Tribute to Miss Universe 1967 Sylvia Hitchcock
UPDATE on Mar. 19, 2023: I include an old article that featured Sylvia Hitchcock. It really captures who she was and why I feel she is such a good role model. It’s a shame that women like her nowadays, don’t get much press, so I’ll give it to her. Check the article entitled “Former Miss Universe Uses Intelligence, Common Sense To Make Good Impression” below. It was written in March 1977.
NOTE OF INTEREST: I currently live in Alabama. I also went to the same high school as Sylvia, which is Miami Palmetto Senior High. Jeff Bezos is also a graduate of my high school. I also attended Miami-Dade Community College, formerly called Miami-Dade Junior College. I have always admired Sylvia as a prime example of what I consider a beautiful woman and think she should be a role model for women everywhere, unlike Antichrist and very mentally ill Lizzo who can’t even touch Sylvia’s coattails for both inner and outer beauty. I have lots of stuff about her below all the videos of other women I consider super hot.
I feature on this site, women that I think are super hot and who, I feel, would make great role models for women, unlike extremely mentally ill Lizzo, who gloats in her food addiction, which, if she overcame, would solve her obesity problem. Rather than gloat in her mental illness, she should face the fact that she’s mentally ill and try to get better by getting treatment for her mental illness rather than trying to normalize it and force it on the world! No thank you! Why should we people who are mentally healthy demean ourselves down to your mentally ill level, Lizzo! Get real and face your illness, rather than trying to force it on us!!
To see a black woman that I admire as extremely beautiful, check out this page and the videos below. I choose who I feel is super hot based on the individual, race is not even a consideration when I choose. If they happen to be black, like in the case of Miss World (see below), I will choose a black woman. But if the whites outdo the blacks in a contest, go eat it up, you petty people that try to make everything about race.
In the videos just below is an Asian that I think is super hot. I also include a Russian who was disqualified for the 2002 Miss Universe, but I beg to differ. You can also see Gladys Zender who has a striking resemblance to future Gail (myself) and my mother in her twenties.
I think Oxana is super hot. This one is Russian.
Gladys Zender, who looks a lot like me in the future and what my mother looked like in her twenties, is super hot.
I look for both inner and outer beauty in those that I think are hot. In fact, if the person only has outer beauty and is totally lacking in inner beauty, they’re a TOTAL DUD in the beauty department and even ugly, as far as I’m concerned.
I wanted to focus on Sylvia, (below) in this post because she’s particularly outstanding in the inner beauty department and seems very wholesome and healthy. A real role model.
I recommend my men create an automaton of Sylvia, what she looked like when she won the Miss Universe title in 1967 to give the world an example of a woman I admire as a prime example of beauty. I also am not in the least ashamed of being a baby boomer and feature some baby boomer music that fits the times when Sylvia was crowned Miss Universe. At least we didn’t spend all our time staring at smart phones all day and we went out and played in the grass and outside! Play for us meant going outdoors and participating in physical activities. We were a healthier lot, if you ask me. The unhealthy upstarts coming up could learn from us! And those who won beauty pageants back then, seemed healthier too, if you ask me, both inside and out.
Sylvia Louise Hitchcock-Carson (January 31, 1946 – August 16, 2015) was an American model and beauty queen who held the titles of Miss Alabama USA and Miss USA, and was crowned Miss Universe 1967.
PERSONAL LIFE
Hitchcock was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts and grew up on a chicken farm in Miami, Florida. She attended Palmetto High School, Miami-Dade Junior College and studied art at the University of Alabama. A junior at the University when she won the Miss USA title, Hitchcock chose not to complete her degree. Sylvia was a member of Chi Omega sorority.
Hitchcock married William Carson, the inventor of a fruit harvesting machine, in 1970. They had three children, Jonathan, Christianne and Will, and seven grandchildren.
CAREER
Hitchcock, who had previously competed in local pageants in Florida, represented Alabama at the Miss USA 1967 pageant. She was chosen as one of the fifteen best in swimsuit and won the Miss USA title on May 22. In July she became the first Miss USA to win the Miss Universe title since Linda Bement in 1960.
Hitchcock also appeared in the 1968 Indianapolis 500 on May 30, 1968.
