It Happened on
November 20, 1970
The Miss World 1970 beauty pageant, hosted by Bob Hope at the Royal Albert Hall, London was disrupted by women’s liberation protesters who hurled leaflets, smoke bombs and “stink bombs” on stage. Emcee Bob Hope left the stage temporarily, muttering “Who are these bastards?”, until police cleared the hall, then crowned Jennifer Hosten of Grenada as “Miss World”.
Earlier on the same evening a bomb was placed under a BBC broadcast vehicle by The Angry Brigade, in protest at the entry of separate non-white and white contestants by South Africa.
Bob Hope delivers the convenient line about a meat market, as firecrackers go off in the audience.
Pearl Jansen, the non-white representative designated “Miss Africa South”, was the runner-up in the Miss World contest. By the weekend, a scandal emerged that Miss Grenada had been eliminated in the quarter-finals and that, even after being included in the final voting, finished second to Miss Sweden. Sir Eric Gairy, Prime Minister of Grenada, was one of the nine judges.
This moment in time was lampooned in the 2020 film Misbehaviour.
Misbehaviour, starring Keira Knightley, opens
It happened on March 13, 2020
Featuring: Philippa Lowthorpe, Keira Knightley.
People featured in this post:
Bob Hope
American comedian, actor, entertainer and producer with a career that spanned nearly 80 years and achievements in vaudeville, network radio, television, and USO Tours
Jennifer Hosten
Grenadian radio announcer, development worker, diplomat, author, model and beauty queen who won the Miss World 1970 contest, representing Grenada
Eric Gairy
first Prime Minister of Grenada, serving from his country's independence in 1974 until his overthrow in a coup by Maurice Bishop in 1979
Creativity has got to start with humanity and when you're a human being, you feel, you suffer.
- Marilyn Monroe