Texas Monthly Talks

Phyllis George

Interview by Evan Smith

March 2007

(Page 2 of 2)

Not bad in terms of appealing to today’s generation.
[Watching the pageant] is not something my daughter, who’s 23, wants to do. It isn’t really a big deal. She grew up around it. We had Miss America parties when she was a little girl—everybody would pick their ten [finalists]. Or I’d pick the Miss America out of the group—they’d do a talent competition for me—and I’d put the crown on the winner’s head. I’m talking when she was, like, seven and eight.

If she had wanted to be a pageant contestant, would you have encouraged her?
I would not have encouraged or discouraged her, but that’s not the direction she wanted to go in her life. Pamela graduated from UNC—Chapel Hill as a broadcast journalism major and is now working for the ABC affiliate in Washington, D.C., as a reporter on the air every night. What a wonderful opportunity—and she got it on her own. The options that young women have today are tremendous. I didn’t have so many options back then.

Whose idea was it that you compete to be Miss America?
It’s funny to say this, but I was a popular girl in Denton. I was Miss Denton High School and a cheerleader and the president of the junior class and in all the plays and a pianist; I played classical music for fourteen years. So the chamber of commerce came to me and asked me to enter the Miss Texas pageant. I went through a period of thinking I would never do it, but I said okay. I was very proud to represent my hometown, but the first time I entered, I lost. I came in second to a drummer from Longview named Dana Dowell.

Miss Longview beat Miss Denton!
I think the newspaper already had me as “Miss Denton, our new Miss Texas,” and then it was announced that she had won. It hurt my pride, and I said, “You know what? I don’t want to do this again.” The next year I was asked by the Miss Dallas people to enter, and I told them no, I wasn’t interested. But they kept calling and calling to the point of almost bugging me: “Come on, why don’t you enter Miss Dallas?” Anyway, late one Friday night, I was taking my dirty laundry home to Mother, who was out playing bridge. My dad was sound asleep on the couch. And the phone was ringing off the wall—we didn’t have answering machines back then. I ran over and answered it, and I was like, “Hello?” I thought, “Who’s calling at midnight?” Sure enough, it was an official from the Miss Dallas pageant, who said, “I’m just going to give you this one last chance, Phyllis. You were so close last year that we really think you could win this year.” The preliminaries were the next morning! But the scholarship money was important enough to me and my family that he flat talked me into it.

Amazing.
I called Mother and said, “Where is my gown from last year? Where is my swimsuit? I guess I have to play the same song.” And she said, “What?!” You know, she was never a stage mother, and she just didn’t understand these things. But I did it, and I won Miss Dallas. And you know what? Had I won the year before, I wouldn’t have won Miss America. I just wasn’t ready.

You think so?
I needed the loss. I needed to lose to win. Like they say, “If you lose, don’t lose the lessons,” and I learned a lot. I came back and went on to be the fiftieth Miss America—the first one with a gold crown. That was pretty exciting.

It’s an inspirational story. I wonder if enough girls today can identify with it to the point of competing, as you did.
That’s a problem. When I entered there were 70,000 young women who competed in the local contests across the country. Now there are 12,000 to 15,000. We’ve got to make it more appetizing. We’ve got to make it more interesting. We’ve got to get big scholarship money. It’s up to the board to help turn this around.

Is the classic “beauty pageants aren’t for feminists” argument part of the problem?
A long time ago, the “women’s libbers”—we didn’t call them “feminists”—would follow me around. I was in DeKalb, Illinois, and they were standing out there picketing me. I kept saying, “They’re not picketing me. They’re picketing what they think this program stands for.” So I went outside and said, “It’s really cold out here. Why don’t you guys come in and let’s have some coffee or tea or whatever and talk about this?” So they all came in. And I said, “Look, I don’t feel like I’m exploited. I’m from a small town in Texas. This is great for me. I won scholarship money. I’ve done something with my life, and I can show my talent. I want to be in broadcasting. This is going to help me, so I want you to look at it that way.” Did I like being in a swimsuit? Absolutely not. I hated it. And now they wear these little Band-Aids!

Well, you’re on the board. You can fix that.
“Physically fit” is what we should be promoting. I hope they don’t starve themselves.

I’ll say this about you: Your values have stayed intact. You still come across like a normal person as opposed to a prima donna.
It’s because of Mother and Daddy. I mean that. I give my parents such credit. And I believe my Texas upbringing had a lot to do with it. Denton was a small town. I was president of the United Methodist Youth Fellowship, I went to church, I did all the things in school that a normal person would do. My daughter said to me one time, “Boy, Mama, I wish I’d grown up like you did,” because she had a more privileged life—her daddy was governor and she lived in a mansion.

Of all the things that you did in your post-pageant life, which were you proudest of?
Sports was incredible for ten years. I loved doing the Super Bowls and the Rose Parades and everything sort of big. I had both of my children within that time; I quit twice and came back because it was hard when they were young. Finally I just had to give it up because I wanted to raise them much like I was raised in Texas, but in Lexington, which is a smaller town than New York or Los Angeles. I really liked being first lady of Kentucky. It was very hard for me in the beginning because I was used to asking the questions, not answering them.

You’re living in Kentucky again.
I just moved from L.A. And, of course, everybody’s saying, “Are you going to run for office now?” No, I didn’t go back there to do it. I went back to have my roots, my family. I needed that in my life, and I could do more good by being in Kentucky than L.A. L.A. was beautiful, but it just didn’t feed my soul. It was sort of a disconnect out there; I felt like I was visiting.

Not good for a place you call home.
Yeah. I had friends there, but a lot of people in these big cities put on the dog just because they think they have to. If only they could be true to themselves.

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