PNB took an ambivalent stand on the 1998 Miss Universe Pageant. One side of our nature (the angel) was charmed by the whole event, but just a bit too mellow to do anything about it. The other side (the hard-bitten rascal in the business suit) wanted to use the event to call attention to our historic importance in the pageant world.
Well, hardness has its limits. The message, such as it was, has been delivered. Now it's time to get back to the sunny, sometimes silly, world of beauty contests.
Through the generosity of Miss Universe, Inc. (www.missuniverse.com), we bid goodbye to the 1998 pageant with this gallery of glamour. And as an organization -- which will continue to publish some of the liveliest commentary in the business -- we salute the adorable Wendy Fitzwilliam. Aloha.
Miss Trinidad and Tobago, Wendy Fitzwilliam, won the Miss Universe crown on May 12,1998, in Hawaii. She also won the best costume award. Contrary to what was said on the program, she is the second Miss Universe from her country, not the first. (Janelle Commissiong was the first, in 1977.)
The first runner-up was Veruska Tatiana Ramirez of Venezuela, who won the swimsuit award. The second runner-up was Joyce Giraud, Miss Puerto Rico, a former winner of the Venus Swimwear International Model Search. Other finalists were Silvia Fernanda Ortiz of Colombia and Shawnae Jebbia, Miss USA.
Ms. Fitzwilliam wins, among other prizes, a scholarship. This is the first scholarship to be issued in the Miss Universe program.
Vladimira Hrenovcikova of the Slovak Republic was chosen Miss Photogenic, and Asuman Krause of Turkey was chosen Miss Congeniality by her fellow contestants.
The televised pageant has evolved into a two-tier presentation, with color commentators in the balcony playing a role at least equal to that of the onstage emcee. The function of these decorative young women was once little more than introducing shampoo commercials, but at Miss Universe 1998 they had all the best lines. They chatted about gowns and breast implants and gave a "backstage" flavor to the show, while the emcee was left to make lame jokes about the language barrier and male-female relations.
Were the balcony beauties working from a script? One suspects so, but in that case their writer needs a course in the history of beauty contests. The gaffe about the pageant history of Trinidad and Tobago was particularly jarring.
After the first announcement of finalists, the contestants' names were almost never mentioned. They were identified by country instead. If this is the new system, it seems annoyingly impersonal. Perhaps the names were considered too exotic for American ears.
Although this was the third consecutive year in which the pageant was held on U.S. soil --- a streak that is much too long --- Hawaii was displayed to great advantage. The shot of Miss USA and Miss Japan visiting the Pearl Harbor military memorial was particularly moving. It was, in the best sense, a Miss Universe moment.
