Yolande Fox

Yolande Margaret Betbeze Fox (November 28, 1928 – February 22, 2016) was an American singer, feminist, activist and beauty pageant titleholder who was crowned Miss America 1951.

The Miss America Organization has claimed that Fox's (then Betbeze's) actions were pivotal in directing pageant progress towards recognizing intellect, values, and leadership abilities, rather than focusing on beauty alone.

[7] After her husband's death, she moved to Georgetown, Washington, D.C., purchasing the Newton D. Baker House from Michael Whitney Straight and his then wife Nina Gore Auchincloss.

[9] In the early 1990s, Yolande Fox was contacted by the writer Philip Roth, who was researching the Miss America beauty pageant for his novel American Pastoral.

Roth studied Fox's scrapbooks and interviewed her about the culture surrounding the pageant in the late 1940s; he later said, "She was very smart, very funny....She just opened up whole ideas for me that I couldn't have had on my own.

Aboard the USS Monterey in 1951
Fox's home in Washington, D.C.