OUR ONE & ONLY
- Clayton Trutor
- 1 day ago
- 10 min read
STORY BY CLAYTON TRUTOR
PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY RAYMOND MOONEY
Seventy Years Ago, Rutland’s Carlene Johnson Became Vermont’s First and, Thus Far, Only Miss USA
Carlene Johnson’s friends in Rutland called her “Muscles.” The petite blonde participated in all manner of sports at Rutland High School—baseball, basketball, volleyball, and cheer. In addition to her athletic prowess, she showed off her biceps and lifted heavy things for the amusement of her classmates.
Spectators across the country learned all about “Muscles” in July 1955 when Johnson entered and won the Miss USA pageant. Johnson was the first and, thus far, only Vermonter to win Miss USA or Miss America. She is, in fact, the only resident of any northern New England state to win either pageant.
Johnson put those muscles on display in the post-pageant press conference when she lifted the large and cumbersome Miss USA trophy over her head. Every previous winner had relied on a male chaperone to hoist the trophy, typically with two hands.
The outward strength that Carlene Johnson displayed that summer evening in Long Beach, California offered visible proof of the inner strength she displayed during her brief life. Johnson died at just age 35 in 1969 after a lifelong battle with juvenile diabetes. During her childhood, Johnson’s name appeared frequently in the Rutland Herald on the list of people being admitted or discharged from the city hospital—a then-commonplace practice in newspapers. Mentions of her illness are few and far between in published accounts.
Carlene Johnson’s life was rich with victories over the disease. Johnson was born in Rutland on May 31, 1933, just as insulin therapy became widely available. Canadian pharmacologist Frederick Banting and his team at the University of Toronto had won the Nobel Prize in 1923 for their discovery of the treatment. It took time for the therapy to become accessible to many diabetics, particularly children. Well into the 1930s, a majority of children diagnosed with diabetes did not reach adulthood.
Carlene King Johnson was one of the lucky ones who got the chance to author an adult life. She was the third child of Dr. Norman F. and Katherine Johnson. Her middle name was her mother’s maiden name. The Johnsons relocated to Rutland in the 1930s from Lincoln, Nebraska. Norman was a dentist and decided to join his older brother Earle’s dental practice in Rutland. Carlene was close with her
older brothers, Lyman and Raymond. Lyman joined the family business, becoming a dentist himself. Raymond enjoyed a long career as an advertising executive, primarily in New York City.
Ray and Clara King, Carlene’s maternal grandparents, resided in Rutland for most of her childhood, relocating from Lincoln in the early 1940s after closing their laundry business.
Initially, the Johnsons resided on Killington Avenue before purchasing a new home on Piedmont Parkway, a quiet development built not long after World War II. The family clearly adapted to their new surroundings well, becoming ensconced in the city’s professional class. They joined Grace Congregational Church and belonged to the Rutland Country Club.
Carlene attended the Dana School for her primary education. Her name appeared frequently in the Rutland Herald for her involvement in Girl Scout Troop 1. Rarely did a Thanksgiving or Christmas pass without Carlene and the other members of Troop 1 being lauded in the local newspaper for their efforts on behalf of the elderly or needy in the community.
Starting in junior high, Carlene served on “patrol,” helping younger children cross the street on the way to and from school. In 1945, the tomatoes she grew in their backyard finished third at the Vermont State Fair in Rutland. (She won the Elks Club tomato growing competition the following year).
At Rutland High School, Carlene proved just as busy. In addition to sports, she participated in theatre, dance, and chorus. During her senior year, she made the All-State Music Festival as part of the choir. Johnson graduated with honors from Rutland High School in 1951 and matriculated at nearby Middlebury College.
Johnson majored in drama and joined the Kappa Sigma sorority but only spent one year at the esteemed liberal arts college. For a time, she seemed destined for the family business, attending classes at the Forsyth School of Dental Hygiene at Tufts University, just outside of Boston. She left dental hygienist school too, pursuing instead a modeling career with a Boston-based agency. It was during this restless time in her life that Johnson started entering beauty pageants.
In 1951, Carlene was named Queen of Rutland’s Annual Hospital Charity Cotillion, the most significant ball on the city’s social calendar. In subsequent years, Johnson served as a coach for other young women who participated in Cotillion.
Back and forth between Rutland and Boston, Carlene started her own clothing design and costume jewelry business, which she sold out of her home and to a handful of stores in New England.
