Miss Connecticut USA, Erin Brady, has been crowned Miss USA 2013, in a telecast from the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.
   First runner-up was Miss Alabama, Mary Margaret McCord, with second-runner up, Miss Illinois, Stacie Juris.
   Following Juris were Marissa Powell (Miss Utah), Ali Nugent (Miss Texas), Megan Pinckney (Miss South Carolina), Kristin Smith (Miss Ohio), Kristen Girault (Miss Louisiana), Ashley Love-Mills (Miss North Carolina), Chelsea Caswell (Miss Nevada), Jessica Billings (Miss Pennsylvania), Sarah Kid (Miss Massachusetts), Mabelynn Capeluj (Miss California), Chelsea Welch (Miss West Virginia), and Kasey Staniszewski (Miss Maryland).
   Brady is 25, based in East Hampton, Conn., and works for Prudential Retirement in Hartford as a financial accountant. She holds a finance degree with a minor in criminal justice.
   The judges were Bob Harper (The Biggest Loser), designer Betsey Johnson, NeNe Leakes (Glee), Wendie Malick (Hot in Cleveland), Jessica Robertson (Duck Dynasty), American footballer Larry Fitzgerald, Nikki Bella (Total Divas), Mo Rocca (Sunday Morning), and singer Christina Milian.
   The Jonas Brothers and DJ Pauly D DelVecchio performed. Fans were able to vote for their favourite contestant using Twitter, and chose Miss Texas USA, Ali Nugent, with the voting provided by Optx Rhode Island.
   Organizers believe the total viewing audience was over 250 million.
   Other prize-winners were Marissa Powell (Miss Utah), Miss Photogenic; Gabrielle Neilan (Miss Oregon), and Miss Congenality.
   The after-party was sponsored by High 5 Games with cocktails by Russian Standard Vodka.
   Her prizes included, according to the press release, ‘a custom diamond tiara and jewellery designed by Diamond Nexus; a one-year scholarship (including housing) from the New York Film Academy; a year’s worth of hair-care products and tools from Farouk Systems; an assortment of high fashion bracelets made in Rwanda by women of the Same Sky Trade Initiative; an eveningwear wardrobe by Sherri Hill; a swimwear wardrobe by ViX Paula Hermanny; a shoe wardrobe from Chinese Laundry; a year’s supply of make-up from Rain Cosmetics; a year’s worth of products from Image Skin Care; a year’s supply of nail care products from OPI Products, Inc.; luxury accommodations in a New York City apartment for the duration of her reign, including living expenses; a year-long salary as Miss USA; personal services including membership to Gravity Fitness and hair services from John Barrett Salon; modelling portfolio by leading fashion photographer Fadil Berisha; dermatology and skin care services provided by Dr Cheryl Thellman-Karcher; professional health and nutrition consultation by Tanya Zuckerbrot, MS, RD and dental services by Dr Jan Linhart, DDS; casting opportunities and professional representation by the Miss Universe Organization; extensive travel opportunities representing sponsors and charitable partners; access to various New York City events including movie premières and screenings, Broadway shows and launch parties; year-long consultation with Miss Universe Organization’s Official Fashion Consultant, Alisha Crutchfield and access to a personal appearance wardrobe; professional media–public relations training and representation by Rubenstein Public Relations in New York City and the opportunity to represent the USA at the 2013 Miss Universe pageant at Crocus City Hall in Moscow, Russia.’
   Last year’s winner, Olivia Culpo, went on to become Miss Universe.

