NEW YORK TIMES
by Enid Nemy and William McDonald
January 5, 2015

Bess Myerson, a New York favorite daughter who basked in the public eye for decades — as Miss America in 1945, as a television personality, as a force in public affairs and finally as a player in a shattering municipal scandal — died on Dec. 14 at her home in Santa Monica, Calif. She was 90. Her death, which occurred in the relative obscurity in which she lived her last years, had not been publicly announced but was confirmed on Monday by public records….Her coronation, on Sept. 8, 1945, just days after Japan’s surrender had ended World War II, came at a time when a beauty queen could still capture the nation’s attention and even emerge a heroine — in Ms. Myerson’s case as the first (and, so far, only) Jewish Miss America. READ MORE