Pageants and Miss America title
Williams began competing in
beauty pageants in the early
1980s. Williams won
Miss New York in 1983, and went to the Miss America national pageant in
Atlantic City. She was crowned
Miss America 1984 on
September 17,
1983 making her the first-ever African American Miss America. Prior to the final night of competition, Williams won both the Preliminary Talent and Swimsuit Competitions from earlier in the week. Williams' reign as Miss America was not without its challenges and controversies. For the first time in pageant history, a reigning Miss America was the target of death threats and angry racist hate mail.
Ten months into her reign as Miss America, she received an anonymous phone call stating that nude photos of her taken by a photographer prior to her pageant days had surfaced. Williams believed the photographs were private and had been destroyed; she claims she never signed a release permitting the photos to be used.
The genesis of the photos dated back to
1982, when she worked as an assistant and makeup artist for Mount Kisco, N.Y. photographer Tom Chiapel. According to Williams, Chiapel advised her that he wanted to try a "new concept of silhouettes with two models." He photographed Williams and another woman in several nude poses. The photographs depicted mild overtones of simulated
lesbian sex, which was quite controversial for its time.
Hugh Hefner, the publisher of
Playboy, was initially offered the photos, but turned them down. Later Hefner would explain why in People Weekly. "Vanessa Williams is a beautiful woman. There was never any question of our interest in the photos. But they clearly weren't authorized and because they would be the source of considerable embarrassment to her, we decided not to publish them. We were also mindful that she was the first black Miss America." Days later,
Bob Guccione, the publisher of
Penthouse, announced that his magazine would publish the photos in their September
1984 issue, and paid Chiapel for the rights to them without Williams' consent. According to the
PBS documentary, "Miss America," the Vanessa Williams issue of
Penthouse would ultimately bring Guccione a $14 million windfall. On September 8, 1984, Vanessa filed a $500 million lawsuit against Chiapel and Guccione. According to a Williams family representative, she dropped the suit because she wanted to avoid any further legal battles and move on with her life.
After several days of media frenzy and sponsors threatening to pull out of the upcoming 1985 pageant, Williams felt pressured by Miss America Pageant officials to resign, and did so in a press conference on
July 23,
1984. The title subsequently went to first-runner up
Suzette Charles, who is also African-American. Although she resigned from fulfilling the duties of a current Miss America, she was allowed to keep the bejeweled crown and scholarship money and is officially recognized by the Miss America Organization today as "Miss America 1984" and Suzette Charles as "Miss America 1984b."
Williams has gone on to lead what is arguably the most successful career of any former Miss America.
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