ROSEMARIE Frankland, the Welsh beauty pageant contestant, won the 1961 Miss United Kingdom and Miss World titles before becoming an actress. Born in Rhosllannerchrugog in February 1943, she moved to Lancashire as a child. She took part in many beauty pageants and won the title of Miss Wales and, later in 1961 in London, she became the first British woman and the seventh European to win the Miss World competition. She also was the first runner-up at Miss Universe 1961.
Together with Gina Swainson, who won the Miss World title as Miss Bermuda in 1979, she is one of the two women who came closest to winning both Miss Universe and Miss World, having been second at Miss Universe before winning Miss World. Helen Morgan who was also Miss Wales and Miss United Kingdom, achieved the same feat, but she resigned the Miss World title four days after being crowned. When Bob Hope crowned her as Miss World, he commented that she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.
As part of her tenure as Miss World, she joined Hope at a USO concert in Alaska. After Miss World, Frankland embarked on a short-lived acting career. Her most substantial and last role was in the 1965 film, I’ll Take Sweden starring Bob Hope.
In 1970, she married The Grass Roots singer/guitarist, Warren Entner and went to live in Los Angeles. In 1976, she gave birth to their only child together, a daughter, Jessica. They divorced in 1981. She was suffering from depression at the time of her death, purportedly from a drugs overdose, at the age of 57. She died on December 2, 2000 at Marina del Rey, Los Angeles County in California. She was cremated in the USA and her ashes were interred in Rhosllannerchrugog cemetery.
Source: First published in Bygone Wrexham 2017.
