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WILLIAMS, VANESSA 1963-

SINGER ACTRESS, FORMER MISS AMERICA

From Infamy to Fame

Young, beautiful, and ambitious for an entertainment career, Vanessa Williams made headlines in the 1980s for two "firsts" in American history: she was the first black Miss America and the first Miss America to resign her crown. The resignation took place, under pressure from the Miss America organization, following the 1984 publication in Penthouse magazine of steamy photographs taken of Williams when she was nineteen. Williams emerged from the controversy with a great deal of sympathy from the public—many people believed that she had been exploited—and was well on the way to the career she desired. In fact, the publicity surrounding her resignation may have helped her chances more than merely being Miss America could have.

The Girl Next Door

The daughter of two music teachers, Williams grew up in Millwood, New York, with the dream of becoming the first black Rockette. Instead, the summer after her first year at Syracuse University she found work as a receptionist for a freelance photographer, Tom Chiapel, who persuaded her to pose nude for him, both alone and in erotic poses with another woman. Williams later claimed that Chiapel assured her that no one else would ever see the photographs.

Miss America

During her sophomore year at college Williams acted in a play; her cast photo led to suggestions that she could be the next Miss America. She won the Miss Greater Syracuse pageant, became Miss New York State, and, in September 1983, entered the Miss America pageant. She won—the first black woman to do so in the pageant's history. The pageant's organizers could not have asked for a better Miss America: though outspoken—Williams supported the Equal Rights Amendment and was pro-choice on the abortion issue—she was obviously intelligent, as well as beautiful and gracious.

Grace under Pressure

She remained poised when, two months before the end of her year-long reign, Pent-house announced that it would be publishing nude photographs of Williams. At the request of the Miss America officials she relinquished her title, but she emerged from the ordeal with much public support. Many people believed that she should not have been required to step down as Miss America; some criticized Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione for buying the photographs from Chiapel (Playboy had turned them down); and there were those who considered the Miss America officials to be hypocritical for claiming that the pictures violated the sanctity of a contest based largely on women's appearances.

Living Well

Williams disappeared from the public eye, returning in the late 1980s as a pop singer and an actress in television movies and onstage. Her albums have earned her Grammy nominations and have sold millions of copies, and in 1994 she assumed the title role in a Broadway production of Kiss of the Spider Woman.