Carlene wore one of her own designs on May 23, 1953, when she competed in the eighth annual Miss Vermont pageant, held at Burlington’s Memorial Auditorium.
She wore a pale blue evening gown, which according to the Vermont Sunday News’ Larry Van Benthuysen, “revealed to wonderful advantage her attractive shoulders and back which showed a smooth suntan.”
She performed a modern dance routine in the talent competition and discussed her small business during questioning with the judges.
“It could be said that she’s the Doris Day type, a refreshingly wholesome blonde blue-eyed beauty with a scintillating smile. Her hair is natural curly blonde, incidentally,” wrote Vermont Sunday News’ Gil Wood of her presentation in the Miss Vermont pageant. Wood described her as standing “5’4 but 5’8 in heels.”
Johnson won the competition, earning her a spot in the Miss America pageant that September in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
In the leadup to the Miss America pageant, Johnson was one of several competitors featured on NBC’s Today Show. The segment on Johnson included footage of her performing a dance routine, throwing a baseball outside of her Rutland home, greeting Rutland Mayor Dan Healey in front of City Hall, and visiting the Champlain Valley Fair.
Johnson finished 13th in the Miss America Pageant. Her time as a pageant contestant was not over though. Johnson’s status as Miss Vermont earned her a bid to the Miss USA pageant, which had just emerged as a competing beauty contest in 1952.
Catalina Swimwear, a longtime Miss America sponsor, created the Miss USA pageant and global Miss Universe pageant after Yolande Betbeze, Miss America 1950, refused to pose for pictures in the company’s swimwear. Catalina hosted the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants each July in Long Beach, California, near the company’s headquarters.
While the Miss Vermont pageant organization paid for Johnson to attend Miss America, she found a local beneficiary in the Rutland Chamber of Commerce to pay for her expenses to attend Miss USA in July 1955.
Johnson flew out to Southern California the day before the pageant. She barely slept the night before the competition, speaking with her parents by phone after 2 AM Pacific time to calm her jitters.
Her breakfast before the pageant was grapefruit juice, a donut, and a glass of milk.
During the competition, she wore a navy-blue strapless gown of her own design which featured pearls and rhinestones with a black velvet bodice. For the swimwear competition, she wore a one-piece Catalina bathing suit.
When answering the judges’ questions, she described herself as the “president, vice president, and waterboy” of her jewelry business. Orders poured in for her designs in the aftermath of the competition.
A judge asked her if she was a “traditional Vermont Republican,” noting that the state had not gone for a Democrat since Franklin Pierce. Johnson replied “is there any other kind?”
Press described Johnson as “the prettiest Republican you ever saw.” Johnson answered “nolo” to “Yes or No” questions from the judges, explaining that “nolo” was the Latin word for “no.”
Her appearance and responses earned her a spot in the finals with four other competitors—Miss Arkansas, Miss Georgia, Miss Nebraska, and Miss California.
During her final round of questioning, Johnson was asked why so few successful beauty contestants seemed to come from New England.
“Well, as you know, the East is very funny about beauty contests. We’re a very conservative people, but my family goes along with me as does the town [of Rutland], as long as I don’t get a lump on my head,” Johnson said, drawing laughs from the Miss USA judges.
Later that evening, the judges announced their selection of Carlene Johnson as Miss USA 1955. In addition to the trophy she held aloft, Johnson won a six-month movie contract with Universal and a pearl necklace.
“Gosh. I didn’t dream I’d win. When I came out here and saw all the beautiful girls in the contest, I felt like turning around and going home. When they announced I was the winner, I just got numb all over,” Johnson told the Los Angeles Times.
Minutes after the announcement, a banner proclaiming Carlene Johnson as Miss USA stretched across Main Street in Rutland. Vermont’s conspicuously frugal governor Joseph Johnson (no relation) felt sufficiently luxurious about the Rutland native’s victory to send her a congratulatory telegram.
“We knew she was going to win,” Rutland Chamber of Commerce president Robert S. Franconi told the Burlington Free Press. “We expect our girls to be champions. After all, we also have Andrea Mead Lawrence, Olympic ski champion. And Mae Murray, one of the top U.S. woman golfers.”
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the backstage cattiness following Johnson’s victory seemed like something out of a bad movie.
“I think something must be wrong with the judge’s eyes,” Miss Delaware, Helen Denise Blackwell, told the Philadelphia Inquirer. The paper indicated that several other contestants felt similarly but none of the others would be quoted directly.
