Mrs “Pancho” Gonzales Was Beauty Queen

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29401, 31 December 1960, Page 2

Mrs “Pancho” Gonzales Was Beauty Queen

A friendly game of tennis is enjoyed by Mrs Richard (“Pancho”) Gonzales, who is in Christchurch this week-end with her husband, the tennis professional.

Mrs Gonzales, who was a model before her marriage last July, described her hobbies as tennis and photography in an interview last evening. But she is not usually on the operating end of a camera. She preferred photographic modelling, she said. Television commercials were the main medium for her work.

Her first and only entry in a beauty contest was highly successful. She carried off the prize in the New York "Miss Rheingold” contest in 1958. Sponsored by a business firm, this contest has been going for 35 years, and is now on a tremendous scale. “You would almost say it was second to the presidential election in size,” said Mrs Gonzales.

The voting is confined to the eastern states of America, however. Even there, 22 million votes were cast in the contest in 1958.

This is her first trip to New Zealand, although “Pancho” Gonzales was here two years ago. At that time they had not met. Mrs Gonzales has previously come as far as Australia, when she was a member of the “Goldwyn Girls” team to publicise the film "Guys and Dolls.” As she has been married only six months, Mrs Gonzales is not yet sure whether she will give up her modelling career. “It is too soon to make any definite plans,” she said. The couple will be travelling for the next two months and do not expect to settle down for some time.