Beauty Queen from Longview Dies
Posted/updated on: October 13, 2010 at 3:42 pm
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Longview native Leona Gage, who in 1957 was named Miss USA but had the title stripped the next day when pageant officials learned she was married and a mother of two, has died in Los Angeles. She was 71. Gage died of heart failure after spending several weeks at a Sherman Oaks hospital, her son Robert Kaminer told the Associated Press.
Like Vanessa Williams and Carrie Prejean decades later, Gage’s pageant scandal probably brought her more fame than if she had kept the crown. Born Mary Leona Gage, she appeared as Miss Maryland USA in the competition in Long Beach, California. Gage also lied about her age, telling pageant officials she was 21 when she was 18.
After losing the trophy, prize money, trips and studio contracts that went to first runner-up Miss Utah, she pursued an acting career. But that didn’t take off. She had a difficult life in subsequent decades: Six failed marriages, lost custody of her five children, two of whom died before her, drug abuse and suicide attempts.
