A DIFFERENT WORLD
FOR most winners of Miss World, the most memorable moment must surely be when the glittering crown is placed on their head. But what Jennifer Hosten, the Grenadian winner of the contest in 1970, recalls most vividly is arriving at the Royal Albert Hall in London to find it besieged by protesters waving signs reading: “Cattle market”, “You poor cows”, “Miss World, Man’s World”.
Miss World 1970 was the year beauty queens and feminists collided – a moment now reimagined in the film Misbehaviour, starring British actresses Gugu Mbatha-Raw, as Jennifer, and Keira Knightley, as the feminist activist Sally Alexander.
“Back then, Miss World was like the Oscars,” Jennifer tells me on the phone from Toronto, Canada, where she now lives. The pageant, a spectacle of sequins and swimsuits, was watched by millions around the world.
In 1951, Eric Morley started a beauty contest to promote dancehalls belonging to Britain’s Mecca Group. In time, the event morphed into Miss World. His widow, Julia Morley, says he saw the pageant as part of his country’s post-war recovery effort.