After relinquishing her title she tried modeling in New York City but became disillusioned with the city and returned to Miami where she worked for a television station. In 1972 she was one of a panel of twelve judges for the Miss Universe 1972 pageant won by Kerry Anne Wells.
DEATH
She resided in Lake Wales, Florida until her death from cancer on August 15, 2015. She was 69 years old.
NOTE OF INTEREST: At the time this article below called “Former Miss Universe Uses Intelligence, Common Sense To Make Good Impression” was written, I was a student at Miami-Dade Community College which used to be called Miami-Dade Junior College. I was in my sophomore year of college there and would transfer to Florida State University in Sept. 1977. I graduated from Miami Palmetto Sr. High in 1975, which is the same high school Sylvia went to. I recognized many of the clubs she mentioned in this article.
The following was the lead-in to the article about Sylvia. I like the article because it really captures who Sylvia was and why I feel she is such a good role model.
Outstanding Polk County Women
Polk County is an outstanding community, comprised of men and women who have dedicated their lives to bettering their homes and those whose lives, they touch. To help recognize some of these workers, The Ledger’s Lifestyle section will be spotlighting an outstanding woman in the community on a regular basis. If you know of a woman whose contributions make her something special, Call Lynne O’Malley at 688-6011.
At the left (it’s just above at this website), Sylvia Carson and her 3-year old son Jonathan, Mrs. Carson is a world-famous beauty and cosmetic consultant but her family comes first.
Former Miss Universe Uses Intelligence, Common Sense To Make Good Impression
By Miriam Gessner, Community News Editor Lakeland Ledger Mar. 6, 1977
You’ve heard all the old cliches. “Beauty is only skin deep.” “Age before beauty.” “Beautiful but dumb.” At one time it was thought that if a woman was beautiful she couldn’t possibly have much of a brain — or certainly didn’t know how to use it.
Sylvia Hitchcock Carson dispels all of these ideas. You need only see and talk to her for a few minutes to realize that this is one of the world’s most beautiful young women, who uses her gift of intelligence and common sense.
“If a girl is attractive and has a good figure, she’ll get plenty of attention,” she says. “It’s a door-opener. But then she must prove she can contribute as much as everyone else.”
Who is Sylvia Carson and why is she considered a success in life?
The fifth of six children reared in Miami, Sylvia never thought of herself as “beautiful.” She did not use make-up in high school, was active in athletic endeavors and activities which involved her with other people. She was as popular as any of the other girls, but mostly “I tried to be me.” She served on the girls’ council at Palmetto High School and was a hospital volunteer in addition to being in several service clubs. Friends encouraged her to enter contests and she finished in the finals of her school’s Key Club Sweetheart, prom, homemaking and calendar girl contests. And she was runnerup in the Miss Teen-Age Florida competition. “Always a princess — never a queen.” she parodied. Incidentally, when she had to display a talent, she did a baton twirling dance.
A strong interest in art took her to Miami-Dade Junior College, where she graduated as the outstanding art student, specializing in sculpture. In her junior year, she enrolled at the University of Alabama and it was during finals week that she entered the Miss Alabama Pageant, winning in a borrowed swimsuit.
One month later, casually taking a college coed’s wardrobe and a plain yellow bridesmaid’s dress, she entered the Miss U.S.A. Pageant and won! Her roommate was first runnerup.
From there the shock of winning titles, contracts and scholarships was softened by the excitement of each new venture. And venture she did. The next step, of course, for Miss U.S.A., was the Miss Universe Pageant and sure enough, when the winner was announced that momentous evening in 1967, Sylvia Hitchcock found herself being crowned.
“No one can realize the responsibilities of such a position,” she said. “You think of someone who is ‘flawless’ and it becomes overwhelming.”
How does one win such an event? “This Miss U.S.A. Pageant doesn’t want ‘sexy’ lookers,” Sylvia answered. “Health factors and cleanliness are very important. They look for posture, the way you walk, your general bearing, mentality and rapport with others. And personal interviews count, a great deal. Dummies don’t win!”
Winning the Miss Universe title opened a whole new world for her and Sylvia loved it. She traveled extensively and met untold numbers of people. Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson asked her to serve as an unofficial ambassadress wherever she traveld throughout the world.
