Black and white photographs and old news clippings of Ficovic from 1949 show her with platinum blonde curls and an electric smile.
“I was a platinum blonde, but that my hair color came from a bottle was my secret,” Ficovic said with a grin, remembering how she appeared on stage 50 years ago, with a fur-lined robe and scepter. Then-county Supervisor Willis Warner crowned Ficovic as she sat atop a wooden throne.
The fair had just moved to the site of the old Santa Ana Army Air Base in 1949 when Ficovic was crowned, which has since become the OC Fairgrounds. OC Fair officials couldn’t say last week when exactly the practice of crowning a fair queen ended, only that the annual event hadn’t had a queen in many years. Ficovic remembers going back for subsequent fair queen pageants as recently as 1980, when she got to meet the late entertainer Bob Hope on stage.
“People said I stole the show from him,” Ficovic said.
As its queen, Ficovic was escorted around the OC Fair by two U.S. Marines in dress uniform in 1949.
“They were quite handsome, I wish I would have had more time to get to know them,” Ficovic said. “It wasn’t for security reasons, it was just to look nice.”
She also got to view various events at the fair from a special box seat.
“I just had to smile and look pretty,” Ficovic said.
Ficovic’s reign as queen garnered the attention of the 20th Century Fox film studio, which later gave her a screen test. She lived on the studio lot for a time with other young aspiring actresses, taking acting classes and going to parties.
