes his death very real—it brings it to the forefront and at the same time it is healing and empowering. The award helps ease the pain of his loss. Speaking about my brother is part of my healing process and winning this award at Miss America is greater than winning the title to me. It took me three-years before I reached the point where I could speak publicly about the harsh reality of it without breaking down from its pain and loss. We are up there for just 12 minutes on stage, but this is something that I have been dedicating my heart to and pouring my heat and soul into for the last five-years. It was just the two of us. We lost him in 2002, but we were very tight. He was 19 and I was 17. He is with me throughout this process and the only hard part is not having him in the audience. I feel him with me, I felt him with me in the interviews and on stage. I couldn’t be more proud, but there is never a day that goes by without me thinking about the tragedy. When something like this happens to you, it becomes you. When it is your sibling, or, for my mom’s sake, your son, there is something that reminds me of him every single day and I think I always will, but in its special way that is also comforting to me.”