The amazing story of Rosemarie Frankland, the Miss World from Rhosllanerchrugog, whose journey to the very pinnacle of the beauty pageant world preceded her struggle to adapt to a life in show business. Rosemarie won the 1961 Miss United Kingdom and Miss World titles before becoming an actress.
She was born in Rhosllanerchrugog in February 1943, the daughter of a hospital cleaner and a factory foreman. She moved to Lancashire as a child and worked at a local branch of Marks and Spencer.
Winning the Miss World Title
when she won Miss World in 1961
She took part in many beauty pageants and won the titles of Miss Lancashire and Miss Lake District before her big break when she won Miss Wales in 1961. Winning Miss Wales meant she qualified for Miss World and, later that same year (as Miss United Kingdom), she won the coveted crown at the Lyceum Ballroom in London. More than 10 million television viewers watched the completion. She became the first British woman and the seventh European to win the title. She was also 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 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 winning the crown. When Bob Hope crowned Rosemarie as Miss World, he commented that she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.
A Hectic Lifestyle
Modelling work flooded in after she secured the Miss World title. She also auditioned for many Hollywood studios and had an uncredited role in the 1964 Beatles’ film A Hard Day’s Night. At this time, she married Ben Jones, a photographer who was 16 years her senior. The marriage was unable to survive her hectic lifestyle, however, and he filed for divorce six months later on the grounds of adultery.
Jones said “Rosemarie was star-struck and I don’t think she had the capacity to deal with it. To throw an 18-year-old from behind the counter at Marks and Spencer into the deep end of Miss World with no guidance and nobody to help her was too much. In the end, it was a bit of a Marilyn Monroe story.”
I’ll Take Sweden in 1965
Her affair with Hope, which had started shortly after she won the Miss World title, began again in earnest. She moved into his Palm Springs home and appeared in his movie, I’ll Take Sweden in 1965. Hope took her on a tour of American forces in the Arctic, joking: “She’s so hot, we were in real danger of going through the ice”.
The film roles dried up and I’ll Take Sweden was her last movie role. She had a short-lived stint as Hope’s personal assistant, but her relationship with him came to an end too, as he refused to commit to her.
Marriage and a Daughter
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.
Rosemarie was suffering from depression at the time of her death, purportedly from a drug overdose. She was 57 when she died on December 2nd, 2000, at Marina del Rey, Los Angeles County in California. Rosemarie was cremated in the USA, but her ashes were moved back to her native Wales and interred in Rhosllanerchrugog cemetery.
Story and images courtesy of Graham Lloyd at wrexham-history.com. Original article first published in Bygone Wrexham 2017.
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