In California: Practicing Swimsuit for Atlantic City

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On the Betamax a replay of her first triumph unwinds in glorious technicolor. The camera zooms in on pink fingernails fluttering near pale skin as her face crumples with joy and disbelief. The weepy, departing queen struggles to fix the crown on her successor's head. As a recorded chorus serenades, "She's a miracle, she could be Miss America. . . the one that we ado-o-o-re," the winner grips her scepter and hurtles toward the runway at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium.

All that happened back on June 24. Watching it again only a week before she will have to knock 'em dead at the final contest in Atlantic City, Christine Louise Acton has to laugh. But nervously. She is 23. On June 24 she struck a bargain with the Miss America Pageant system. She accepted a job as Miss California, 1978. She knew it would take up most of her time, patience, energy and privacy for a whole year. In return for a chunk of the $1 million plus in scholarship money given by Gillette, Kellogg, Campbell Soup and other companies, she would dutifully work for the greater glory of the Golden State as a sublime slice of American Pie.

And here she is with three members of California's Miss America or Bust Committee: Charles Grebmeier, 37, Cindy Walker, 42, and Charlotte Randolph, 55. Christine is the product. The other three are packagers. All four watch the rerun exactly the way football teams watch movies of last week's game, to note mistakes, to improve performance. Says Christine when the film is over: "It's a good thing I'm getting a new talent gown. That one is too tight in the rear end."

"We don't want to make her over," Cindy, executive director of Miss California, observes. But the relentless aim of the group is to help Christine acquire what the judges' guide describes as "the necessary beauty and wholesomeness to appeal to the American public." The variables considered include talent, hair, makeup, gowns, poise and walk, and conversation. The Betamax affirms that where talent is concerned, Christine should have the contest pretty well sewed up. Her rendering of Bartok's Hungarian Peasant Songs on the flute is professional, pure and austere when compared with the frothier offerings of other contestants. But in many ways she is like a whole new breed of Miss America aspirants, far from a beauty-queen type. Tall and girl-next-door pretty, she is a pale brunette who in no way resembles the blonde, golden-bronzed California beauties of imagination. Says a friend: "She'd look ridiculous beside a surfboard." She hates makeup and the whole virginal cult of the body beautiful that underlies Miss America.

Christine is long past her "hippie stage." At the University of Redlands, where she studied history and music, she was rushed by a sorority that plundered fraternity houses for jockey shorts. But she ducked the sisterhood in favor of serious music and a semester studying in Salzburg. She frankly sees the exposure of Miss America as a means of deliverance from the grueling jobs that helped her work her way through school. "I want to be with a major symphony," Christine declares. "Cocktail waitressing isn't going to get me there."