Filmmakers are having another crack at DC Comics’ Superman, as Man of Steel has its world première, with the first non-American to play the cinematic lead, Henry Cavill.
   The film had its première in New York on Monday night, with the presence of Cavill, Kevin Costner (as Jonathan Kent), Amy Adams (as Lois Lane), Russell Crowe (Jor-El), and Laurence Fishburne.
   In an interview, Jersey-born Cavill says there was a great deal of affection for the character, and he sensed that when donning the Superman costume.
   He also notes that it did not take long for him to win the role, with a ‘remarkably short audition process. I did one audition, one screen test, Christmas was in between, which sort of lengthened it, and I had the movie within a month and a half, and that’s unheard of as far as my experience goes … This time round, I just got lucky.’
   The reboot has taken a darker, more serious tone to adapting the comic book’s origin story. The Dark Knight’s David S. Goyer and Christopher Nolan were behind the latest version’s story, with Zack Snyder (Watchmen, 300) directing.
   Early reviews have leaned toward the positive, with some appreciating the new movie’s darker and more dramatic tone, while some have bemoaned its humourlessness.
   Man of Steel opens June 14 in the US.

Above Gisèle Bündchen, who has returned to model for H&M, first appeared in 2000 for the company’s summer swimwear.

In a few weeks’ time, Forbes will release its table of the world’s top-earning models for June 2012 to June 2013.
   Lucire didn’t report on the numbers last year, but if we did, we would have noticed that Heidi Klum disappeared from the league tables, after being in a consistent second place for years. Forbes had taken her off the list, saying that she was more a businesswoman than a model. It’s not entirely fair, since Klum, 40, still models (granted, they are usually products she is associated with), and we estimate her earnings are still in the eight figures.
   Natalia Vodianova shot up into third, more than doubling her 2011 figure. Miranda Kerr was back in the top 10 after having a baby, while Lara Stone’s number dropped with her pregnancy (she became a Mum in May).
   But can we make a call on the rankings, just looking at the trends and how much coverage the models have received in our pages?
   There’s no doubt that Gisèle Bündchen will remain top dog. Her earning figure was at $25 million for 2009 and 2010, and a whopping $45 million for the past two years. We haven’t seen Bündchen as much in the last year, but she has inked deals with H&M (which is securing big names with Donald Schneider on its team) and C&A.
   Kate Moss will secure second place. St Tropez has been her most recent gig, though figures were not reported at the time. Moss still gets headlines, so she’ll either be in the high seven figures, but we think she could head into the low eights again.
   Adriana Lima has traditionally followed Moss, but Natalia Vodianova overtook her by $1·3 million in 2012, getting to $8·6 million over Lima’s $7·3 million. That was helped with her contracts with Guerlain and Etam (she helps design her own lingerie collection there, à la Elle Macpherson), a deal with Russian retailer Centro, and continuing to walk the catwalk for some major labels. So the Vodianova–Lima ordering from 2012 is likely to be preserved.
   Doutzen Kroes is getting plenty of attention in our pages, propelled in part through her contract as a L’Oréal Paris face. She netted just under $7 million last year, and it’s going to be a toss-up between her and Alessandra Ambrosio for 2013 for fifth place, both of whom rank similarly in terms of mentions here. Kroes was missing in the top 10 in 2011 due to her pregnancy but has pipped Ambrosio twice since 2009—but only by $300,000–$500,000. We’re making a call that the order’s going to stay the same for fifth and sixth, too.
   Karlie Kloss should be up there in 2013. People with Money puts Kloss’s net worth at $275 million but in terms of annual earnings, the number is bound to be lower. We’re putting the value of the Cover Girl cosmetics and Christian Dior contracts, her fashion and perfume lines, walking for many top names, and her new Victoria’s Secret ‘Angel’ role in the seven figures, and our bet is that she’ll find herself in seventh.
   Miranda Kerr would, consequently, get bumped down one place, but her earnings should stay within the $4 million–$5 million region. That leaves Carolyn Murphy and Candice Swanepoel from last year’s tables, models who have typically been in the $3 million club. Murphy has not been searched for much here, nor has she merited much mention, so we wonder where she will be ranked. We’re thinking Swanepoel might pip Murphy this year, with her continuing Victoria’s Secret and other contracts.
   Emanuela de Paula has not made much headway since getting into 11th place in 2009, which continues to suggest that globally, Caucasian models tend to have it easier at this point.

