IDID KEEP MY PROMISE to return to New Zealand, stopping in Auckland on way back to London. One of the reasons for doing so was to see the gentleman with whom I was smitten. I arrived at the airport. Daphne was there to meet me, along with her husband, Ron, healing heart and all. No Dennis.
“Where is he?” I asked. He had known I was coming.
“He’s shearing sheep in the South Island, but he’ll come the next day or the day after.”
And that was it for me. I decided right there he was not the one. It may sound like a small thing, but his failure to meet me was important to me. I have always been like that. The small things often help me decide at times what is truly important to me. I had a nice time with Daphne and Ron and returned to London where, I must admit, it felt anticlimactic to find myself back in the rat race after such an enjoyable journey. I could have taken up residence in New Zealand but for its remoteness from the world that I knew.
One of the things that had changed for me in London, and not for the better, was my sense of privacy in my little nest at Aunt Ethel’s house in west London. The British press had discovered my whereabouts and were starting to hound me. There were only weeks remaining before the Miss World crown would be handed over to a new girl, and the reporters had questions:
“What do you plan for the future?”
“Where will you live?”
“Is there a man in your life?”
“Will you get married and have children?”
In fact, on my return to London, I became more serious about the Canadian I had been dating, David Craig. We had seen each other a few times in the course of my very busy year—he had sent me flowers the night I won the pageant—but I was not ready to announce anything to the press.
It was almost a relief to pack again my five or six suitcases with all of my outfits, shoes and boots to match, and fly across the Atlantic to New York, the last major journey of my year. It was my second visit to Manhattan as Miss World. The first had been in the spring, and was much more eventful.
On that earlier occasion, I had been met at John F. Kennedy Airport by representatives of the Grenadian embassy and Burt Champion, who had been arranged as my New York agent by Gertrude Protain on behalf of the Grenada Board of Tourism. My first duty was to appear as a guest on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. The following day I was to have lunch with the actress Joan Crawford at her apartment, a date arranged by Burt.
Our first stops were Bloomingdale’s and Saks Fifth Avenue to get fitted for some of my appearances. During this shopping spree, Burt encouraged me to visit the hat section at Bloomingdale’s.
“Miss Crawford simply loves hats!” he said. “A beautiful hat would impress her immediately.”
I tried on several. Five of them suited me well. It was such a difficult choice that I decided to take them all.
The Johnny Carson show was televised live that night. At about eight o’clock, I arrived at the studio and met Johnny and his sidekick, Ed McMahon. We all chatted for a while, during which I was given a synopsis of the show. Ed then invited me to join him for an early dinner at “a nearby restaurant.”
The nearby restaurant turned out to be the posh Empire Room at the Walforf Astoria Hotel. The entertainment that night was very special: the one and only Ella Fitzgerald was at the start of an engagement at the hotel. Ella was at her absolute peak, and she performed brilliantly before an appreciative audience. At the end of one of her numbers, she waited for the applause to die and announced that she had a surprise for everybody: “Ladies and gentlemen, I want you to put your hands together and welcome my very good friend and yours, Mister Louis Armstrong!”
I was absolutely amazed. There I was, at one of the best tables in this beautiful restaurant, witnessing a performance by one of the most famous duos in the history of music. It was magnificent but all too short. Ed looked at his watch and turned to me. “Jennifer, I’m afraid we need to be going. The show starts soon.” With my head in a whirl, we got up from the table and made our way out.
We arrived at the television studios just in time. Johnny Carson was the most relaxed TV host I’ve ever met. He was thoroughly professional. His research was all up to date, and he made me feel quite at ease at all times. We spoke about the Bob Hope Christmas tour, my experiences in other countries, and so on. Both Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon were perfect gentlemen. They worked brilliantly as a team and it was fascinating to me to watch the intricate workings of a live show of the highest quality, expertly delivered.