Johnson created some controversy of her own on the night of the pageant.
Johnson gave evasive answers about whether she had a boyfriend, suggesting at one point that she might have ties to more than one young man and may be going through a tiff with one of them.
Several Vermont newspapers had reported her engagement to Leslie Streeter in summer 1954. Streeter and Johnson met at Middlebury, where Streeter was captain of the ski team. At the time, Streeter, a native of Northfield, Vermont, was the reigning NCAA national skiing champion. He was selected to the 1956 U.S. Winter Olympic Team in Cortina, Italy but was unable to participate due to an injury he sustained in training.
“She was wearing my ring when she left,” Streeter told United Press International, “but I don’t know what she’s doing now. I’m not too worried. She’s done things like this before.”
At some point thereafter, the Johnson-Streeter engagement ceased to be.
One day after winning Miss USA, Johnson competed in the Miss Universe pageant. She was one of 15 semifinalists in the 33-woman field and received loud applause from the spectators at the Long Beach Auditorium.
The whirlwind continued on August 31, 1955, when Rutland celebrated “Carlene Johnson Day”. Johnson waved to onlookers from an open-top convertible at a noontime parade. Police cruisers from across the Green Mountain State escorted her through Merchants’ Row with sirens a-blazing. After the parade, she had lunch with the Rutland Chamber at the Fairmont.
Mayor Dan Healey gave her a key to the city. The Rutland Railway Corporation named her honorary chief executive. Police chief John Dinn bestowed her with an honorary badge and a Billy club. The Fire Department provided her with a badge and let her drive the fire truck.
The evening ended with a buffet supper at the Rutland Country Club, where a gaggle of well-wishers brought her dozens of gifts.
Johnson returned to California to fulfill her contract with Universal. Her film career proved short lived.
Johnson appeared in two films for Universal Pictures. She had a non-speaking role in the Benny Goodman Story, starring Steve Allen and Donna Reed. In Written on the Wind, Johnson appeared on screen for close to a minute as a “college girl at a party.” The Douglas Sirk-directed picture was a smoldering family drama that included the likes of Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack, and Dorothy Malone. Written on the Wind was a box office and critical success, earning Malone an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and Stack his only Oscar nomination. Despite Johnson’s appearance in two high-profile pictures, Universal decided against renewing her contract.
She would soon announce her engagement to an Air Force veteran named Lawrence Harold Drake, who hailed from Long Beach. Drake was an engineer who designed boats for a firm based in Southern California. They married on December 21, 1957, in Rutland at Grace Congregational Church. The couple settled in Long Beach.
Johnson chose a Christmas motif for her wedding. The interior of the church was decorated in red, green, and white. The ceremony included several Christmas Carols and the bridesmaids dressed in red. The Rutland Country Club hosted 150 for a Christmas-themed reception that evening.
Over the next few years, Johnson spent a lot of time going back and forth between the coasts. Johnson appeared on People are Funny with Art Linkletter, the Tonight Show with Jack Parr, and had a featured spot in the Tournament of Roses parade. She hosted several home and boat shows in the Northeastern United States. She cut ribbons for banks, shopping centers, and building projects around New England.
Johnson’s post-pageant life in Long Beach seems to have been a fairly quiet one. She worked for a time in sales for a department store and developed an interest in painting. On multiple occasions, the Long Beach Press-Telegram made note of Johnson’s hospital admissions in the early 1960s, mentioning explicitly on one occasion that she was a lifelong diabetic and few people knew of her condition when she was Miss USA. When her picture appeared in California newspapers, she looked extremely thin by the mid-1960s, likely the result of her diabetes.
In 1966, Johnson filed for divorce from Lawerence Harold Drake. The couple had no children. When the divorce was finalized, Johnson relocated to Houston, Texas, where her brother Raymond resided at the time. In Houston, Johnson met an insurance executive named Don Holloway, whom she married in 1968. The union lasted less than a year. Carlene Johnson Holloway died on April 15, 1969, from complications arising from diabetes.
Carlene’s remains came home to Rutland. Her funeral took place at Grace Congregational Church, and she was buried at the city’s magnificent Evergreen Cemetery. Her family asked for donations be made to the Rutland Hospital.
Despite her short life, Carlene Johnson made unique and evident contributions to her community. More quietly, she displayed courage and perseverance in the face of an often-debilitating condition.