BFAnyc.com for the Metropolitan Museum of Art

The talk today at Lucire was the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s annual costume gala, and who was the best and worst dressed.
   Our friends at ITN had a slightly different view to us, as we felt that Kim Kardashian let the side down with an unflattering floral-print dress. There is great maternity wear out there, but Kardashian’s look didn’t do it for us.
   We’re not sure how her dress was punk, which was the theme of this year’s gala, Punk: from Chaos to Couture.
   Beyoncé wore a gown with a flame motif and a long train by Givenchy, but we wouldn’t class that as the worst. Since largely every celebrity there was a punk poseur rather than an exponent of the movement, we thought it was a good interpretation of the theme while staying true to the red-carpet looks of previous Met galas. There was a sense of the DIY nature of punk even if her gown was put together by Riccardo Tisci.
   Taylor Swift was am ITN favourite with her J. Mendel black silk crepe gown and crystal neckline.
   However, our favourite was Sienna Miller. Miller wore a Burberry gown and studded leather jacket, and had studs in her ears and her hair. She expressed the punk spirit the closest, according to Lucire fashion editor Sopheak Seng.
   Sarah Jessica Parker, another favourite of ours, wore a Giles Deacon gown, a mohawk by Philip Treacy and Christian Louboutin boots, but managed to flash her knickers—as did Madonna in a plaid Givenchy jacket.
   Lucire also rated Rooney Mara donned a half-sheer Givenchy, while Christina Ricci properly went punk with a Vivienne Westwood plaid gown and Harry Winston jewellery.
   Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour wore a pink floral Chanel gown.
   Others were less punky and missed the essence of the roots of punk. Miley Cyrus and Anne Hathaway sported new blonde hairdos. Cyrus wore Marc Jacobs, while Hathaway, in Valentino, said she was inspired by Debbie Harry.
   Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Katie Holmes got ITN’s thumbs-up, with Holmes in a Calvin Klein halter dress by Francisco Costa. Jennifer Lopez appeared in a Michael Kors sequin-embroidered gown.

Updated May 17, 2013 at 12.46 p.m. GMT with videos from Jennifer Keishin Armstrong

In the 36 years since The Mary Tyler Moore Show ended, we’ve had snippets of information here and there: TV specials celebrating various anniversaries, articles when the release of the disappointing Mary & Rhoda TV movie appeared, and retrospectives when Mary Tyler Moore herself was presented with a SAG award. But no one, till now, has put together a tome on how the show was created and its eight-year history.
   Jennifer Keishin Armstrong’s Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted and All the Brilliant Minds Who Made The Mary Tyler Moore Show a Classic is the best researched book on the topic. Newly released by Simon & Schuster, Armstrong has talked to the surviving members of the cast and crew, including writer Treva Silverman, and producers and creators Allan Burns and James L. Brooks, as well as Moore, Valerie Harper, Gavin MacLeod and others. She has exhaustively researched period articles and even feminist conferences. But don’t expect a laborious effort to get through the 300 pp.: anyone with even a passing interest in television sitcoms, television history in general, recent American history or the media’s role in the development of feminism will find Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted an absorbing and entertaining read, tracing the origins of the show in the 1960s to the years after its final episode, told chronologically.
   It’s hard to believe now just how revolutionary The Mary Tyler Moore Show was in 1970. It’s even harder to believe that it had a difficult gestation and plenty of doubt among network executives. CBS had expected it to flop after its 13-episode commitment, not take home multiple Emmys. Ed Asner could have walked away permanently after a bad audition. But it became a ratings’ winner, catching the smart, urban crowd, and the fictional Mary Richards became the first mainstream character to tell America that it was OK to be single, over 30, and independent.
   Jay Sandrich’s style of directing is mentioned—he believed that actors should play to each other, rather than on stage in the theatre, performing to the audience. That, the live audience, and the use of film helped lend The Mary Tyler Moore Show a different style. The use of Evan-Picone as a sole supplier of Moore’s wardrobe also helped with realism: Mary Richards might repeat an outfit during a season, which a real working woman would. Brooks and Burns, in their own commitment to reality, sought out female writers, who were extremely hard to come by in the late 1960s and early 1970s, to give the show an authentic voice. The networks themselves had remarkably few women, with the few female executives who had broken the glass ceiling needing to leave their high heels outside the washroom so that their male colleagues knew they were inside.
   Norman Lear’s remake of Till Death Do Us Part, called All in the Family, which proved more ground-breaking in pushing the envelope, is also mentioned more than just in passing. All of it is placed into the context of the social changes in the United States at the turn of the 1970s, making Armstrong’s book a particularly useful text, covering many bases.
   We read about male friends writing to CBS angrily when it was implied that she had stayed over at a boyfriend’s, or even about how ground-breaking one scene was when Mary’s visiting mother, talking to her father, says, ‘Don’t forget to take your pill,’ to which both father and daughter replied, ‘I won’t.’
   The team’s personal demons—Ted Knight had anxieties stemming from his slow rise to stardom, for instance, and the pressure put on Grant Tinker and Mary Tyler Moore’s marriage—are dealt with, and Armstrong successfully transplants the reader to the 1960s and 1970s as though the events were unfolding before us. The fact Mary Richards fought for equal pay but still accepted a lower rate did not endear the show fully to feminists, but The Mary Tyler Moore Show largely stayed true to not dealing with the issues of the day—rather, it would address them through character-driven plots, with one or two exceptions. On that note, it was quite unlike All in the Family, which would deal with racism or sexism head-on.
   Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted is better than any DVD commentary or documentary so far produced on the show. With over 300 pp., it is the definitive reference on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and to a lesser extent, its spin-offs. In terms of interest among American readers, we think it’s going to make it after all.

