Today is the birthday of Sharon Vaughn (July 28, 1938-December 2023). Her claim to beer fame was being named as Miss Rheingold for 1965, the last Miss Rheingold in the golden era. She was also chosen by the new owners of the brewery rather than through a public vote, which hadn’t been the case since the second year of the contest in 1941. Unfortunately, the new owners didn’t really know what to do with her and she appeared in no ads her year, but instead only made public appearances at events and had fluff pieces written about those appearances. As a result, there’s far less breweriana of her than almost any other Miss Rheingold, which is a shame. She didn’t even appear in print until March of 1965, unlike previous ones who typically were announced the previous September or October.
She was born in Missouri, but moved to Washington state when she was five, and graduated from the University of Washington as a music major. While in college, she became Miss Washington and represented the state at the Miss America Pageant, where she was second runner-up. After college, she moved to New York City and attended Julliard. She began getting small parts in Broadway musicals, but also sang in nightclubs and appeared in television commercials. In 1965, she took a year off to become Miss Rheingold. Afterwards, she was cast in Funny Girl, and also appeared in the film a few years later. While in L.A. for filming she met talent agent Byron Lapin, whom she married. She also did some television, appearing on Bewitched and Get Smart. The couple later moved to St. Louis when he took over his family’s business. She passed away in December of 2023.
Jay, one thing before I remark about this entry. Celeste Yarnell was Miss Rhinegold 1963, and she did get some movie appearances in the 1960s. I am out-&-about now, and I can’t check my copy of “The Bare Facts Video Guide”, but I have an impression she had a topless scene in some movie from ~1968.
Somewhere- I read that Rhinegold recognized its customers were migrating from being caucasians to being Caribbean | Puerto-Rican, and that, if they allowed the vote to be popular, a Puerto-Rican female was going to be the winner one of these years. But since it didn’t want to perturb its caucasian audience, it took it upon itself to proclaim Sharon Vaughn as the ‘final’ Miss Rhinegold.
As you have scribed, most of the Miss Rhinegolds had only limited appearances in television shows and movies. But Miss Celeste Y. not merely had a span of castings (thru to “Driving Me Crazy” (1991)), but she had a nude scene in the movie “The Velvet Vampire” (1971), as ‘Diane Le Fanu’. I invite you to investigate for any publicity stills from that movie. They’ll likely be _safe-for-work_. !=)}