Marilyn Van Derbur was born on June 16, 1937, in Denver, Colorado.,[2] the youngest of four daughters to a family in the Denver mortuary business. (The lighted cross on Mount Lindo southwest of Denver was built so Van Derbur's grandmother could see her husband's final resting place from her home in Park Hill.[4]) She attended East High School, graduating in 1955,[5] and the University of Colorado, where she earned a degree in English literature with Phi Beta Kappa honors in 1960.[6]
Pageantry
Former Miss America 1957 Marian McKnight kisses Van Derbur upon her Miss America 1958 victory
During her sophomore year of college, Van Derbur was nominated to represent Pi Beta Phi in the Miss University of Colorado pageant. After being crowned Miss University of Colorado in May 1957, she competed in and was crowned Miss Colorado in July 1957.[1] On September 7, 1957, she was crowned Miss America 1958 in Atlantic City, New Jersey.[2][3]
Career
After graduation, she moved to New York City where she was the television spokeswoman for AT&T's The Bell Telephone Hour[7] and hosted 10 episodes of Candid Camera. She was the television hostess for the Miss America Pageant for five years.
Van Derbur worked as a public speaker throughout her career. She established the Marilyn Van Derbur Motivational Institute in 1975, where she produced a series of 30-minute motivational films shown at business meetings and conventions.[8]
When Van Derbur was 53, she revealed that she had experienced child incestuous abuse from age 5 to 18, perpetrated by her father.[9] Her story was featured on the cover of People magazine in June 1991.[10] She and her husband provided initial funding for an adult incest survivor program at The Kempe Center, and she founded the Survivors United Network.[11]
Marriage and children
Following a brief marriage in 1961 to former University of Colorado football player Gary Nady, Van Derbur married her high school boyfriend Lawrence "Larry" Atler in 1964.[12] The couple has a daughter, Jennifer.
Legacy
In 2021, Van Derbur announced she would be auctioning her Miss America crown and bracelet to benefit Denver Public Schools.[13]
^Jones, Rebecca (March 2, 1997). "Mount Lindo Bears Its Cross". Rocky Mountain News. p. 27D. Olinger later sold the mountain to his son-in-law, Francis S. Van Derbur, father of former Miss America . . . Marilyn Van Derbur Atler. The story goes that Francis S. was walking around the mountain one day with his father, Francis C. Van Derbur, who mentioned he'd like to be entombed up there, with a cross to mark the spot. . . After the senior Van Derbur died, he was entombed there. His son ordered construction of a cross that would be visible to his mother from her Park Hill home.
^"Marilyn Married in Mountain Retreat". Rocky Mountain News. February 15, 1964. Miss America of 1958, Marilyn Van Derbur -- now Mrs. Lawrence Atler -- and her smiling bridegroom pose before a picture window framing a Colorado winter wonderland after a snowy Valentine's Day wedding in the Indian Hills summer home of the bride's parents....
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