She had such diversified duties as representing the R.C. Cola company in the Orient; Catalina swim suits throughout the U.S.; rode in the Indianapolis 500 and participated in the Kentucky Derby preliminaries. But best of all, she liked her trips to South America. “The people there are the greatest. They gave with their hearts,” she said. She appreciated the simplicity of their lives. “Life seems to have fewer complexities there,” she added. And she enjoyed meeting show business personalities such as Dean Martin, Pat Boone and Andy Williams, in addition to other luminaries. “But most fulfilling was meeting the ‘ordinary’ people. They are always the most appreciative,” she said, reminiscing.
All too soon her year’s reign came to an end and Sylvia began to analyze her role. “What did I want out of life?” she questioned.
Having modeled while in school, she decided to try that as a career, but didn’t like the demands made on her. “I had to be super skinny,” she mused, “and besides I realized that these people I was meeting in New York never listened to what anyone else was saying.”
Disillusioned, she returned to Miami where she modeled and worked for a television station. It turned out to be a good move, for it was here that she met Bill Carson, whom she married in 1970. Bill had invented a fruit (citrus) harvesting machine and hired Sylvia to help him sell it. He is a management consultant and inventor currently working with Petersen Industries of Lake Wales on special projects.
Moving to Central florida to avoid the hustle-bustle of the big city, Sylvia had her first contacts with the Koscot cosmetics firm, and a whole new career opened up for her. Today she serves on Koscot’s beauty advisory board, making recommendations, writing articles, making speeches and cutting tapes for the company’s new program, “Woman’s World 7,” a series of inspirational messages from six of the world’s great beauties.
“We all appreciate a good painting, so why shouldn’t we take care of ourselves — make ourselves look better?” she asked. “In Africa a coin in the lip is considered beautiful, so what’s so wrong about wanting to look good?”
Sylvia says it is impossible to “psyche” make-up. “Your looks should reflect your personality and a make-over is the total balance,” she said, adding, “You are you and there is no one else just like you. Each of us is different in some way.”
Her philosophy in life is that it is important to believe in yourself. “I have asked myself, ‘How can I make myself better for myself, my family and my community?’ If you try your best, you’ll find that you feel better,” she concluded. Then almost immediately, she added, “Nobody has all the answers to everything. Everyone has his or her own personal convictions, derived from our own environments. I have a personal relationship with God and I share this with others who need spiritual support.”
Feeling that “God created things to be beautiful,” Sylvia has a casual, comfortable outlook on life. “If you feel beautiful, you’ll be beautiful and people around you will, too,” she said. A pretty girl has certain advantages, she explained. Beauty can sometimes help to get that foot in the door.
“Use your beauty,” she says. “Don’t play it down. Anyone can make herself into a beautiful woman by working on her attributes. You should try to want to be yourself.” She considers herself healthy and says the most important things to help one stay healthy and look good are cleanliness, diet and exercise. But, she stressed, “I’m not trying to say that the most important thing is physical beauty. Yet for health reasons, it must play an important role in our lives.”
Does she use the cosmetics she touts? “Of course,” she exclaimed, “I couldn’t speak about the products without knowing about them.” And her lovely fresh skin attests to the effects of the mink-based products that give her a naturally soft look.
Sylvia spends part of each month — about two weeks — working at her career, but the most important thing in her life is her family, which has grown to three. The Carson’s son, Jonathan, will be 3 on Tuesday. Sylvia’s background of independence has given her confidence and self esteem, and she is trying to instill these in her son. “He’s a little ‘person,’ ” she said, “able to do many things, and Bill and I encourage him to think for himself. I think it’s important that children have a stable, secure, loving relationship with their parents, just as it’s important for everyone to have these feelings. And no one can do a better job than I at bringing up my own children.”
Bill and Sylvia are outdoors people and spend their recreation time at tennis, scuba diving, camp outs and in “family togetherness.” They live in Winter Haven now, where Sylvia is a member of the Gardenia Garden Club and Loch Haven Art Museum and the Council of 101, formed in Orlando to preserve the arts. She was alumnus president of Chi Omega, and maintains membership in a Massachusetts chapter of the DAR.
A religious woman, she quoted from the Bible a passage that states that your body is the “Temple of God.” But when asked, “If you ever have a daughter, would you want her to be a beauty queen?” she smiled broadly and said no, explaining that it would be a burden for a youngster to “have” to live up to her mother’s reputation.
