Professional Engineer Marlene Schmidt (born 1937 in Breslau, Germany, now known as Wroclaw, Poland) came to fame as winner of the 1961 Miss Universe pageant. Later she had a career in the movie industry.
She was raised in East Germany, the state also known in those days as German Democratic Republic. There she gained a masters degreein engineering. In 1960 she and her family moved to West Germany and lived in Stuttgart.
In 1961, keen on winning the car that was offered as prize, she entered the state pageant of Baden-Wrttemberg. From there the 173 cm (5'8") tall blonde with black eyebrows went on to represent her state in the national pageant in the glamorous spa town of Ba! den-Bade n, where she was crowned Miss Germany.
This gained her a trip across the Atlantic to Miami Beach, Florida to compete with 47 other young ladies from around the world for the crown of Miss Universe, a pageant then organized by Paramount Studios. The blonde became the tenth consecutive German entrant into the semi-finals of the event - which was a record then, later only bettered by the USA, Venezuela and lately also India. Most importantly, Marlene Schmidt went on to win the competition, thus becoming the first and to-date only German to be crowned Miss Universe, ahead of MissRosemarie Frankland from Wales who went on to console herself with the Miss World title of the same year.
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