Miss Europe

For the 1930 film, see Miss Europe (film).

Miss Europe
Formation1927; 97 years ago (1927)
TypeBeauty pageant
HeadquartersParis
Beirut
Location
Official language
Websitemisseurope.eu
Miss Europe 1954–55, Christel Schaack

Miss Europe is a beauty pageant for women from all over Europe. It was established in February 1927 by Fanamet [de], the European distributor of Paramount, as a one-off event where the winner was to star in a film directed by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau.[citation needed] After the initial twelve-person jury couldn't decide between 10 contestants, a runoff election was held where Murnau chose the winner. Murnau ended up choosing Štefica Vidačić of Yugoslavia as the winner and the first ever Miss Europe.[1][2] Miss Europe was later re-established in December 1928 by French journalist Maurice de Waleffe (1874–1946),[3] who also created, in 1920, what by 1927 had become the Miss France pageant.[4] Miss Europe, under de Waleffe, was first held at the Paris Opera with participants from 18 countries. The first contest under de Waleffe did not occur until February 1929.

The contest was interrupted by the onset of World War II but was later re-established, after de Waleffe died, by Roger Zeiler and Claude Berr who founded the Mondial Events Organization (MEO). Most contestants won their respective national contests for Miss World & Miss Universe, and participated as supplemental training for their respective competitions. Berr died in 1981 and in 2003, Roger Zeiler sold the license for the pageant to Endemol France, part of the Dutch television production company Endemol. In 2007 to 2009, the competition was announced to be held in various location such as Moscow and Beirut but it did not happen as they had to stop the contest after 2006 due to internal problems with the organizations.

In 2016, the pageant was "revived" by the newly formed Miss Europe Organization originally headquartered in London but then later moved to Edinburgh, Scotland. Apparently there is a connection with the previous organizers as the winner of the 2016 edition wore the same crown (tiara/diadem) as her predecessors.[5]

  1. ^ Štefica Vidačić: The neglected muse. Biography of the novel of the film musician and UFA general music director Willy Schmidt-Gentner. Frieling, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-89009-804-5, S. 48–50
  2. ^ Ida Ograjšek Gorenjak: Hollywood comes to Central Europe: the Fanamet beauty contest in Central and Southeastern Europe, in: Iskra Iveljić (Hrsg.): The Entangled Histories of Vienna, Zagreb and Budapest (18th-20th Century), FF-Press, Zagreb 2015, ISBN 978-953-175-584-9, S. 222
  3. ^ "Historique « Comite Miss France J-Raibaut". Archived from the original on 29 September 2013. Retrieved 20 March 2016.
  4. ^ Grout, Holly (2013). "Between Venus and Mercury: The 1920s Beauty Contest in France and America". French Politics, Culture & Society. 31 (1): 47–68. doi:10.3167/fpcs.2013.310103. ISSN 1537-6370. JSTOR 24517582.
  5. ^ "Победительницей конкурса "Мисс Европа" в Бейруте стала украинская француженка Диана". NEWSru.co.il (in Russian). Retrieved 6 September 2021.