60 years of Miss South Africa
Take a glamorous trip down memory lane as SA’s biggest beauty contest celebrates a milestone birthday
THE crown, the sash, the glitz, the gloss – no prizes for guessing which night this is.
For 60 years the Miss South Africa pageant has been making dreams come true for scores of women who’ve strutted their stuff, slayed in swimsuits, rocked ballgowns and shared their visions of a better world.
The contest has made household names of a few, spurred others on to become entrepreneurs and helped make successful businesswomen of several.
Some have had drama, some have been embroiled in scandal and some have even had run-ins with wild animals.
And so, in honour of the pageant’s 60th birthday, we take a look at six decades of everything Miss South Africa, from its humble beginnings to its arrival on the world stage – and all the good, the bad and the beautiful in between.
THE FIRSTS
Norma Vorster was crowned the first official Miss SA in 1956. At the height of apartheid in 1970 two winners were crowned: a white woman, Jillian Jessup, became Miss SA, and a black winner, Pearl Jansen, was named Miss Africa South. Both competed in the Miss World pageant that year, where Pearl was crowned runner-up and Jillian came fifth. The Miss Africa South contest was scrapped in 1976. Janine Botbyl and half-sister Diana TildenDavis were both Miss SA – Janine in 1988 and Diana in 1991. In 2004 Diana had a narrow escape when she was attacked by a hippo while canoeing in Botswana. Her husband, Chris Kruger, who ran a safari company, described how “Diana came around a corner and surprised a hippo in the channel. The animal attacked the canoe and Diana was bitten in the lower leg just above the ankle.” Cape Town’s Amy Kleinhans became the first Miss SA of colour when she was crowned at Sun City in 1992. At the Miss World pageant (she was placed in the top five) Amy waved a white flag, symbolising peace, instead of the then SA flag. Nelson Mandela praised her for her bravery. The first black Miss SA was Jacqui Mofokeng, a BCom student at the University of the Witwatersrand, who took the crown in 1993. She was first runner-up in the Miss World contest. In 1997 pharmacist Kerishnie Naicker of Durban became the first Indian-South African to win the title. She was fourth in the Miss World contest.