Our One & Only
The evening ended with a buffet supper at the Rutland Country Club, where a gaggle of well-wishers brought her dozens of gifts.
Johnson returned to California to fulfill her contract with Universal. Her film career proved short lived.
Art Linkletter, the Tonight Show with Jack Parr, and had a featured spot in the Tournament of Roses parade. She hosted several home and boat shows in the Northeastern United States. She cut ribbons for banks, shopping centers, and building projects around New England.
Honorary Rutland Railway CEO, Carlene Johnson
done things like this before.”
At some point thereafter, the Johnson-Streeter engagement ceased to be.
One day after winning Miss USA, Johnson competed in the Miss Universe pageant. She was one of 15 semifinalists in the 33-woman field and received loud applause from the spectators at the Long Beach Auditorium.
The whirlwind continued on August 31, 1955, when Rutland celebrated“ Carlene Johnson Day”. Johnson waved to onlookers from an open-top convertible at a noontime parade. Police cruisers from across the Green Mountain State escorted her through Merchants’ Row with sirens a-blazing. After the parade, she had lunch with the Rutland Chamber at the Fairmont.
Mayor Dan Healey gave her a key to the city. The Rutland Railway Corporation named her honorary chief executive. Police chief John Dinn bestowed her with an honorary badge and a Billy club. The Fire Department provided her with a badge and let her drive the fire truck.
18 VERMONT MAGAZINE
Johnson appeared in two films for Universal Pictures. She had a non-speaking role in the Benny Goodman Story, starring Steve Allen and Donna Reed. In Written on the Wind, Johnson appeared on screen for close to a minute as a“ college girl at a party.” The Douglas Sirk-directed picture was a smoldering family drama that included the likes of Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack, and Dorothy Malone. Written on the Wind was a box office and critical success, earning Malone an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and Stack his only Oscar nomination. Despite Johnson’ s appearance in two high-profile pictures, Universal decided against renewing her contract.
She would soon announce her engagement to an Air Force veteran named Lawrence Harold Drake, who hailed from Long Beach. Drake was an engineer who designed boats for a firm based in Southern California. They married on December 21, 1957, in Rutland at Grace Congregational Church. The couple settled in Long Beach.
Johnson chose a Christmas motif for her wedding. The interior of the church was decorated in red, green, and white. The ceremony included several Christmas Carols and the bridesmaids dressed in red. The Rutland Country Club hosted 150 for a Christmas-themed reception that evening.
Over the next few years, Johnson spent a lot of time going back and forth between the coasts. Johnson appeared on People are Funny with
Johnson’ s post-pageant life in Long Beach seems to have been a fairly quiet one. She worked for a time in sales for a department store and developed an interest in painting. On multiple occasions, the Long Beach Press-Telegram made note of Johnson’ s hospital admissions in the early 1960s, mentioning explicitly on one occasion that she was a lifelong diabetic and few people knew of her condition when she was Miss USA. When her picture appeared in California newspapers, she looked extremely thin by the mid- 1960s, likely the result of her diabetes. In 1966, Johnson filed for divorce from Lawerence Harold Drake. The couple had no children. When the divorce was finalized, Johnson relocated to Houston, Texas, where her brother Raymond resided at the time. In Houston, Johnson met an insurance executive named Don Holloway, whom she married in 1968. The union lasted less than a year. Carlene Johnson Holloway died on April 15, 1969, from complications arising from diabetes.
Carlene’ s remains came home to Rutland. Her funeral took place at Grace Congregational Church, and she was buried at the city’ s magnificent Evergreen Cemetery. Her family asked for donations be made to the Rutland Hospital.
Despite her short life, Carlene Johnson made unique and evident contributions to her community. More quietly, she displayed courage and perseverance in the face of an often-debilitating condition. n