clad while performing on stage. During her time on the West Coast Leaver won another crown, “Miss Model America of 1936,” a contest for models representing department stores around the country. Along with another trophy, she received a screen contract and was cast to appear in the musical motion picture “Star Struck.” She had only one other movie audition and did not again appear on the big screen. In the late 1930s, Leaver had been contacted by Columbia Pictures requesting the release of photographic images of her taken during her short stint in Hollywood, when she had been at 20th Century Fox, during her year serving as Miss America. Although she could never prove it, Leaver, who had been paid $250 for the photos, was convinced that the striking image atop Columbia’s logo was modeled after her photographs and her nude statue. There have been other reports of women having posed or being used for the Columbia Pictures torch-bearing lady. Years later, discussion of Leaver’s controversial nude statue would return to prominence when Vanessa Williams lost her Miss America title, by comparing Leaver not being invited back to crown her successor as she had “posed for a nude statue” – despite wearing a bathing suit while posing, with her grandmother present and with no knowledge that the artwork would display her naked. Personal life Well into her reign as Miss America, in July 1936, it was disclosed that Leaver had eloped with her longtime boyfriend, Johnny Mustacchio. The marriage, according to her mother, had taken place two months earlier, on May 28. There exists, however, another report based on a personal interview with Leaver that she had actually secretly married on January 1, 1936, not quite four months into her reign. Her marriage to Mustacchio lasted until 1944 when she filed for divorce. Leaver later, in 1946, married Fred Nesseer of Columbus, OH. There is mention she had lost two husbands by death, and that in 1983 she had been married to her fourth husband, Ed Mider, for 11 years. Leaver died of cancer in September 1993. References External links 1916 births 1993 deaths Miss America 1930s delegates Miss America winners People from McKeesport, Pennsylvania 20th-century American people