Miss Universe 2001 Denise Quiñones:
A Victory For The Home Team!

By Derek Miller

Miss Puerto Rico won the title to the delight of noted supporters from her country, including Ricky Martin.

Miss Puerto Rico Denise Quiñones wins the Miss Universe 2001 crown as Ricky Martin energizes a festive live pageant broadcast.

Miss Puerto Rico’s Supporters

A worldwide throng of TV viewers in 130 countries tuned in to see the 50th Miss Universe competition held this past May in Puerto Rico. The show promised the usual fare. Seventy-seven of the world’s most beautiful women. The glamour of the evening gowns. The sex appeal of slim bodies in swimwear competition. The mounting tension as these beautiful young women would be subjected to difficult, thought-provoking interrogation from a panel of wizened judges.

But on this night, the anticipation was unusually thick. A month-long series of controversial stories had broken over the French delegate’s gender, Miss Israel’s fling with wearing a flak-jacket, and Miss Brazil’s alleged fondness for plastic surgeries. Reports flew that the governor of Puerto Rico was dissing the show despite millions of dollars her country had invested as the host country.

As 9 p.m. EST approached, the atmosphere in Ruben Rodriguez Coliseum was electric. Then the broadcast unfolded on TV screens around the world, and one thing was crystal clear: This Miss Universe pageant had voltage to spare.

Energy was its middle name. Wattage was built into literally every aspect of the show. Banks of computerized lighting effects and video screens were vying for audience attention. Faux flames lit up silver-screen backdrops. Floodlights swept across the rafters. Twin black cylindrical towers filled with round colored lights flanked a pretzel-shaped catwalk projecting from the stage. Strobe lights mimicked the flash photography of a runway fashion show. And when the show’s celebrity star rose up from a smoke-filled lower level, he was wearing a see-through top, a thousand-watt smile and went by the name of Ricky Martin.

Many veteran Miss Universe pageant enthusiasts continue to yearn for bygone days when the shows consisted of richly dressed and coifed women gliding effortlessly before a black-tie crowd and a couple of CBS camera crews. But more recent productions have arrived packaged by “hip-hop” producers paying homage to thoroughly-modern MTV. And, by the standards that make latter-daybroadcasting the undisputed bastion of public spectacle, this 2001 Miss Universe production by the Trump Organization and CBS was an undisputed success. We’re talking a major PR coup here — as in public relations as well as Puerto Rico. First, whoever engineered the low-brow-rumor buzz leading up to the show is a media-manipulating genius. Then, of course, Puerto Rico was the hostess with the mostest: a gloriously appreciative country with luscious beaches, a celebration-rich culture, and a desire to spend money attracting attention and new business. And finally, the topping on the cake was hiring Ricky Martin, a native of Puerto Rico and pop-music phenomenon, who made headlines merely by appearing to entice the curious younger viewers not pre-sold on the pageant itself. The results? Somewhat better ratings than the Miss USA competition in February.

Naomi Campbell (left) and Elle MacPherson (right) served as co-hosts.

Co-host super models Elle MacPherson and Naomi Campbell added to the visual sizzle, greeting the audience with “Bienvenidos, everybody...” Of course, no one expected these two gorgeous women to equal Diane Sawyer’s on-camera skills, and neither co-host said anything to dispel those expectations. Two of the better announcers on the set were backstage. Doing transitional announcing duties behind the audience was Brook Lee, the very appealing former Miss Universe 1997, who made the job look easy. Lending the proceedings a lighthearted male viewpoint was the affable Todd Newton, whose quick quips came off as campy and unpretentious. “This may be the most talked-about Miss Universe in history,” Newton said to lead off the show, and he was right.

All that was left, then, was a happy ending. No, not Ricky Martin cashing his paycheck. The crowning of Miss Universe 2001!

To get to the heart of this pageant, though, you had to wade through more on-screen sideshows than puddles on San Juan back streets after a rainstorm — among them, videotaped segments pulling back the curtain on the show’s choreographer, director, security police, and wardrobe supervisor. (Was anyone with a teen-age daughter surprised to learn that these girls throw their clothes in a heap on the floor?) When you added in the promotional segments for Puerto Rico itself (picturesque scenes of delegates snorkeling, kayaking, jet-skiing and generally cavorting in tropical splendor), the competition’s continuity was compromised somewhat during the two-hour broadcast.

FIVE STILL ALIVE Misses India, Puerto Rico, U.S.A., Greece and Venezuela await the judges’ decision after the evening gown competition.

Despite the commercial interruptions, the show’s pace rarely dropped. That’s to the credit of the producers, who found ways to inject energy and anticipation into both live and taped segments. Compared to the recent past, this pageant was much better focused on traditional aspects of pageantry. All of the delegates paraded on-stage in their costume of origin, for example, as well as in their evening gowns. Both segments went briskly, with only about eight minutes taken up by the evening gown competition. The second stage appearance by Ricky Martin also included cultural enrichment, as the singer joined traditional Puerto Rican bomba and plena musicians on the conga drums, while masked dancers on stilts strutted behind them. This was, by today’s standards, truly memorable live television.

