Ageless Beauty : Pageant Honors Women Who Show That Life After 60 Can Be Vital and Exciting

The 13 women competing in the statewide pageant--they don’t say “beauty contests” anymore--strutted their stuff in the requisite evening gown competition.

And they sang, danced and played musical instruments in the requisite talent competition.

They fussed over one another backstage like a gaggle of sorority sisters to get their hair and makeup just right. And they rated the competition. “Boy,” whispered one contestant. “Look at her legs!”

But during their interviews with the judges, these women clearly broke the mold of more traditional beauty pageant finalists who talk starry-eyed about saving the world and feeding the hungry.

Welcome to the Ms. Senior America of California Pageant, a growing competition to honor women 60 and over who best represent the “age of elegance” with their poise, their talents, their excitement over growing old and their lives’ time-tested philosophies.

These contestants already had experienced life’s reality checks. One woman suggested that today’s parents should not shrink from spanking their misbehaving children. Another shared the heartache of losing a child in a drowning. Another told of the sadness of marrying her husband just as World War II broke out and having to kiss him goodby.

One woman complained that when she collapsed at work, others assumed she had suffered a stroke because of her age, even though she only had an inner ear infection. And another boasted of how she trailblazed into business and industry decades ago when it was still a man’s world.

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By evening’s end Thursday, a 68-year-old San Diego woman won--and then had to drive home so she could play her violin at a retirement home gig on Friday.

“My husband’s on Social Security, but it’s not enough to make ends meet,” said Gloria Perez Paris, wearing the crown of Ms. Senior California and looking smashing in her swishy, full-length, silver-beaded dress. “It would probably cost $800 at Neiman-Marcus,” she said. “I got it for $40 at a resale store.”

Each of the women who performed for the 1,000 people at the Palm Springs High School auditorium voiced a common message.

“Now that the children are gone, we’re finally finding life in retirement,” said 72-year-old Esther Butler of El Cajon, a great-grandmother who spent 38 years as a kindergarten teacher.

“Look out world, I’m still alive,” proclaimed 63-year-old Beverly Ford of Huntington Beach, who once was a fitting model for bathing suit designers. “Life’s not over, so don’t go throwing dirt in my face.”

They made their point at the pageant, albeit with plenty of self-effacing humor.

Caryl Jost, 62, of Long Beach, did a stand-up comedy schtick in the talent competition. She reminisced about the days when she shared the same measurements as voluptuous Hollywood stars--”42-28-38. But now I’ve got to stand on my head to get them in that order.” Today, she said, “I prefer men who are 60. They’re between hell-on-wheels and meals-on-wheels.”

Ba-da-ba-boom.

Backstage, 61-year-old Joan Graff of Escondido said she never felt sufficiently endowed to compete in beauty contests as a young woman. “I didn’t get boobs,” she quipped, “until I got old and fat and had eight children.”

Why enter a pageant now? “My husband pushed me. He said, ‘Go out and buy a dress. You can sing and you have a philosophy of life.’ I heard the part about ‘go out and buy a dress.’ ”

For some, competing in the pageant, which has been sponsored for the past six years by FHP Health Care, began with serious expectations.

“When I came here, I had to win,” said Jost during rehearsals, wearing a periwinkle blue formal with drop waist--and bunny slippers to soothe her corns. “It was a matter of pride. But now I’m having so much fun being here with these other girls, I don’t care anymore about winning.”

Others said that just getting this far--after placing in semifinal pageants in San Diego, Long Beach, Laguna Hills and Palm Springs--was victory in itself. Clarinet-playing Rosemary Freeman of Huntington Beach pointed to her blue ribbon, pinned to her rented beaded black formal. “I guess this means I’m good breeding stock,” she said.

For all the frivolity of the evening, the interviews with the judges provided some of the most poignant moments. Asked to share meaningful events in their lives, the contestants reflected on the deaths of loved ones, on dealing with their children’s drug use, on finally being willing to let go of their adult-aged children.

One woman told of walking on a Canadian glacier and sipping its water; another, on seeing the sonogram of an unborn grandchild. Paris talked of the joy of leading 24 violins, violas and cellos in a concert hall performance of Latin love songs.

The contestants also spoke eloquently about the challenges facing seniors: affordable housing, access to health care, nutrition and the plight of isolated and forgotten widows.

But some women issued challenges to other seniors to seek life’s continuing opportunities. “We shouldn’t devote our golden years to dying,” said one woman. Another said: “Too many (seniors) are too busy feeling sorry for themselves.”

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Perhaps the most amazing part of the show was the talent competition. The oldest competitor in the pageant, 79-year-old Happy Lucky Fawn of Century City--she legally adopted that name--was not sure what to do, so she capitalized on several years of yoga instruction. On stage, she wore a leopard-skin bodysuit and contorted her body in seemingly impossible ways, evoking exclamations of “Oh, my God” throughout the audience.

Paris won the talent competition with straight 10s from the judges for her mastery of the violin, which she has played for 50 years.

The judges said they were amazed by the vitality and attitudes of the women. “They’re more youthful than me!” said fortysomething Betsy White, an executive for Del Webb Sun City.

Palm Springs City Councilman William Kleindienst said he was impressed during the interviews by “how many of them referred to things they’ve done in the past five years. They’re still living. They’re not looking back on life to when they were 20 or 30. It’s like they’ve experienced a rebirth.”

At night’s end, with the auditorium all but empty, Paris took up her violin one last time. She played a medley from “Fiddler on the Roof.” She ended with “Sunrise, Sunset.”

Look out world, I’m still alive. Life’s not over, so don’t go throwing dirt in my face.’