Brains, Brains, Brains

Atlantic City, once a mecca for giggling cuties in Mack Sennett bathing suits, abandoned itself for five days last week to a ponderous appraisal of the female mind. The occasion: the annual Miss America contest. The prize: a $5,000 college scholarship offered on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. The winner: Miss New York City, a Hunter College graduate named Bess Myerson, who excels at the flute and pianoforte.

The proceedings were conducted in an atmosphere reminiscent of a Southern female academy, vintage 1845. Super-chaperones shooed off men, warned each of the 40 contestants not to drink, smoke or chew gum. Stiffly genteel throughout, the chaperones simply ignored a man with field glasses who peered from a nearby sundeck into the solarium of the Senator Hotel when the girls assembled there (fully clothed). At one point the young ladies were inducted into a "sorority" called Mu Alpha Sigma, which was invented by the contest directors solely for Miss America entrants. Its motto: Modesty, Ambition, Success.

Each night, the contestants were introduced to the public from the stage of a boardwalk theater. They made only a brief appearance in bathing suits. They wore evening gowns for the serious business --proving to the judges that they possessed "talent." Since many of them had confessed rather wildly to having no "talent" at all, the results were often novel. Some sang, some recited, some tap-danced, and one girl played Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life on the marimba. Hundreds of soldiers and wounded veterans who came to the theater to look at legs, came back, fascinated, night after night.

On the last night of this unique academic process Miss America of 1945 was crowned by Miss America of 1944, a typist named Venus Ramey, who seemed more the physical than the intellectual type. It was obvious that the winner had deserved her victory. She had been cool and ladylike throughout and had played Grieg's Piano Concerto in A Minor without a bobble. She also looked good in a bathing suit.

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