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Associated Press file
Jean Bartel, center, shown with fellow Miss America finalists in 1943, won the pageant as Miss California.
Saturday, Jan. 22, 2011 | 2 a.m.
Sun coverage
Jean Bartel is the oldest of the 47 ex-Miss Americas who were recognized on national TV last Saturday night to commemorate the 90th pageant, and I wanted to chase down a rumor that Bartel had been, once upon a time, a Las Vegas headliner.
She confirmed it: “I was the opening act for Danny Thomas back in the day. There was really only one casino there, the Flamingo. And Bugsy Siegel and the gang ran it, and he couldn’t have been nicer to me. After the show, Danny Thomas and I would talk, talk, talk, because we were never sleepy. Then he would go out in the back of the hotel with the orchestra leader and skeet shoot. It was nothing but desert out there.”
Bartel was crowned before the pageant began being televised, before Miss America was a pop icon. The former Miss California, in fact, struggled to get media attention and earn the public’s respect. She entered the pageant only because a prominent Broadway director was a judge, and her aim was to wow him as her ticket to stardom. She had no intention of being a pinup; after her win she even refused to model the bathing suit of the Miss America sponsor. Catalina Swimwear would go on to dump the event and start another, the Miss USA pageant.
Yet Bartel cultivated a professional, patriotic image, selling more war bonds in 1943 than anyone else and urging the Miss America board to begin a scholarship program that is now the organization’s calling card. Bartel was the first winner to enroll in college when she won.
With these measures and her genuine singing ability, she won her battle to be taken seriously. The soprano traveled the world for decades performing with her band and, in 1952, became the first Miss America to star in a Broadway show, “Of Thee I Sing.”
Her Las Vegas history, it turns out, is limited to that Flamingo gig. She didn’t return for 50 years, and that was only to accompany her husband on a business trip. By then, the Strip was unrecognizable, of course.
A widow who never had children, Bartel lives with her dog, Teddy, in the same Los Angeles house where her parents raised her. She’s in her 80s now — “I forget how old I am because I’ve been lying about it for so long” — and was tickled that anyone would seek her out for an interview.
Would she ever come back to Vegas to perform?
“Of course not,” she said flatly.
No?
“No, because I don’t have an act together and nowadays it’s so professional there,” she said. “You’d be an idiot to do that. You can’t compare to what they do today.”
Well, I didn’t mean she should walk a wire in a Cirque show or book a gig at the Colosseum. But who wouldn’t love, for just one evening, to see her sing the standards of the day and recall the days of Bugsy. Maybe the newly crowned Teresa Scanlan can be her accompanist when she’s done with “Regis & Kelly”
“Oh, I’m not 21 anymore,” she said with a giggle. “I’m a great audience, I must say that. But, no thank you. I had a lovely career. It’s not my turn anymore.”
The complete version of this column appears in the current issue of the Las Vegas Weekly, a sister publication of the Sun.
A woman with class and humility, something that is not seen too much anymore in this world.
The Mob Museums should interview her and use it as a video for the museums, as added history of the Mob in Las Vegas"
Thanks for the nice piece. It's a pleasure to encounter the human side of Las Vegas in the person of Jean Bartel, and to learn her story of accomplishment. My hat is off to Jean, and to Steve Friess and the SUN.
Good piece Steve
A breath of fresh air when compared to today's rappers,gangsta's,wana be's and losers.A sad day when the best society has to offer today is an apearance's by the Karrdashians ,Hilton and Carmen Electra and some basketball players exwife who is an over blown fluzzie whom failed at a legitmate business.
Nice story.
Littel Trivia about Bugsy Siegel. When he was pondering on the name, one of his co-horts came up with the name Flamenco-spanish for Flamingo and he decided to call it The Flamingo. It had nothing do with the love of his life-Virginia Hill. Virginia Hill, married a ski instructor half her age But the marriage failed. The Internal Revenue Service hounded her for years for unpaid taxes. One day in March 1966, the 49 year old "Mistress to the Mob" took a handful of prescription pills near a waterfall in an Austrian village. She died of an overdose.
Jean Bartel is beautiful. She is pure class and not like the women of today who have tattoos, wear jeans and have no class. Women today are more like men. Back in 1943 women were women and demanded more respect. Who can respect women now?
Women today will mate with just about anyone and do not have the feminine ways that they had back in the 40's and 50's. Bugsy Siegel was certainly lucky to have been alive in that wonderful era even though he did not live into the 1950's I admire him.