Marilyn Van Derbur
| Marilyn Van Derbur | |
|---|---|
Marilyn Van Derbur
|
|
| Born |
June 16, 1937 Denver, Colorado, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | University of Colorado |
| Title | Miss America 1958 |
| Predecessor | Marian McKnight |
| Successor | Mary Ann Mobley |
| Spouse(s) | Gary Austin Nady (1 June 1961 - 6 March 1962) (divorced) Lawrence Atlivaick Atler (14 February 1964 - present) (1 child) |
| Children | Jennifer Atler |
| Parent(s) | Francis S. Van Derbur Gwendolyn Olinger Van Derbur |
Marilyn Elaine Van Derbur (born June 16, 1937) is the Miss Colorado 1957,1958 Miss America pageant holder,author and motivational speaker. In 2011, she was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award. She founded the Survivor United Network (SUN), and authored Miss America By Day: Lessons Learned from Ultimate Betrayals and Unconditional Love, which spent 13 weeks on Colorado's top ten non-fiction bestsellers list and was awarded the Writer's Digest Most Inspirational Book award (first place) in 2003.
Marilyn Van Derbur was born on June 16, 1937 in Denver, Colorado. After being crowned Miss America in 1958, Marilyn returned to the University of Colorado and graduated with Phi Beta Kappa honors. After graduation, she moved to New York City where she was the television spokeswoman for AT&T's The Bell Telephone Hour and hosted ten shows of Candid Camera. In addition, she was the television hostess for The Miss America Pageant for five years. Together with Murray S. Hoffman, MD (President of the Colorado Heart Association) and Jerome Biffle (Olympic Gold Medalist) Marilyn helped establish one of the earliest programs to promote jogging for heart health.
She became a motivational speaker in her early 20s. By her mid 30s, Marilyn had been chosen “The Outstanding Woman Speaker in America."
When Marilyn was 53, a newspaper reporter learned she was an incest survivor, and the next morning it was a front page story in The Denver Post. Her millionaire, socially prominent father had sexually abused her from the ages of five to eighteen.
Within weeks, over 3,000 men and women came forward in the greater Denver area for help and support. Marilyn immediately founded an organization called SUN (Survivor United Network). She contributed to and raised tens of thousands of dollars. Up to 500 people came to SUN each week for 35 different support groups.
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