The pageant was created in the 1920's as a promotion to extend the commercial summer season of this resort. And the 1983 titleholder, Debra Sue Maffett, caused a stir when it was learned that she had altered the shape of her nose. Miss America for 1976, Tawny Goldin, spoke out on subjects ranging from abortion to marijuana. 15.Īlthough no Miss America has ever been asked to step down, there have been other controversies. Marks said Suzette Charles of New Jersey, the first runner-up in the pageant last September, would be asked if she was available to take the title for the rest of Miss Williams's term, which ends with the crowning of Miss America 1985 here on Sept. Horn said a new regulation might be written by the pageant's executive committee to bar from competition anyone who had posed nude for publication and to require the resignation of any titleholder who did so after winning. ''For 10 months Vanessa Williams has served the pageant and the title of Miss America well but we must make it clear that we cannot and do not condone her actions either in posing for the photographs or in failing to reveal the facts at the appropriate point in the selection process that led to her being awarded the crown,'' he said. Williams, the photographs were taken in 1982, when her daughter was working as a receptionist for Tom Chaipel, a photographer in Mount Kisco, N.Y. She was just 18 or 19, and all people are liable to make errors.

Her mother, asked to comment about her daughter's posing nude, said: ''I don't hold any moral judgments. Miss Williams was a junior at Syracuse University when she entered the Miss America pageant as Miss New York. Williams Jr., regarded their daughter as ''an excellent role model.'' Her mother, Helen Williams, said in a telephone interview, ''We're very proud of her and the person she's become.'' She said she and her husband, Milton A. She climbed down a set of stairs that had been pulled up to the plane and left the airport in a limousine before she could be interviewed. Miss Williams, of Millwood in Westchester County, flew into La Guardia Airport yesterday afternoon from Little Rock, Ark. He quoted her as explaining, ''Well, it was three years ago and young people do foolish things and I greatly regret it.''

Nude junior miss pageant