Armstrong has emailed Lucire with some of the events she has planned to promote her new book.
   ‘If you’re in New York, I especially encourage you to join us for MTM-related bar trivia to celebrate release week. There will be prizes—T-shirts, books, mugs, and free Entertainment Weekly subscriptions!’ she says.
   ‘So far I’ve got stuff planned for New York, DC, Chicago, Milwaukee, and LA, but I’ve still got more in the works, so if you’re somewhere else, please check my website for updates.’
   Right now, those events are (please check her website for corrections and updates):

• Thursday, May 9, 7 p.m.: Mary Tyler Moore Show trivia night for Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted release. At Pacific Standard, Brooklyn.
• Monday, May 13, 12 p.m.: Mary Tyler Moore Show discussion and reading from Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted. At 92nd Street Y Tribeca, 200 Hudson Street.
• Friday, May 17, 7 p.m.: Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted reading and discussion at the Village Zendo, 588 Broadway (near Houston), Suite 1108.
• Monday, May 20, 12 p.m.: Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted reading and signing at the National Archives, Washington D.C.
• Tuesday, June 4. 7 p.m.: The Mary Tyler Moore Show and the Modern Woman discussion at Boswell Book Co., Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
• Wednesday, June 5, 8 p.m.: Sexy Feminism and Chicago Doll party, Old Town Social, 455 W. North Ave., Chicago—join us for a fundraising raffle, cocktails, and fun.
• Thursday, June 6, 7 p.m.: Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted Chicago launch party, Hemingway House and Museum, Oak Park.
• Friday, June 7: Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted reading and talk at Book Cellar, Lincoln Square, Chicago.
• Sunday, July 7, 7 p.m.: How to Write a Non-fiction Book Proposal workshop with LA Writers’ Group.
• Tuesday, July 9, 7 p.m.: Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted panel discussion: What Has Changed for Female TV Writers Since the ’70s? With Mary Tyler Moore Show writer Treva Silverman. At Book Soup, Los Angeles.
• Thursday, July 11, 7 p.m.: A dialogue and how-to discussion about pop-culture writing with Gavin Edwards, co-author of VJ: the Unplugged Adventures of MTV’s First Wave. At Pop-Hop Bookshop, Los Angeles.

