Miss Universe 1957. Photo 59.

Miss Universe 1957. Photo 59.
 
This photo was published on 19th July, the day of the final night. Miss US.A. 1957, Leona Gage (right), admits she is married to an Air Force sergeant by whom she has two boys. She said “We desperately needed money.… I hoped to get recognition…. Get good jobs.” This year, for the first time, a rule requires all contestants to be single. If her mother-in-law had kept still, Miss U.S.A. 1957 might have had a chance to go all the way. Today, Leona Gage stripped of her title and thousands of dollars worth of prizes, and she told this story: “My husband makes only $300 a month, we owe a lot of bills. We live in a rented house. We don’t have our own furniture. My children are healthy, but they need clothes.”
 
Close to tears, Leona Gage, disqualified as Miss U.S.A. 1957 in the Miss Universe Beauty Pageant, kisses successor, Miss Utah, Charlotte Sheffield (left), but she was ruled ineligible for tonight’s competition because she wasn’t in the preliminaries.
 
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