In two respects, though, the show stumbled like a girl whose gown is too tight at the ankles. It moved too quickly into announcing the 10 finalists and then didn’t announce their names, just their country, losing much of the warmth and personality of past years’ telecasts. They were: Miss Greece, 22-year-old Evelina Papantoniou; Miss USA, 24-year-old Kandace Krueger; Miss Venezuela, 18-year-old Eva Ekvall; Miss India, 22-year-old Celina Jaitly; Miss Spain, 21-year-old Eva Siso Casals; Miss Nigeria, 18-year-old Agbani Darego; Miss Israel, 18-year-old Ilanit Levi; Miss Russia, 20-year-old Oxana Kalandyrets; Miss France, 20-year-old Elodie Gossuin; and Miss Puerto Rico, 24-year-old Denise Quiñones.

Then came the swimsuit segments. Each delegate’s time was apportioned between videotaped strolls on Puerto Rico’s white-sand beaches (in Bluepoint’s blue swimsuits) and live struts on the coliseum’s catwalk (the sponsor’s red swimwear). Sandwiched in between a couple of Todd Newton interviews, these distracting video clips engaged in too much gratuitous MTV-like effects, threatening to created enough waves to jostle the girls out paddling on their surfboards.

In both the swimwear and evening gown competitions, a list of the judges’ scores for the top-10 finalists was briefly superimposed on the screen, but you had to be quick with your math to see by the tally that Miss Greece, Miss USA, and Miss Puerto Rico were leading the pack.

The swimwear and evening gown competition results led to the judges final five selection: Misses India (Jaitly), Venezuela (Ekvall), Puerto Rico (Quiñones), Greece (Papantoniou) and USA (Krueger).

Next up, it should have been off to the interviews, but instead the show veered into a series of detours: a too-brief gathering of Miss Universe alumnae, Todd Newton confirming that Miss France was “100 percent natural” woman, a final round of Puerto Rican promotional video, a bumbling piece with Newton, Campbell, a globe and some common pins, and then Ricky Martin’s richly scenic second performance.

Finally, back to the competition’s final round: the Interview. The judges threw the finalists questions that were worded so that they can be unambiguously translated into any one of the international delegates’ native languages. Next time, we look forward to more probing questions that translators are given time to review for clarity’s sake.

After her final walk on-stage along with a recorded statement by the outgoing Miss Universe 2000 Lara Dutta, the entire week of competition came down to a single question: Would the home team win? The envelope, please: fourth runner-up is... Miss India (Jaitly); third runner-up is... Miss Venezuela (Ekvall); second runner-up is... Miss USA (Krueger); first runner-up is... Miss Greece (Papantoniou).

After being crowned, Denise Quinones blows kisses to the jubilant hometown audience.

A countrywide cheer went up with that announcement, for it meant that the hometown girl and daughter of Puerto Rico, 20-year-old Denise Quiñones, had won the Miss Universe 2001 crown. Without a doubt, it was a popular decision. Obviously feeling quite comfortable in the lush tropical environs of her homeland, the 5-foot-10-inch Quiñones swept virtually everyone off their feet with a vivacious smile, victories in the evening gown and swimsuit competitions, and heartfelt appreciation for her gifts during the judges’ final questioning. She even took home the Clairol Herbal Essences Style award!

“I always dreamed about it and visualized [winning],” Quiñones said afterward during press interviews. “Thank God it happened. I was very confident in myself.” As Miss Universe 2001, Quiñones receives a prize package totaling about $250,000, as well as modeling and other promotional opportunities.

Pageant co-owner Donald Trump obviously felt a sense of triumph after the show, for he declared Puerto Rico’s handling of the pageant “an amazing feat,” and invited the country to host the competition next year.

What did this broadcast prove? For one thing, the 2001 Miss Universe show’s TV ratings proved that the MTV-style production has not attracted viewers, and that more tradition and style should be considered in the future to revitalize this event. Yes, Trump/CBS appeared to have pulled out all the stops to make this a most memorable event. Yes, the headlined controversies helped build interest with pre-broadcast buzz. But you didn’t have to look very far to realize what a high price is being paid to attract world attention. From the big-name pop star and on-stage barrage of lights and video manipulation to the injection of media-mill rumors into the show itself — viewers might rightly complain that much of the pageant’s former beauty and grandeur that once held them in thrall has become obscured behind a blaze of televised MTV showboating.

Pageantry caught up with Jim Gibson, who was appointed as director of pageant affairs for Miss Universe Organization earlier this year. We asked him for his assessment of this year’s show, and he acknowledged the need to add more elegance into the broadcast. “We’ve turned the corner in bringing back a more glamorous pageant with a twenty-first century sizzle, and this is only the beginning,” he said.

      And so, if you were to listen closely to Ricky Martin’s opening number, you would have heard a lyric that asks, “Do you remember how it was?” The lyric offers a hint of what to expect the next time this pageant comes around. Yes, indeed — many Miss Universe lovers remember how it was. So for them, here’s hoping next year’s entertainment offerings include not only the high-energy ingredients but also more of the class and grace that earmarked the pageant’s earlier years. After all, as Huey Lewis once sang, it can be “Hip To Be Square.”