IT has been branded “offensive” and its host was once pelted with rotten fruit, but the Miss World contest will be watched by two billion when the 75th anniversary final takes place this week.
And representing England at the 2026 showpiece in Vietnam will be Grace Richardson, who has already won the contest’s talent round and has sailed through to the final event.
One woman who knows what it takes to triumph at the Miss World is former title holder Ann Sidney, who won the 1964 contest representing the United Kingdom.
Now 82, and one of only five Brits to have held the title, she defends the contest against the usual criticisms that it is sexist and out of date.
Ann, who was a 20-year-old hairdresser from Poole in Dorset before entering the competition, tells The Sun: “Miss World was a soft target for protesters. I think people working in TV are more anti-Miss World than the general public.
“When I won, I was in the swimsuit. Now there is an evening gown.
“I didn’t think twice about wearing a swimsuit. I never felt embarrassed by being in a swimsuit.”
When Ann was named Miss World in 1964, the show’s British TV audience was an extraordinary 27million, which was around half the population at the time.
It catapulted Ann on to the international stage, and she starred in a movie with Mick Jagger, appeared in TV secret agent series The Avengers, entertained US troops in Vietnam with Bob Hope, auditioned for a James Bond film, had a lead role in The Sound Of Music stage show in the West End and met Elvis Presley in Las Vegas.
Miss World, which began as a bikini contest at the Festival of Britain in 1951, provided a jet-set life of five-star hotels, limousines and having the likes of Frank Sinatra fix Ann a drink.
But holding on to that crown required sacrifices and hard work.
The Miss World organisation signed a lucrative deal with a trade body for the wool industry, which meant Ann would be the Ambassadress for Wool for a year.
Her contract had a “morality clause”, which meant she could not have boyfriends and had to be Miss Perfect in terms of her behaviour.
And that was a strain for Ann, as she was in an on-off relationship with a married Bruce Forsyth.
The presenter, who died in 2017 aged 89, was a household name, compering the Sunday Night At The London Palladium variety show, decades before he became known for hosting Strictly Come Dancing.
Ann says: “The situation with Bruce kind of broke my heart. I couldn’t get any bad publicity, I would lose the contract basically and certainly lose any money. They paid me very well.
“It was a very difficult thing for me because I had this man in the background that was wanting to go out with me and to see me, and I knew I had to focus on what I was doing.
“You have to be that perfect woman. I had to be completely single and above and beyond suspicion. No dating whatsoever.”
And that is tricky when lots of men want to boast they have slept with Miss World. Once a footballer even pretended to be from room service just so he could tell his team-mates he had been in Ann’s bedroom.
When other men were too persistent, Ann put them firmly in their place.
She says: “I’m not knocking men, but you’re always going to be a trophy, something a man can boast about.
“You can’t take it seriously. Back then, if somebody got naughty, you said, ‘Stop it, you dirty old man’, you know, ‘Give me a break’. Usually men will go, ‘I’m sorry’. You dealt with those things yourself. I think today we’ve become very offended.”
There were other potential pitfalls. Playboy tycoon Hugh Hefner offered Ann $10,000 — around £140,000 in today’s money — to pose naked in his magazine.
Even though he plied her with drink, she turned him down, knowing she would be stripped of her Miss World title if she accepted his offer.
Once her year was up, Ann pursued an acting career, going into repertory theatre to learn the trade in the traditional manner.
She recalls having to overcome the widespread idea that beauty contest winners were “bubble-headed”, with people asking questions about her such as, “Can she learn lines?”.
But she went on to secure a broad range of roles, from the cult 1970 crime film Performance, starring Mick Jagger, to the cosy Seventies sitcom Are You Being Served?.
Since the death in 2019 of her fifth husband, theatre producer Duncan Weldon, she has continued living and working in California.
For other queens over the years, the price of fame was too much.
Britain’s first Miss World, Rosemarie Frankland, had a tragic end. An 18-year-old Marks & Spencer shop worker when she won in 1961, Rosemarie died aged just 57 from a drug overdose in 2000 in a shabby Los Angeles flat.
A 20-year affair with Bob Hope, two broken marriages and a short-lived acting career, which included appearing in The Beatles’ 1964 movie A Hard Day’s Night, is said to have left her depressed.
Our third winner, Leslie Langley in 1965, appeared in Bond film Goldfinger and Doctor Who, then quit showbusiness to be a dental nurse.
