A Pageant Winner Who Feels ‘Responsibility to Look Good’

Sometimes, beauty is more than skin-deep.

Sue Casey is a strikingly attractive woman, but that’s just the beginning. She also has enough guts and humor to enter a Ms. Senior Los Angeles contest, a pageant that, according to its rules, searches for “the gracious woman who best exemplifies the dignity, maturity and inner beauty of senior Americans.”

The statuesque West Los Angeles resident thought the idea of participating in a beauty contest at her age (60+) was so corny that she didn’t tell her family about it until it was over and the first-place trophy was on her mantel.

“If they had required a bathing suit competition it would have been obscene,” she said, laughing. The idea was originally suggested to her at her Fairfax High School class’s 50th reunion by her friend Jeff Angell who hadn’t seen her in years and told her she looked fantastic.

The contest, held Nov. 22, has been sponsored for the last four years by FHP Health Care to honor women who have reached the “Age of Elegance.” Fifteen women took part in a competition that included evening gown modeling, a personal interview, a talent event and a presentation of each contestant’s philosophy of life.

Sue Casey said she is pleased to have won, but she quickly added that the trophy she treasures most is the plaque given to her by her adult stepdaughters, Joy and Kristen, adopting her as their mother. The plaque begins by saying: “We hold you in the highest esteem for all you have done to make our lives full.”

That’s closer to the real Sue Casey--mother of four, grandmother to three and great-grandmother to one. “The focal point of my life has been my children, my family, my dear friends, and my reward has been great happiness. I still think my children are the best dinner guests,” she said.

But there’s more to her than that. “I do present a certain facade,” she said. “I play this part of society lady, mother, businesswoman--but if you strip away all that I’m a beach rat who would rather be bodysurfing, barefoot all day and reading a lot.”

Looking at and listening to Casey, it’s difficult not to think that Casey has the secret of eternal youthfulness. At a time when feminist author Germaine Greer is calling for women to just let go of trying to look attractive, Sue Casey says looking good and feeling good are related.

“It’s a kick for me to get compliments,” she said. “I suppose I’m vain but I do feel it is my responsibility to look good. As for beauty, whatever is inside that makes you a kind and encouraging person--a person who makes other people happy--is the kind of beauty which sustains you. People look terrible when they behave negatively. It took me a long time to figure myself out and a lot of discipline.”

The discipline includes taking care of herself. She does 30 minutes of stretching exercises every morning. She eats balanced meals rather than diets, is an eternal optimist about life and is relentlessly curious.

She never offers advice about appearances unless people ask. But indeed, she does give the impression of being a woman who has finally pulled it all together--hair, makeup, clothes, jewelry, posture and, most important, the comfort of being herself. For Casey, that also translates into not having plastic surgery.

Casey, divorced, leads a full life. She sells real estate for Jon Douglas Co. She has been active in the Footlighters, one of the oldest charities in Los Angeles, for 32 years and has served as president. One of its recent projects was to build the Footlighter Child Life Center at Harbor/UCLA Medical Center to benefit babies born with AIDS and drug addictions.

She has ambitions. She wants to master French, learn how to play the piano and use a computer. And she wants to fall in love. “My mother said I could do anything, and I believed her. I don’t understand when people say they are too old to do anything,” she said.

Winning the Los Angeles contest means that Casey goes on in March to the state finals for the title of Ms. Senior America of California. “If I’m smart I won’t tell anyone when it’s going to happen, and I’ll take some singing lessons now that they say I have talent,” she said.

As for her philosophy of life, it remains: “We are each responsible for our own success and our own happiness and we must look within ourselves to find it. We are all unique and we must share ourselves and our talents with others.”