Mix-Up in Finalists Beauty Pageant Turned a Bit Ugly at the End

It was not your normal beauty pageant. Oh, a beautiful blonde got the rhinestone crown, all right, but a lot of people in the audience were booing, right on live television. And after it was over, one of the judges complained, “People came and hit us. They stepped on our shoes.”

The occasion was the normally placid Miss California/USA pageant held Saturday night at Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park and televised statewide, locally by KHJ Channel 9.

Some called it “a fiasco,” a “mess” and even “the appearance of fraud.” All of a sudden, at the end of the pageant, a contestant--Trudy Stoltz as “Miss Tarzana”--who had not been announced by the judges as a finalist, was named a runner-up--eligible for several prizes such as makeup, clothing, jewelry and a cash scholarship.

And another contestant--Lisa Porter of San Diego as “Miss Southland”--who had been announced as a finalist, was told by the TV hostess and pageant director Summer Bartholomew she “should not be out there.”

“I’ve never been so embarrassed,” said Porter, a 19-year-old bank teller.

Officials of the California Beauty Pageant, who run the contest as a franchise of Miss Universe Inc., blamed the snafu on a “production mistake,” in which the sheet of finalists’ names from the judges’ scores did not match the list of names given by the production crew to Bartholomew.

Bartholomew said Monday she read her list first, and it included Porter’s name and not Stoltz’s. A few moments later, her TV co-host, Chuck Henry, was given the other list, containing Stoltz’s name instead of Porter’s.

“There was a slip-up,” said Stacey Trachtman, vice president for pageants at the contest’s parent company, Miss Universe Inc. of Los Angeles. “We’re in the midst of finding out just exactly what happened. We are trying to re-create the scene.”

“She’s (Stoltz) got my $500 cash scholarship, jewelry and the trophy,” Porter said. “I’ve been working for two years to get to that contest. I spent $2,000 on my gown.”

Several other pageant directors, sponsors, parents and even the event’s judges expressed surprise at the way the evening turned out. Most said they had never seen a last-minute switch of that nature, because beauty contests traditionally proceed with an elimination system, moving from the total number of contestants, to 12 semifinalists and then five finalists.

Judges are supposed to pick the winner and runners-up from among the five finalists during the last segment of the contest, called “impromptu questions,” said Craig Gephart, director of American Royalty pageants. “How could they announce a name not among the five?”

“The questions were just fill-in time,” Bartholomew said. “The impromptu questions were not judged. That’s only for audience viewing.”

“It gave the appearance of hanky-panky,” said Ted Cooper, producer of another contest, Miss California Venus USA.

“I’ve judged a couple of hundred contests and this was the worst,” said one of the pageant judges, Milton Shoong, president of the Cosmopolitan Talent & Model Agency in Hollywood. “If I thought this was going to happen I would never have been involved.”

“It was not a fraud,” Bartholomew said. “It was an unfortunate set of circumstances. Mistakes do happen.”

“I won’t ever enter another pageant,” Porter said.