Cast Forever as Queen for a Day

“Would you like to be Queen for a day?”

That question electrified women across America during the two decades after World War II, first on radio, then on television. For those lucky enough to be in Hollywood, the place to be was in front of the Moulin Rouge nightclub--with hundreds of other hopefuls--clutching a post card with a wish written on it. Each weekday the women lined up, 21 were interviewed and five went on stage, waiting for ebullient TV host Jack Bailey to bound through the purple velvet curtains, point a finger and pop the question.

More than 5,000 dreams were fulfilled on “Queen for a Day,” which reigned on radio from 1945 to 1955 and on television from 1955 to 1965. Contestants, who came to Los Angeles from all parts of the country, described problems and needs that they believed made them worthy to win. The requests were usually heart-wrenching: tires and gasoline to help transport a newly adopted, blind Chinese child to San Francisco for medical treatment or ingredients to concoct a homeopathic remedy for an asthmatic son.

Five women told their tales on every show, but only one became queen. Each winner, who was determined by the amount of audience applause, triggered an avalanche of merchandise, trips, beauty make-overs, dinners and movie studio tours--a rare experience for the average 1950s housewife. It was all theirs. At least for a day.

And for some, the glory of the coronation has not faded.

Every other month in a North Hollywood Howard Johnson’s, members of the Queen for a Day Club gather to reminisce, plan charity fund-raisers and write notes to ailing past winners nationwide.

They are the vestiges of an American tradition.

“Queens! Queens!”

Lucille Helwig, president of the Queen for a Day Club, pounded a small gavel to bring a recent meeting to order. She announced that it was time to crown a new queen for a day, a ceremony performed at each meeting. But the 20 women were still greeting each other with hugs.

Helwig, 67, finally quieted the crowd. The club, which has 60 members, was formed in 1946 by a group of winning contestants. Monthly meetings alternate between North Hollywood and Bellflower.

Helwig, a Van Nuys resident, drew a ticket for the meeting’s queen for a day. “Number 509!”

“That’s me!” Leahnora Martin put her hands to her face as a glimmering mass of rhinestones was placed on her head.

“It was such a shock,” said Martin, 66, recalling the day in 1948 when a heavy red velvet cape engulfed her and she was handed four dozen red roses tied with white taffeta. “I was in such a daze. They picked me up the next day in a gold Cadillac, took me to a beauty shop and then dancing at the Cocoanut Grove that night.”

Martin had wished for a device to dry the air in her asthmatic son’s bedroom.

In 1946 Helwig had wished for a chance to sing with a live orchestra. After a beauty make-over at Westmore Studios in Hollywood and dinner at the Trocadero, she was taken to the Santa Monica ballroom where she sang with Lawrence Welk.

But members do more than reminisce. The club donates about $2,000 a year to Childrens Hospital in Los Angeles. The money is raised through raffles and yard sales.

“We felt we’re all kind of special because we have been given a gift from the program,” Helwig said. “We’re trying to share with others the good that we’ve received.”

Aiding Children

“The ongoing support of this group has made a real difference in the lives of hundreds of children through the years,” said Michelle Barker, Childrens Hospital director of public affairs. “We’re very appreciative of their efforts.”

“Queen” Claribel Anderson (all members call each other by their titles--their motto is “Queenly Forever”) is considered to be the club’s grande dame because she was president for 17 years. Although she lives in Las Vegas, she occasionally drives her Cadillac to Los Angeles to attend club meetings.

“Jack Bailey gave me the original crown, which I have here in my curio cabinet in Las Vegas,” Anderson, 70, said in a telephone interview.

The club uses a copy of the original crown, which was donated by Peggy Ermel, 62, a Reseda resident who in 1952 wished for two carpentry horses and a sheet of plywood for a table because her in-laws were coming to dinner.

“It’s a wonderful group of women with a lot of warmth,” Anderson said, adding that she wished for a bed in 1948 to establish a more comfortable home for her traveling husband.

Earline Hughes, who has been a club member since she was crowned in 1957, met Clark Gable while dining at the Brown Derby during her show-sponsored whirl through Hollywood.

“He was choking, sitting there with his wife, who wasn’t paying attention,” Hughes recalled. “So I went over there and pounded him on the back--pretty hard. He was very gracious and very handsome too.”

Hughes wished for corrective baseball shoes for her 11-year-old son, Robert, a polio victim whose left leg was shorter than his right. Her family received tickets to the World Series in New York and she won clothes, a diamond watch, sterling silver, china and a dining room set, among other merchandise. The winner’s prizes depended on that day’s sponsors--some queens flew to Paris; others took trains to Ensenada.

“We were the granddaddy of the giveaway shows,” said Harry Mynatt, producer of the “Queen for a Day” TV show. Cash and prizes totaling $21 million were given away during the show’s run on radio and TV.

Offbeat Stories

“We weren’t always looking for the tear-jerker stories, but something that was unusual or very funny,” Mynatt said.

Mynatt’s favorite stories include a woman who wished for someone to milk her goat while she and her husband took a long, much-needed vacation (her four children were allergic to cow’s milk) and a woman who wanted her husband stretched a half-inch so he could join the Los Angeles Police Department.

Occasionally, Bailey staged special crownings on the TV show, such as “Baby for a Day,” “Grandfather for a Day” and “Newspaper Boy for a Day,” the winner of which was crowned by then Vice President Richard M. Nixon, a former newspaper boy. Mary Pickford crowned the first queen in 1945, and Frank Sinatra, Walt Disney and Eleanor Roosevelt, among other personalities, appeared on subsequent shows.

Mynatt sometimes attends meetings of the Queen for a Day Club. He said Bailey supported the group.

“They deserve a lot of credit,” Mynatt said. “They’ve made a lot of friends for the Childrens Hospital.”

At the conclusion of the club’s meeting, after the women had recited a closing prayer (“. . . to be divine is your task and mine”), they began leafing through scrapbooks jammed with photographs and yellowed shipping orders for merchandise that they had received as newly crowned queens.

“It was just a great lift, like a burden was taken off your shoulders,” said Emma Sundelius, 72, as she reread a shipping order from Agnes Originals dress company that began, “Congratulations Your Majesty.”

“My biggest wish was for my 18-year-old daughter Doreen, who had polio, to get manual controls for a car,” she said. “She wanted to drive just like anyone else. And the show gave her a sky-blue ’57 Chevy.

“That really turned things around for us.”