Whipped Cream Difficulties

Jo-Carroll Dennison was born on Dec. 16, 1923, in a men’s state prison in Arizona.

She died on October 18 at the age of 97. She was the oldest living Miss America.

With World War II raging, she visited military bases on the home front, sang and danced for the troops and sold war bonds. According to Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper, photos of her in Life magazine made her the G.I.s’ second most popular “pinup girl,” after Betty Grable.
And Hollywood came calling. Ms. Dennison landed small parts in numerous movies, notably in the war propaganda film “Winged Victory” (1944) and “The Jolson Story” (1946), about the entertainer Al Jolson. She appeared on television with Frank Sinatra and Ed Sullivan and in a few episodes of the series “Dick Tracy” in 1950.
While she never achieved stardom as an actress, she spent decades in the company of Hollywood royalty. Through her brief marriage to the comedian Phil Silvers, she became a regular at Gene Kelly’s Saturday night parties and song fests, where André Previn played the piano and she rubbed shoulders with Judy Garland and Gregory Peck. Writers like Ray Bradbury gave her guidance on what books to read; Leonard Bernstein took her to concerts and advised her on which recordings to buy.

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In addition to entertaining the troops, her reign as Miss America called for her to appear in her swimsuit. She felt this would be demeaning, she wrote, especially in some of the low-rent venues where she was sent; she refused to do it and even cut her tour short, though this received little public notice. The rebellious Yolande Betbeze Fox, Miss America 1951, got far more attention for rejecting swimwear on her tour because the pageant was sponsored by a bathing suit company, but Ms. Dennison preceded her by almost a decade.