Biography

Marilyn Van Derbur was born on June 16, 1937 in Denver, Colorado. After being crowned Miss America in 1958, Marilyn returned to the University of Colorado and graduated with Phi Beta Kappa honors. After graduation, she moved to New York City where she was the television spokeswoman for AT&T's The Bell Telephone Hour and hosted ten shows of Candid Camera. In addition, she was the television hostess for The Miss America Pageant for five years.

She became a motivational speaker in her early 20's. By her mid 30's, Marilyn had been chosen “The Outstanding Woman Speaker in America."

Marilyn’s worst nightmare came true when she was 53. A newspaper reporter learned she was an incest survivor and the next morning it was a front page story in The Denver Post. Her millionaire, socially prominent father had started coming into her room at night when she was 5. It didn’t stop until she was 18.

Within weeks, over 3,000 men and women came forward in the greater Denver area for help and support. Marilyn immediately founded an organization called SUN (Survivor United Network). She contributed to and raised tens of thousands of dollars. Up to 500 people came to SUN each week for 35 different support groups. Everything was free.

When People magazine put her picture on the cover, there was a national outpouring from survivors who turned to her for help and support. She opened the door for tens of thousands of sexual abuse survivors to also speak the words, many for the first time.

During the past 20 years, Marilyn has spoken in over 500 cities. She never leaves the room until men and women have personally said everything they want and need to say to her.

The culmination of Marilyn’s work is her book, Miss America By Day. Using her experiences as the scaffolding and cutting edge research as the foundation, she shares knowledge and insights through stories that are riveting and instructive in her book: Miss America By Day.

It also received an international “media award” for the best-written book on dissociation by a professional association that networks internationally with top clinicians, educators and researchers.

Marilyn spends hours each day responding to survivors. She has answered over 8,000 letters and tens of thousands of emails. Many survivors have written to her on a weekly basis for years. She continues to answer each letter and email until the survivors feel strong enough to move on with their lives.

The culmination of Marilyn’s work is her book, Miss America By Day which won the prestigious Writer’s Digest award. Of the 1,900 books entered into the national competition, it won first place in the “most inspirational book” category.It is in its 7th printing and is being used as a textbook in colleges in Social Work and Child Development classes.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]