Raining or Reigning, She’s Not Worried
The panic has set in.
Hairdressers at Amadeus Spa in Pasadena have cut, colored, permed and styled the 1997 Tournament of Roses Royal Court 14 times since October, but on Monday “We thought, ‘What do we do if it rains?’ ” gasped stylist Alice Rossiter.
Of all the events for which the Rose Court is primped, the New Year’s Day Rose Parade is meant to be the best. The brightest. And, in fact, the biggest.
“We tell the girls to be ready to have big, big hair,” Rossiter said.
But former queen Marilyn Smuin-Beutler knows that if the dark clouds that have been hanging over Pasadena release their full wrath, it could leave the teenage princesses looking like drowned rats when they should be shining like Cinderellas.
Smuin-Beutler was Rose Queen in 1955, the last time it rained on the Rose Parade. And during a Rose Queen brunch Monday at the Ritz-Carlton Huntington Hotel in Pasadena, she shared her unique beauty nightmare with Jennifer Halferty, the reigning queen who, as one Tournament official suggested, may be the next “raining queen.”
The Tournament was wholly unprepared for the downpour when it hit 42 years ago, and the women--wearing long underwear beneath their strapless gowns--were left sopping on their float, Smuin-Beutler said.
“After the parade we were just soaked,” Smuin-Beutler told Halferty, recalling how she and the rest of the court crowded the women’s room mirror at the Valley Hunt Club before the Rose Game began to wring out what they could of their drenched hairdos. “I had to take the bobby pins that were holding up my crown to redo my hair.”
“I’ll try to remember that,” Halferty said politely.
Halferty, who discusses the forecast with an air of defiance, said she and her court plan to “use Princess Power to control the weather.”
With a toss of her shoulder-length red tresses, the 17-year-old Polytechnic School senior said predictions of rain don’t faze her, and “No, I’m not worried about my hair.”
She’s probably the only one.
The war plan at the Amadeus camp is to fight the rain with tons of hair spray and “Up-do’s,” stylist speak for knots, twists, braids and those ringlet curls that cascade off the top of glorified ponytails, Rossiter said.
“Not much would help if it was really raining,” she said. “But in an up-do it should still look decent.”
Meanwhile Tournament officials said they have stored an armory of clear plastic umbrellas and ponchos to protect the royalty from rain, in the event that Princess Power fails them.
Even if it does fail them, and drizzle ushers in the new year, Smuin-Beutler advised the current queen and princesses to not let rain ruin their reign.
“It truly rained on my parade,” she said. “But it didn’t dampen my spirit. My advice to the current queen is to have a warm heart and smile.”
And an extra set of bobby pins couldn’t hurt, either.
* PARADE GUIDE
How to get there, where to park, what you’ll see. B8
