Vanessa Williams

So there's a lot of attitude in your face.

So...

they're very polite, but they're not very vocal.

Whereas you've got like the Americans are coming in and yeah, they're, they're vocal and they're laughing and they get all the inside jokes and stuff.

So I can always tell when there's more Americans in the house than there are for, you know, the proper.

you win miss america and you're 20 1983 1983 20 years old um junior and junior junior at uni and i was supposed to come here to london for my junior abroad so i already had my deposit my room was my roommate was wet ready to to come because i you know there'd never been a black miss america i had done the pageant on a lark because i was freshman year at uni uh for musical theater you just you can't perform so

So it's your core year.

So you're learning acting and piano and dance and stagecraft and all kinds of stuff.

Sophomore year, you're allowed to start auditioning for things.

And I was in everything.

And locally at Syracuse, which is upstate New York, it's about four and a half hours north of New York City.

So locally, there was a local pageant that feeds into the Miss America pageant.

And Miss America pageant is the one pageant that has talent.

So, you know, it's not like USA universe world.

That's all looks.

And Miss America is like a scholarship pageant.

So you have a seven minute interview.

Then you, you know, do your whatever your talent is on stage.

What was your talent?

I sang.