Luz Marina Zuluaga

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Luz Marina Zuluaga Beauty pageant titleholder
Birth name:	Luz Marina Zuluaga
Birthdate:	October 3, 1938 (age 68)
Birth location:	Pereira, Colombia
Height:	5 ft 8 in (1.73 m)
Eye color:	Brown
Hair color:	Brown
Title(s):	Miss Caldas 1957 Miss Colombia 1957 Miss Universe 1958
Major Competition(s):	Miss Colombia 1957 (1st runner-up) Miss Universe 1958

Luz Marina Zuluaga (born October 31, 1938) is a former Miss Universe from Pereira, Colombia. She is the only Colombian in history to hold the Miss Universe title.

1 Biography
2 List of Runners-up and Semi-finalists
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Biography

Luz Marina Zuluaga was born to an impoverished family. She moved to Manizales as a small child. Zuluaga came to love the state of Manizales.

Zuluaga lived in the city of Manizales, Caldas. She applied for the Miss Caldas contest, and she won 1957. After being elected Miss Caldas, controversy rose as many residents of the state did not want her to represent Caldas because she had been born in Pereira, Risaralda. However, Zuluaga went on with her training towards the Miss Colombia contest and arrived in Cartagena, hoping to win the Miss Colombia title.

Zuluaga did not win the contest, landing in the first finalist spot instead. However, before the Miss Universe pageant, Miss Colombia 1957, Doris Gil Santamaria, got married. As one of the rules of the Miss Universe worldwide franchises is that no candidate can be married before the final contest itself, Gil Santamaria had to abdicate the crown, making Zuluaga Miss Colombia by default.

Zuluaga, who barely two years before had stopped playing with dolls, had to hurry and prepare very quickly for the Miss Universe 1958 pageant, which was celebrated in Long Beach, California. Simply by representing her country in the contest, she was making history, because it also was the first time that Colombia had a representant in the prestigious beauty pageant.

The contest was celebrated on July 25 of that year. After Zuluaga was announced as winner and new Miss Universe, an estimated number of 73 television and radio stations in Colombia stopped their regular programming to report the breaking news.

Zuluaga was not immediately able to return to her country, as Miss Universe personnel feared for her security because when she won, Colombia was going through a change of government. President Alberto Lleras Camargo had taken charge of the country and political instability followed as a consequence. Zuluaga took the time before the country re-stabilized politically to comply with some Miss Universe commitments; when she returned, she was welcomed by large crowds both at El Dorado International Airport in Bogotáand at Manizales airport.

The citizens of Manizales put the prior controversies away and accepted her as if she had been a native of the area. Learning that her family was not well off economically, many citizens collected money, which was used to build Zuluaga and her family a better house.

After many years out of the spotlight, Zuluaga returned to the headlines when she married a medical doctor and moved to the United States. In 1966, she returned to Manizales, and became involved with the city council as well as with the state's institute of tourism, of which she eventually became director.

Zuluaga has three sons and one daughter. Her daughter was also Miss Caldas, and she blamed the fact that she was the daughter of a former Miss Universe for not having won the 1991 Miss Colombia title, because, according to her, the press and general public only referred to her as "Luz Marina Zuluaga's daughter".

[edit] List of Runners-up and Semi-finalists

	Name	Country
First Runner-up	Adalgisa Colombo	Brazil
Second Runner-up	Geri Hoo	Hawaii
Third Runner-up	Eurlyne Howell	USA
Fourth Runner-up	Alicja Bobrowska	Poland
Semi-Finalists	Raquela Molina Urrutia	Chile
	Evy Norlund	Denmark
	Marlies Jung Behrens	Germany
	Marily Kalimopoulou	Greece
	Corine Rottschafer	Holland
	Miriam Hadar	Israel
	Tomoko Moritake	Japan
	Beatriz Boluarte	Peru
	Gertrude Gummels	Suriname
	Birgitta Elisabet Gardman	Sweden