Harless, Meredith (Florence Meredith Howard), 1909-1996

Florence Meredith Howard was born to Samuel J. and Florence Howard in Bartlesville, Oklahoma on September 6, 1909. She was one of four children, including her twin, Virginia (Howard) Hayes (1909-1990); William (1911-); and Mary (Howard) de Liagre (1914-2009). In 1927, she and her twin sister tied for first place in the Miss Tulsa beauty pageant. A winning coin flip earned Meredith Howard a trip to the 1928 Miss America Pageant, where she finished as a runner-up. Howard went on to perform with the Ziegfeld Follies, where she worked with such stars as Eddie Cantor, Fred Astaire, and Ed Wynn, for five years.

Howard married Albert Russell Erskine, Jr. in January of 1934. She soon became disenchanted with her marriage and moved to Hollywood to work directly with Louis B. Mayer of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios on public relations, advertising, and fashion in 1935. While at MGM, she continued to model with her sisters Virginia and Mary, who starred in several MGM films. Howard divorced her husband in November of 1937 and moved to Washington, D.C. where she worked in Crowell-Collier's advertising department and wrote two syndicated columns, At Random (under her own name) and Selective Tuning (under the name Jean Abbey). On November 28, 1948 Howard married Arizona Congressman Richard F. Harless.

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