   Jennifer Armstrong’s website can be found at jenniferkarmstrong.com, and her Twitter account is jmkarmstrong. Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted can be pre-ordered via Amazon at this link in hardcover, and at this link for Kindle. Release is May 7, 2013.—Jack Yan, Publisher

Jamie McCarthy/WireImage

Jim Spellman/WireImage

Jaeger-LeCoultre is pushing its film connections this week, too, honouring Barbra Streisand at the 40th anniversary Chaplin Award Gala at the Film Society of Lincoln Center.
   Jaeger-LeCoultre has a multi-year partnership with the Society and recently launched its Filmmaker in Residence initiative. The partnership also covers the Society’s most prestigious annual event, the New York Film Festival, which will be held from September 27 to October 13 this year.
   Present at the event were Liza Minnelli, Tony Bennett, Michael Douglas, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Stiller and Blythe Danner. Minnelli, last year’s winner, Catherine Deneuve, and actor Jeremy Irons, donned their Jaeger-LeCoultre Grande Reverso watches at the event.
   Streisand received the award from former US President Bill Clinton at Avery Fisher Hall at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
   The legendary singer, actress, producer and director has won the Grammy 15 times, and had been nominated 57 times.
   The event was held one week after Charlie Chaplin’s birthday on April 16. Chaplin was the first honoree in 1972: he had spent four days in New York fêted by the Film Society of Lincoln Center at a gala event prior to heading to Los Angeles to accept his honorary Oscar. Chaplin had been in a 20-year exile in Switzerland after he was denied entry in the United States in the 1950s.

Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for Grey Goose

Charles Eshelman/FilmMagic

April 25: Beyoncé releases ‘Beyoncé as Mrs Carter in H&M’—see her new video here

H&M’s latest spokeswoman, Beyoncé, has teased her Mrs Carter Show World Tour with video clips.
   A month ago, Lucire revealed that the music star would be the Swedish retailer’s latest model. Since last year, most likely thanks to the influence of its creative director Donald Schneider, H&M had connected itself successfully to major music acts. First it was Lana Del Rey, and now it has tied in with Beyoncé’s latest world tour.
   The campaign features ‘Beyoncé as Mrs Carter in H&M’, and now Beyoncé has revealed more details of the tour itself.
   The video shows her in multiple costume changes, including glittering catsuits, as well as scenes atop a piano and flying on a trapeze. She performs ‘Halo’, ‘Run the World (Girls)’ and ‘Love on Top’.
   Sixty-one shows are planned for Europe and North America (detailed on her website, along with ticket purchase links), so the ‘world’ aspect of the tour is not entirely accurate. Beyoncé’s promotional team is offering tour exclusives, ticket pre-sales and VIP packages as part of the tour for those who wish to provide their personal details to join her ‘Beyhive’ blog.

Sebastian Professional has teamed up with fashion designer Mara Hoffman, which sees a Mara Hoffman for Sebastian custom scarf given away with its latest limited-edition designer gift set.
   The gift pack comprises the Sebastian Professional Volupt shampoo and conditioner, along with Hoffman’s scarf, which features bold colours and graphic prints, inspired by her own spring 2013 collection, which had a São Paulo theme. The scarf has a retail value of US$120.
   Sebastian Professional lead hairstylist Thomas Dunkin says the scarf suits current trends: ‘This print is bold, beautiful and inspiring. Combine this with braids for a cool urban look or leave hair down and very natural, and tie the scarf in a bow at the crown for a more ’50s vibe.’
   The choice of Hoffman, with her Brazilian-themed spring collection, ties in with Sebastian’s Urban Explorer promotion, which educates consumers on different hair trends around the globe. The gift set shows step-by-step styling tricks from Dunkin as part of the promotion.
   Dunkin himself had led Hoffman’s hair styling at her spring 2013 show at New York Fashion Week.
   The pack will be available from Sebastian salons across the US for US$25 from May–June 2013.
   Details of Sebastian salons can be found at www.sebastianprofessional.com.