Candice Bergen had finished shooting 'The Group (1966)', her film debut, and was about to start working on 'The Sand Pebbles (1966)', which was filmed both in Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Miss Marie McDonald (1937-1966), the first contestant, was a traffic reports from a helicopter broadcaster for WWDC-FM, a Washington, D.C. radio station. A year later, on September 1, 1966, upon taking off, her helicopter struck power lines, crashed and burned, claiming her life and that of the pilot, Lesco Kaufman.