BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA 2000 – The Miss Beverly Hills Beauty Pageant, the innovative beauty pageant that relies on online voters to determine its winner, has merged with iLive.com and showcases the talents of a woman that everyone needs to meet! iLive.com needed a ringer to help them create the first true Internet beauty pageant of the new millennium. The search for the web’s first hard-wired pageant coordinator was exhaustive, but iLive came up with something unique in JEAN MARSHALL.
In a business of has-been casting directors posing as experts in the world of fashion models and pageant beauties, iLive wanted the real deal. Marshall, you see, was actually one of the clan, a model before becoming an administrative leader. To understand how this close-to-six-foot strapping beauty quickly established herself as the fantasy of many computer jockeys is a no brainer, for she has it all herself…brains, beauty and a will to succeed that is second only to Joan of Arc.
Jean Marshall began her self-fashioned career as a guidance counselor to models by being one first. A native hailing out of Orange County, Marshall moved to Europe at the ripe old age of 20 where she seized the runways immediately. Now, a decade later, she’s returned to her hometown as an educator to other models, as a guidance counselor for working women, and as a youth leader she asserts herself in the community. Currently, Ms Marshall is a member of The Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce, Jr. Chamber of Commerce in Los Angeles, Women in Film Association, and Toastmasters. She volunteers in the outreach program for Project Angel Food benefiting those afflicted with the HIV/AIDS virus and has participated in Revlon’s Run-Walk in the fight against breast cancer.
In a city where stars are at a premium, the Miss Beverly Hills Pageant wanted to create “events for young girls that weren’t discovered yet,” Ms. Marshall asserts. iLive.com, best known as an entertainment-internet provider of music events and Miss World United States wanted something content-specific: the first site to combine the symbiotic worlds of fashion, model career development and strategic marketing into monthly contests: “There was a need for pageants as girls were venturing into Hollyweird and were being exploited by some agencies that were, well, let’s just say less than respectable.”
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In walks Marshall, insisting that the first beauty pageant of Beverly Hills since 1989 would only be successful if everything up was kept in the open, up front and above sea level…something live for all to see and become a part of. iLive.com knew they had found their spokeswoman and quickly the ideology of the company fell in line with the morality of her insistence: “I told iLive that if this pageant were to be noticed as something beneficial to the maturation process of young girls, we’d all have to be there to protect the vision first and the product (i.e. the pageant) would become something special…” iLive responded accordingly and the Internet leader of live entertainment happenings quickly asserted itself as the leader in real-time pageanting.
The search for winners begins in the backyards of Beverly Hills but has recently been expanded to encompass submissions from around the globe. Results of the pageant capitalize on the audience participation via iLive.com. The contestants are judged in three areas of competition: Sportswear, Swimsuit, and Evening Gown. However, the Miss Beverly Hills Pageant goes beyond beauty. The judges also focus on selecting the participant who best represents the history and heritage of the Beverly Hills community. Individuals and companies participate by sponsoring and judging the events.
Marshall says her tolerance for bratty 90210-ers is finite at best: “We get a lot of rich girls that have never had to work a day in their lives and they think they can just walk in to The Beverly Hills Beauty Pageant and buy a ribbon and become a pageant queen! Uh-uh. We insist on the girls working with us at iLive from planning their presentation photos, costumes and commitment…this isn’t a scam, this isn’t a girl scouts contest around a fire where everyone is patted on the back for just participating! Our contest is serious with serious ramifications and our winners receive real support, prizes and introductions to real agencies and product endorsements sometimes follow.” Where did all this high mindedness about pageanting come from, you ask? Understanding Jean Marshall as a person and businesswoman provides some answers…
In the oh so glittery city of fake noses, lipo-bodies and the scam artist who make young girls feel they need those things to succeed in the competitive business of modeling, Marshall warns, “Be careful what you wish for you just might get it!”
Ms. Marshall, you see, has also positioned herself to be the first true guidance counselor for young models in the making. Marshall takes life lessons and mixes in a dash of traditional finishing school techniques, psychology, nutrition and image consultation and came up with a workshop that is pretty revolutionary-- young girls will know what is expected of them as models, what is inappropriate and illicit, and they’ll be able to handle their careers better. She guarantees it!
She trains individuals in the basic skills of modeling, warns them of fraudulent scams and bestows the tools they’ll need to maintain integrity and self-esteem in the critical and often destructive world of high fashion. Jean Marshall prepares girls for modeling and, in the end, they are better prepared for life itself. [For courses she leads, contact her directly at her website, http://www.jeanmarshallphotography.com/jeanmarshallrepertoire