Miss Czechoslovakia – Kristina Hanzalova
News photographs used to get sent over the newswires to subscribing newspapers with captions. Some papers would use the “slug” – the suggested title that was written by the service providing the photo, other papers didn’t. In 1970, I cannot imagine that many newspapers used the title suggested by UPI (United Press International.) The slug and full caption are below.
Chesty Czech
Miami Beach, Florida:- Kristina Hanzalova, 21-year-old Miss Czechoslovakia, literally threw newsmen for a loop when she replied “94-58-90” when asked about her vital statistics. She was referring to centimeters, of course, not inches to which the boys are accustomed. Kristina is one of the competitors in the Miss Universe contest being held in Miami Beach.
Credit (UPI Photo) 7/7/70
It was obvious that Kristina could fill out a bathing suit, so I don’t think any editor would have used the “Chesty Czech” headline, but maybe some harried or unimaginative editors couldn’t come up with anything better. Kristina was featured in other bathing suit photos before the contest took place, like this one which ran in the Miami Herald.
The 1970 Miss Universe contest was held on July 11, and Kristina ended up being a semi-finalist, but lost the title to Puerto Rico’s Marisol Malaret.
Kristina then made exactly one motion picture in Czechoslovakia entitled Nudity (1970).
And yes, she has a nude scene in it.
After that, she seems to have vanished from the public eye.
Another thing that “nobody cares about” but Kristina Hanzalova is my mother in law :P.
How cool! Please, without prying or divulging too much, can you fill us in a bit? After Kristina’s brief film career, what did she do and where is she now?
Referring to Kristína Hanzalová as the ‘Chesty Czech’ would have been – despite the obvious nudge-nudge, wink-wink humour of that reference – a major faux-pas, since her home town is Vranov nad Topľou, which is about as far away from the Czech portion of the former Czechoslovakia as one could get – in the far East of the Slovak portion thereof – without actually leaving the territory of the country.
I should know about that part of the World because I have actually been there…to visit the home town of another individual about whom relatively few people in this big, wide World probably care, but about whom they really SHOULD. She was also something of a ‘looker’ herself…and a ‘looker’ with a singing voice to match.
Ladies and gentlemen…I present to you Michalovce’s one and only late and great Valérie Čižmárová (29th January 1952 – 7th March 2005).
…and she truly WAS a ‘one and only’.
The Hungarian-speaking Slovak with the ‘Blackest’ of ‘Black’ voices who became, by common consent, the finest female interpreter of the Czech language in Pop Music of her (fine!) generation of female Pop Singers of Czechoslovakia.
(Since we are talking of ‘lookers’ from the former Czechoslovakia the ‘Website’ link below is directly to the ‘Valérie Čižmárová: A Life In Pictures’ part of the Blog I have set up in her honour – ‘Bananas For Breakfast’)
She’s one of the candidates from the past who deserves the crown and title more than the winner. Kristina during her time was felt because of her competitiveness, wit, and beauty. She’s undoubtedly one of the frontrunners during her time, and many were rooting for her, I’m glad she was able to make her name in some field.