Cape Town – “Unlike the white beauty queens who represented South Africa before and after me, my achievement - which was quite historic for the time - was completely and deliberately buried by the apartheid authorities.”
So said Pearl Janssen of Bonteheuwel, the runner-up at the Miss World 1970 pageant - a competition that challenged the traditional ideals of beauty and saw the emergence of feminism on a global stage.
Miss World was the most-watched TV show on the planet at the time, with over 100 million viewers.
Along with the white “Miss South Africa”, Jillian Jessup, Janssen as “Miss Africa South”, had participated in the 1970 competition in London, hosted by US comedy legend Bob Hope.
Janssen returned to London last week where she and the beauty queens she competed against that year, as well as a star-studded cast, iconic feminists and their friends and family, attended the premiere of the film Misbehaviour, exploring the controversial pageant.
Starring Keira Knightley, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Jessie Buckley, Keeley Hawes, Phyllis Logan, with Lesley Manville, Rhys Ifans and Greg Kinnear, Janssen is played by British actress Loreece Harrison.
Claiming that beauty competitions demeaned women, the newly-formed Women’s Liberation Movement achieved overnight fame by invading the stage and disrupting the live broadcast of the competition.
Not only that, when the show resumed, the result caused uproar: the winner was not the Swedish favourite but Miss Grenada, Jennifer Hosten, the first black woman to be crowned Miss World.
In a matter of hours, a global audience had witnessed the
Western ideal of beauty turned on its head.
“I believe I was a great ambassador for my country in 1970, but my success was never celebrated in South Africa at the time, or since,” Janssen, now 69, said.
“I was denied any opportunity to develop a career in modelling or entertainment, avenues that had been offered to other girls. After half a century living in the shadows, it feels rather strange to finally get some recognition.
“It is just a pity that it has taken a British film to make that happen,” she said.
A highlight of the experience was to re-connect with Hosten, Janssen added.
“It was wonderful to be in London where my achievement against
the odds at the 1970 Miss World
pageant is being acknowledged,” she said.
The film is directed by Bafta winner Philippa Lowthorpe (Three Girls), written by Rebecca Frayn and Gaby Chiappe, and produced by Suzanne Mackie and Sarah Jane Wheale.
The film premieres in South Africa in May.