Fair Lady Is 80 : Beauty Knows No Age Limit

“Oh, my God,” blurted 80-year-old Teresa Segura from her wheelchair, “I can’t walk, I can’t see, and now I’ve won a beauty contest. Unbelievable. Babalu! Bombs away!”

Almost as excited was runner-up Maude Burton, 100, who said she had so much fun that she might “give it another shot next year.”

Segura won over Burton and seven other entrants Tuesday at the Solano County Fair in the fifth annual My Fair Lady Pageant, which brings together the champions of beauty contests in nearby convalescent homes.

Judging is based on poise, personality and appearance.

The 1987 My Fair Lady, Segura, was crowned, then presented with a bouquet of roses and a doll that sings “My Funny Valentine.”

The contestants were mostly in their 70s, 80s and 90s--except for Burton, who will be 101 in September. (An avid San Francisco Giants baseball fan, she was presented with a Giants cap and a framed team photo.)

All were in their finest dresses and had their hair freshly coiffured. Two were able to walk under their own power. Seven were pushed on stage in wheelchairs.

The sign on one chair read: “Old ladies never die. They just keep playing bingo.”

They were asked questions.

For instance: “Who would you like to have over for dinner?”

“Clint Eastwood,” said Cecilia Butler, 78.

And they were asked to recall the most interesting things that had ever happened to them.

Myrtle Watson, 90, remembered that she was kicked out of the sixth grade for beating up a teacher. She was not allowed back in class until her father signed a promise that she would not do it again.

“I never did,” she told the more than 500 rest home residents who made up the audience.

Burton, a childless widow who was married more than 40 years, had to ask for time to turn up her hearing aid. Then she recalled the 1906 San Francisco earthquake as a “big shock.” She was living on a raisin farm near Fresno at the time.

Segura, born in Spain, remembered the three-month voyage with her parents when they moved to Hawaii. At 9, she was working in the sugar cane fields on Kauai.

“We were poor,” she said. “I never spent a day in school. I taught myself to read and write.”

The family moved to San Francisco when she was 12. She worked for many years as a waitress in Vallejo.

She speaks Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese and English. Now that she had become a beauty queen, said Segura, who has survived two husbands, “another man will probably come along and sweep me off my feet.”

Segura has three children, four grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

She said she thinks Hollywood might be the next stop.