Miss Universe 1967 dies at 69
Sylvia Carson of Lake Wales remembered for her “generous spirit”
Madison Fantozzi News Chief from The Ledger (Aug. 27, 2015)
LAKE WALES — It wasn’t her big brown eyes or long brown tresses that won Sylvia Hitchcock Carson her Miss Universe 1967 title.
Sure, she was beautiful.
“She had this walk that was so wonderful — like a dream,” friend Mary Jane Nageon de Lestang said, “but it was her generous spirit that won it all.”
That’s the consensus among friends and family who remember Carson — the farm girl turned pageant queen by accident.
Carson died Aug. 16 of lung cancer that spread to her bones. She was 69.
“Just four months ago she was outside landscaping my yard at my new house,” her oldest son, Jonathan Carson, said. “She was always there to lend a hand.”
Carson said his mother’s selflessness and generosity were her biggest traits.
“She could’ve done whatever she wanted and she chose to become a housewife, a mother, a community volunteer,” he said. “She was a giver, 100 percent.”
She was involved with the Imperial Symphony Guild of Lake Wales, Daughters of the American Revolution, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society and YMCA.
She liked to travel, paint and garden.
“She was always very active,” Jonathan Carson said. “If she saw some weeds in someone’s yard, she’d start pulling them.”
“My dad joked that there’s going to be a lot more weeds in the world now without her,” he said.
Born on Jan. 31, 1946, Sylvia Hitchcock Carson grew up on a farm in Miami, where she studied art at Miami Dade Junior College. She continued her studies at the University of Alabama, where her Chi Omega sorority sisters talked her into competing in the Miss Alabama pageant. She had a tennis match that day, Nageon de Lestang said, but would do anything for the people she cared about.
She subsequently became Miss USA and Miss Universe in just one year.
When her reign ended, she had a short modeling stint in New York before returning to Miami. There she met her husband, William Carson, an inventor best known for a fruit harvesting machine. They moved to Lake Wales in the 1980s and had three children and seven grandchildren.
“She’s just ‘mom’ to me,” Jonathan Carson said. “She did everything for us kids — took us everywhere she could, gave us experiences we will never forget.”
He recalled accompanying his mother to a Miss Teen pageant in Miami when he was 15. She led his Cub Scouts group and went to every sports game. They went rock mining, fishing, skiing and snowmobiling.
“We did a little bit of everything,” he said. “All the family time is the greatest memory to me.”
Nageon de Lestang shares similar memories. The friend of 42 years met Carson through their husbands, who regularly went scuba diving together.
The couples traveled the country and the women called themselves Thelma and Louise.
“I was her sidekick,” Nageon de Lestang said. “I was always there to help her with her charity work, but she was the real driving force in this community.”
And Carson was always there for her best friend.
Nageon de Lestang has six children — five boys and a girl, who’s the youngest.
“By the sixth kid, no one is excited for you anymore,” Nageon de Lestang said, “but when it turned out to be a girl after having five boys, that was something to be excited about.”
Her best friend threw her a surprise baby shower and “the whole town must have been there. I don’t know how they hid all the cars.”
She said that’s just one example of Carson’s generosity and thoughtfulness.
“She was always doing something for someone,” she said. “She loved to shop, too – maybe too much – but she always had something for somebody.”
“She was certainly beautiful, especially on the inside.”
— Madison Fantozzi can be reached at madison.fantozzi@newschief.com or 863-401-6971. Follow her on Twitter @madisonfantozzi.
Now that I’ve featured the hottest of the hot, I have given all the men on my marriage list the freedom to leave and find another if they want and am thrilled for Edward Prendergast (used to be on my marriage list), who has found a woman (obviously not skinny) but loaded with inner beauty. I’m not saying that everyone who is fat is mentally ill, but when you try and force people to applaud your obesity and create a whole image around being some sort of victim because you have a food addiction and then try to murder and harm those who won’t play your game, I have to DRAW THE LINE.
You might say, aren’t you trying to shame fat people? Nope. If the fat person has inner beauty and they find love, all power to them! It’s just that we shouldn’t be jealous of those who look better than us, but be happy that they are blessed with beauty and can grace the world with it.
