Culture
Phyllis George
Fairest of the fair she is—but George is only one of three Miss Americas from Texas.
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Headed to the statewide pageant, Dennison was chaperoned by her boss, former U.S. senator Earle Mayfield, and his wife, Ora; they stayed with Coke and Fay Stevenson in the Governor’s Mansion. Dennison relates her main memory of the Austin trip: “As I walked out on the stage, I was startled by the immediate wild response from the servicemen in the audience. Later, I found out that the elderly Mrs. Mayfield and Mrs. Stevenson had raced up and down the tiers of the stadium exhorting one and all to ‘Vote for Miss East Texas, vote for Miss East Texas!’ And it had worked.”
Dennison created a similar sensation at the Miss America pageant. The event that year, a patriotic extravaganza, saluted America’s armed forces with an opening number that featured a mock-up of a B-29 bomber. Dennison’s talent act was equally attention-getting—no surprise, given her background. According to a contemporary news report, “Miss Texas, garbed in a typical Western costume of doeskin chaps, checked flannel shirt, and wide-brimmed hat, had the audience, and especially the soldiers in attendance, clapping with her as she sang the spirited ‘Deep in the Heart of Texas.’” Recalls Dennison: “I asked one of the judges later why they picked me. He said, ‘We were afraid if we didn’t, the boys in the balcony would lynch us!’”
The self-sufficient teenager adjusted well to her sudden fame. Back then the Miss America pageant offered a weekly stipend and a few minor gifts but no scholarships (a 1945 innovation); the real prize, an unofficial one, was the chance to audition for a Hollywood studio. After her reign, during which she sold hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of war bonds, Dennison signed a contract with Twentieth Century-Fox and embarked on an eight-year movie career; her most notable role was the second lead in director George Cukor’s Winged Victory. She also met a gifted young comedian named Phil Silvers, whom she married in 1945. “Through Phil, whom everyone loved and put first on any party list, I met almost every well-known person in show business. Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and Harry Cohn, the head of Columbia Pictures, all gave us a wedding party, which was pretty big-time stuff, but to me the luckiest part of all that was that Gene Kelly and his marvelously talented and intellectual group of friends liked me as well as Phil. At Gene’s on any given night, folks like Judy Garland, Noël Coward, Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, and Fred Astaire might drop in and entertain or play charades or just talk. One night George Cukor brought Greta Garbo, and she wound up buying all the Tupperware samples an out-of-work actress was pushing.”
Dennison went on to work as a production assistant at Rodgers and Hammerstein’s New York headquarters and, during television’s infancy, helped launch three series, including Lux Video Theatre. Though she and Silvers divorced in 1950, they continued to talk frequently until his death 35 years later, and she still keeps up with the man she describes as “my first true love”—legendary Fort Worth Star-Telegram sportswriter Blackie Sherrod, whom she met while still an unfamous Texas teen. She later married again and had two sons, co-directed the Los Angeles Theatre Company, and was head of community relations for a California hospice for eleven years. Now retired, she lives near Palm Springs. “Even now, at age seventy-seven, after all the fascinating things I have done in my life, I am invariably introduced as ‘a former Miss America,’” she says. “And people are actively impressed and look at me with different eyes. After the inevitable question ‘What year?’ comes the question ‘What state were you from?’ And I answer with a special kind of pride, ‘I was Miss Texas.’”
The third in Texas’ trio of titleholders, Shirley Cothran Barret, still marvels at the improbability of her 1975 win. The regal bearing and apparent self-confidence were, she says, merely camouflage worn by a quiet little bookworm. Growing up in Denton, she recalls, “I was very introverted and shy. I wasn’t a cheerleader or a prom queen. Once, a few years ago, I was in the grocery store and ran into a classmate from high school. I didn’t recognize him, but he recognized me, and he said, ‘Shirley, I saw you on the Miss America pageant! And I couldn’t believe you won!’ Well, he said it with such enthusiasm that I couldn’t be offended, but that about sums it up—no one would have described me back then as anything but a wallflower.”
But while she was a student at what was then North Texas State University, Shirley Cothran entered the Miss Denton pageant. Phyllis George’s recent victory—which “thrilled my hometown,” she says—wasn’t the only impetus: “I knew that even if I didn’t make it, I might win a scholarship, and that would help my parents. And the tone of the seventies made a difference—the ‘You’ve come a long way, baby’ attitude.” She placed third in her first pageant, then second the following year.
Hoping to maximize her chances on her third try, she decided to switch her talent. “Back then I was singing, but that didn’t make me good. The year I was first runner-up, the winner was a roller skater. She was good, yes—but I lost to a roller skater! So I got out my flute—the same flute I’d had since fifth grade. I hadn’t touched it in years.” She labored over an arrangement of thirties swing tunes that, along with her perfect grooming and confident carriage, finally won her both the Miss Denton and Miss Texas crowns. “After I won, the stories all referred to me as a flautist,” she says. “I wasn’t a flautist—I was a Texas flute tooter!” As she began preparing for the Miss America pageant, she hedged her bets by signing on to teach fourth grade at a Carrollton school; her victory saved a lot of little boys from serious heartache.
Unlike Jo-Carroll Dennison and Phyllis George, Cothran opted not to pursue a career in movies or television. Instead, she applied her $15,000 scholarship to the pursuit of a Ph.D. in education. She also wed her college sweetheart, Richard Barret. (“His fraternity brothers teased him mercilessly—they called him Mr. America and Mr. Cothran.”) The couple celebrated 25 years of marriage in May. And she marks another silver anniversary this year, that of her career as a public speaker. “Ninety percent of my work is with Christian women’s groups—key-noting conferences, talking at luncheons, speaking at retreats. I don’t talk about just wearing high heels and sparkly clothes and walking down a runway. I talk about how you get through the rough times.” And, she adds, “I love speaking to women. Their concerns are my concerns. We have common ground. It’s the to-and-fro travel that’s hard. If I could just be like Samantha Stephens on Bewitched and arrive with the twitch of my nose!” She works about seven months a year, accepting six or so engagements per month and leaving summer and school holidays for family. Her self-employment has allowed this mother of four great flexibility: “I wanted to be there for every ball that was thrown, kicked, passed, or dribbled.”
This year the former beauty queen is even busier than usual. She is moving out of Denton—where she has lived her entire 46 years—to settle with her family on 75 acres in tiny Peaster, near Weatherford. She has thrice served as a judge to help choose fellow Miss Americas. And at a reunion five years ago, she joined 43 other past winners to take a bow, then watched backstage as the pageant played out. “When the first runner-up’s name was announced, we all felt a pang for her. But then one of the other ladies said, loud enough for the rest of us to hear, ‘Don’t worry, honey—it’s not what it’s cracked up to be.’ And we all roared, because it’s so true and because it’s such hard work. The first couple of weeks, it’s all limousines and hairstylists and makeup artists and talk-show engagements and wheeling and dealing. But in the long run, that’s just the job description.”
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