Former Miss USA, Leona Gage, died over the weekend. She was 71. Until she died and the news stories started coming out, I have to admit I had never heard about the scandal that broke out after she won Miss USA.
She won the title in 1957 and the very next day was stripped of the title. It turns out she was 18 and not 21 as she had told the organizers. Further, she had already been married twice. Both of them occurring when she was 14. One was annulled which is why she was able to marry again so quickly. She also had a baby when she was 16.
She did use her fame from the incident to try and make a go at acting. She got off to a good start but soon after she started acting she got hooked on drugs, lost custody of her five kids and tried to kill herself multiple times. I am shocked she managed to live until the age of 71.
Damn! This is sad. I am hopeful that she had stability in her later years.
ReplyDeleteBack in 1957 this was a scandal. Now she would be rewarded with multi-million dollar contracts and reality shows.
ReplyDeleteAnyway what a sad life but like the poster above me stated I hope it ended better than it started.
everybody act like people back in the day behave better than people today...wrong they were just better at hiding.
ReplyDeleteI get sick and tired of people talking about how they miss the good ole' days...what good old day. They were slutting it up just like the next person.
Married at 14? Where was her mother?
ReplyDelete@sunnyside: married TWICE at 14.
ReplyDeleteI get sick and tired of people talking about how they miss the good ole' days...what good old day. They were slutting it up just like the next person.
ReplyDelete@ Vanessa - I agree. (Some) people were just as sleazy and shady back them. Families weren't all like The Cleavers, with mom serving breakfast in pearls.
I think in those days it was more discreet not like now.
ReplyDeleteI agree- there has aways been a trajectory of good and not-so-good in all of us throughout history, its only the time you live in that makes you either have to hide yourself or have the freedom to go outside the norms of society.
ReplyDeleteThe one thing I am so glad for nowadays is how we really encourage girls to be anything they want to be. I think being told you can only aspire to be a secretary or housewife fucked a lot of women up and perhaps was one of the reasons this poor woman married at 14 yrs old. That part was the saddest to me, and I am so glad that despite all the crap we still have to work through as a nation for womens rights we at least no longer condone girls marrying until after college or hopefully later. This is reflected in girls and boys nowadays getting married an average of 5 yrs later than the generation before (approx 25 or 26 for girls and 27 28 for boys)This allows for both sexes to mature idependently and thus find their own place in life, giving them much needed self confidence and esteem. Something I have no doubt this poor woman was lacking and carried through her whole life.
Sad
I went off on a slight tangent with this but I think I made my point :)
ReplyDeleteMy grandmother married my grandfather when she was 15 and he was 21, but that was in the 1930s. Today, he'd be thrown in jail, but times were different back then. But 14!! Crap! And it was the 1950s. By then, things should have changed.
ReplyDeleteThat's just sad. I hope she had some happiness towards the end of her life. I hope her children forgave her and spent time with her. Damn.
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