Welsh beauty queen Helen Morgan held the title for just four days in 1974, stepping down when it was revealed she was an unmarried mother with an 18-month-old son — somewhat more scandalous in the 1970s — and that a woman intended to name her in a divorce case.
The previous year’s winner, American Marjorie Wallace, was stripped of her title after a fling with singer Tom Jones.
In 1980, German Gabriella Brum quit after 18 hours when adult images emerged.
The last Brit to win was Sarah-Jane Hutt in 1983. Since then attitudes have softened over the years. Miss UK Nicola Willoughby was allowed to stay in the competition in 1999, even though topless photos were published.
Last year Miss England, Milla Magee, quit the show because she felt it treated her “like a prostitute”.
Now this year’s Miss England, 21-year-old Grace — a performing arts graduate from Leicestershire — is in a strong position to take the crown and sash in Vietnam.
The first openly gay Miss England, who has revealed that she was cruelly bullied over her appearance at school, was set to perform a ballet dance in the talent round, but broke her foot just a week after entering the event.
Luckily she had a back-up talent and secured her place among the Top 40 quarter-finalists by wowing judges with her rendition of the song Never Enough, from the 2017 film The Greatest Showman.
These days, it seems, talent and brains are as important as looks in the Miss World contest, and you will find biochemists and world-class dancers among the women strutting their stuff at the finals.
Since contest founder Eric Morley died in 2000 it has been run by his widow Julia, 86, who has introduced the concept of Beauty With A Purpose — an ideal which means the pageant has raised more than a billion pounds for charity.
It could be seen as a response to critics, who have blasted the pageant on feminist grounds.
One such protest against it came in 1970 when Women’s Liberation activists threw flour bombs at host Bob Hope. BBC One controller Michael Grade removed Miss World from the channel in 1984, claiming it was “verging on the offensive”. It is now available on YouTube.
But former winner Ann thinks it is time to bring back the show, which is still broadcast in more than 180 countries, to British terrestrial television.
Ann, who is still working in Hollywood, says: “Miss World has its critics, but I would do it again tomorrow.
“It was a great stepping stone for me. I travelled the world five times in a year. I met incredible people.”
WINNING WAS JUST THE BEST
By Jamie Pyatt, The Sun’s former Miss World Correspondent
FROM judges storming out of press conferences to the countries who have won it back-to-back, here are ten facts about Miss World . . .
- Soccer legend George Best was said to have bedded seven Miss World winners, including the US’s Marjorie Wallace in 1973 and Swede Mary Stavin in 1977. But he said in his autobiography: “It was only four. I didn’t turn up for the other three!”
- More than a million women apply every year to take part in the hope of becoming one of the 108 contestants and winning the $1million first prize.
- Miss World is the most watched annual TV event, with more than two billion viewers in 180 countries. In the UK it fell out of favour in the 1980s as feminists claimed it degraded women. Indeed, guests arriving for the 2002 event at London’s Alexandra Palace, including this correspondent, were pelted with human poo.
- The 11 Miss World finalists who have appeared in James Bond movies include the US’s Halle Berry (Die Another Day), Malaysia’s Michelle Yeoh (Tomorrow Never Dies) and the UK’s Carolyn Seaward (Octopussy).
- The UK is one of only three countries to have won Miss World back-to-back – with Sweden in 1951 and 1952, English roses Ann Sidney and Lesley Langley in 1964 and 1965 and India in 1999 and 2000. The last UK contestant to win was Sarah-Jane Hutt in 1983.
- Judges for Miss World have included Sir Bruce Forsyth, Sir Richard Branson, Shirley Bassey, Piers Morgan and Jerry Hall, who famously stormed out of a press conference at Sun City resort in South Africa in 1992. It happened when I asked if she had any comment on her then husband Mick Jagger allegedly being caught cheating on her, after she had warned such a question was “out of bounds”. But it gave me a front-page story and Miss World a great publicity boost!
- The Miss World crown is the fourth since the contest began and is worth £100,000. It belongs to the Miss World Organisation but each winner gets a replica when she passes her crown to the following year’s winner.
- In 2002 The Sun helped to evacuate more than 80 beauty queens from Nigeria to the UK as riots over the “offensive” contest led to more than 250 deaths. The contest was rescheduled for London.
- The current Miss World is Miss Thailand, Suchata Chuangsri, 22, who is the first Thai to win the contest.
- Final word to George Best, who famously said: “If you’d given me the choice of beating four men and smashing a goal in from 30 yards or going to bed with Miss World, it would have been a difficult choice. Luckily, I had both!”