America’s Miami Beach City (FL) has been named as the venue for 1963 MU.
2.Fifty countries and territories, from the Commonwealth of The Bahamas and Iceland to the Kingdom of Morocco and the Republic of South Korea (a finalist), participate in the pageant, down from 52 at Long Beach’62.
3.Latin America’s only international judge in Long Beach is Brazil’s Journalist Edilson Cid Varela.
4.Debutant Curacao –a Dutch territory on the Caribbean– does not qualify for the semis with its representative Philomena Zielinski .
5. Ireland has a great chance to win the trophy! Miss Photogenic 1963 ,Marlene Margaret McKeown from Ireland, who has a passing resemblance to British actress Elizabeth Taylord, emerges as the top-competitor of the global contest at Miami Beach,FL.
6.Ieda Maria Vargas leads Brazil to MU title! After winning the 1962 FIFA World Cup in Santiago de Chile,Brazil, following a nine-year struggle, claims the trophy with Ieda Maria Brutto Vargas (who hails from Rio Grande do Sul), giving Brazil its first worldwide title. Few observers will forget Vargas’ win. Since then, the Latin Americans do not have to wait long for the continent’s representative to get their fourth award.
7.For unknown reasons, three national beauties from Europe, Southeast Asia, and the continent of Africa don’t compete in July 1963: England’s Susan Pratt , Miss Malaysia, Catherine Loh, and Francine Marcos from Dahomey (an obscure country renamed Benin by Marxist tyrant Ahmed Kerekou by the mid-1970s).
8.Denmark and Brazil to battle for the trophy! The Kingdom of Denmark places second in the global contest with its entrant Aino Korwa, the highest finish ever for any Danish. Miss Ireland is second runner-up in the fifty-country tournament. Lalaine Betia Bennett of the Philippines is also one of top queens. After being semi-finalist three consecutive times (1959-1962), South Korea, one of the world’s poorest countries, is fourth runner-up at Florida.
9.Paraguayan-born beauty Amelia Benitez fails to make the semis, turning Paraguay -a landlocked country of low elevation– into one of three South American republics -along with Bolivia- that has never been semi-finalist in the universal tournament.
10.Brazilian-born Ieda Maria Vargas, who stands five feet four inches tall, becomes the first woman from a Portuguese-speaking country to win the annual pageant, earned her the admiration of fans in her homeland country and around the world. Brazil has been producing top-notch beauty queens for a long time.
11.Miss Reiko Uehara will be the first woman to represent Okinawa – a territory from the States after World War II- in Miss Universe.
12.Despite her “big performance” at Miss World 1962 at Britain, Miss France, Monique Lemaire, does not qualify for the finals.
13.Scotland gains Miss Congeniality; its first ever championship title.
14.United States’ delegate Marite Ozers -former Miss Illinois-is one of 15 semi-finalists but she does not qualify for the next round despite her status as one of the frontrunners. Miss Ozers becomes the first foreign-born American woman to represent the States in Miss Universe. She was born in the Soviet Republic of Latvia.