The following day I had to prepare for my luncheon with Joan Crawford. Needless to say, I was thrilled to meet her. She had started her career as a Broadway chorus girl and became one of the biggest stars in the history of Hollywood, winning an Academy Award as best actress for her work in Mildred Pierce. She was no longer acting as much as she had in the past—she was probably in her early seventies (her birth date has always been a mystery)—but she was still a star among stars.
Selecting one of my beautiful new hats, I dressed in an elegant new outfit and met with Burt Champion in the foyer of my hotel, from where we took a limousine to the New York apartment of Joan Crawford. She was then living at the Imperial House on the Upper East Side. A well-groomed maid answered the door and escorted us to a spacious drawing room. Joan Crawford obviously loved small dogs. There were at least five of them to be seen, all in good condition and well behaved. Soon Miss Crawford appeared, greeting Burt warmly and shaking my hand. Evidently, she and Burt knew each other well.
At lunch, she asked questions about my experiences as Miss World. We chatted on various other subjects before she asked if I had given thought to becoming an actress. I told her it had crossed my mind.
“I’m a director of an acting school that I founded, Jennifer. If you were really interested, I would be glad to arrange for you to be enrolled on a scholarship.”
“But,” she went on, “when you get through with acting school, you will no longer be a Miss World. What’s more, acting is a very tough business, and there is no guarantee that you would succeed. There are very many people who go through all the training provided, get themselves signed up with good agents, and at the end of the day don’t quite make it. That’s the reality of the game.”
I thought about the stars on the Bob Hope tour, some of whom would not burn for long, and realized how right she was. It was a tough business. I thanked Miss Crawford for her hospitality and her kind offer to assist me in pursuing an acting career. I promised I would give it serious consideration. (I did, and I decided against it.)
By the time of my second trip to New York, I was looking ahead to returning to the Albert Hall and giving up my crown at the 1971 Miss World pageant. I recalled that on the evening I had won, the producers of the show had asked my predecessor, Eva Rueber-Staier of Austria, to perform a little dance routine in front of a global television audience. If I was going to receive a similar request, I was going to be prepared. I would have my own dance routine ready to go.
I contacted an extremely talented Trinidadian dancer living in New York, Geoffrey Holder, who later performed in the 1973 James Bond film Live and Let Die. I asked if he might teach me some good modern dance moves that I could use on the occasion. Due to heavy commitments, Geoffrey was unable to help, but he put me in touch with a Norwegian dancer named Avin Harrem. I met with Avin for several sessions at a New York dance hall and learned enough steps to feel ready for the handing-over ceremonies at the Albert Hall the following month.
Miss World 1971 was held on November 10, with fifty-six contestants from around the world. The hair was a little bigger that year and the protests smaller, but little else had changed. Miss United Kingdom was the heavy favourite. She was upset by twenty-two-year-old Lúcia Petterle, a medical student representing Brazil. I had the honour of handing my crown over to Lúcia. I was never asked to perform a dance number, but I had a more enjoyable time for being prepared.
It was a lovely event, and it brought back many wonderful memories of my big night a year earlier. Nevertheless, I can honestly say I was relieved to hand over my title. Miss World had been a great honour, and a real job. For twelve months, I had felt myself under intense scrutiny. Everywhere I went, people were sizing me up. I felt a duty to appear perfect. I had once been sitting in the first-class compartment of a BOAC flight when a gentleman said, “How do I tell Miss World her eyelash is coming off?” As I was fixing it in the washroom, I wondered what my life had become. As I said, frankly, to a newspaper reporter at the end of my term: “It is like living ten years within one…It isn’t easy at all. The time was very largely spent in making impromptu speeches, modelling, opening functions of every sort. There is a bit of glamour and also a bit of pathos.”
I was satisfied that I had represented the title well, and I was eager to withdraw from the limelight and rejoin the real world. At that point, I had no reason to expect that different and in some ways greater adventures awaited me, but I was determined not to spend the rest of my life as a former Miss World. I gave Miss Brazil a friendly kiss on both cheeks, offered her my sincerest wishes for success in the forthcoming year, then joined my sister and friends. We had a great time at the ball.