Penne Percy Girl in a Whirl
What happens to a Family Weekly cover girl? This one has won the Maid of Cotton title
and a role in a Hollywood jilml
By ROBERT PEER
Family ahipiim Aivr
1 Wi
Left: Pcnne wears a lime and cornflower-blue
dross by Hega, one of
the 42 cotton outfits designed es
pecially for her. Above: As Family
Weekly's second Miss Somebody,
she was a cover girl May 29, 1960.
Penne gets a good-luck kiss from Mom, once a Maid of Cotton finalist herself.
TWO YEARS AGO this week, Penne
Percy, a sparkling 17-year-old
Texas blonde, became Family Week
ly's second Miss Somebody.
A lot haH happened to Penne (pronounced
Penny) since then so much that she again
rates a cover feature.
In December, the girl from Waco was chosen
from among more than 300 Southern belles to
reign as the 1962 Maid of Cotton.
"You can't imagine what this means to a girl
from the South," she says. "If you live in a cot
ton state, you grow up with the idea of entering
this contest. Why, my two little sisters, who are
only 14 and 8, are already thinking about it."
Penne could hardly ask for more a Southern
girl's dream had come true. But more good for
tune was on its way. Recently, a famous Holly
wood movie producer, Joe Pasternak, asked her
the question every American girl would like to
hear: "How would you like to be in the movies?"
He first saw Penne on Family Weekly's cover
and was so impressed he asked to meet her.
After seeing her in person, he offered her a
role in his next MGM film, "The Courtship of
Eddie's Father," with Glenn Ford.
How have the glamor and excitement affected
Penne's outlook? "I still can't believe it's hap
pening to me," she confessed over lunch at the
Beverly Hills Hotel recently.
"After my picture appeared on the cover of
Family Weekly, the phone rang almost con
stantly. Everywhere I went in Waco people rec
ognized me. When I went to college in Austin,
it was the same story all over again."
Penne believes the Family Weekly story and
cover helped bring her to the attention of the
judges of the Maid of Cotton contest. This de
velopment was especially pleasing to her be
cause she had a very personal reason for want
ing to enter this contest and win it.
Her mother, the former Ann Green, reached
the Maid of Cotton finals in 1941 but was dis
qualified when it was discovered she was only
five-foot-four instead of the required five-foot-five.
So, in a way, Penne won the crown for her
mother as well as for herself.
As Maid of Cotton, she has been caught up
in a wonderful whirl of excitement. She re
ceived a 42-piece wardrobe (all cotton, of
course), 23 pieces of luggage, a new car, and
an opportunity to travel throughout the U.S.
and five foreign countries as good-will ambas
sador for the American cotton industry. Right
now she is in Paris on the last leg of her tour.
Of course, being Maid of Cotton requires
more than a pretty face. As representative of a
great industry, she has to be a personable and
levelheaded diplomat, too. Penne has handled
this phase of her task well, just as anyone who "
knows her would have predicted.
Fellow students at the University of Texas
remember her as a girl who was serious about
her studies and who helped pay her own way
by working part time as a fashion adviser in an
Austin department store.
Penne enjoyed college life and she met a
boy there she likes very much. But finishing
college and getting married may be a long way
off for this lovely Miss Somebody from Texas.
Her Maid of Cotton tour has taken her away
from campus for six months. And she may be
away even lonyer if her movie career turns out
to be as promising as it now appears.
3E
COVER:
I' holographed by John Kngsteatl, vivacious
Penne Percy was a Family Weekly cover
girl tiro years ago. Since then, she has be
come a "Girl in a Whirl." See story above.
May 27, 19(2
LEONARD S. OAVIDOW f'rrai.irnl and PMMrr
WAITER C. DREYFUS -Vitr Prraicfrnl
PATRICK E. O'ROURKE Adei rli.inj Dimfor
MORTON FRANK Dirtelor of PublMer Hrlolion.
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