In 1922, a young woman from provincial Georgia took the New York stage as the winner of the nation’s largest beauty pageant. But behind her triumph lay a story filled with family tragedies, scandals, and bigamy. For a fleeting moment, Lota Cheek was the face of the American dream, only to vanish from headlines as quickly as she had appeared.
From a Georgia Farm to the Lights of Broadway
Lota Cheek was born on the last day of August 1898 in the tiny town of Pavo, Georgia. Her father Leon was a farmer, and her childhood was spent among cotton fields and the quiet of the American South. Nothing suggested that this girl from the rural backwaters would one day become a symbol of the roaring twenties’ urban glamour.
Before Lota set out to conquer New York, she was educated at Cox College in Atlanta. It was there she first glimpsed a world beyond her family farm’s horizons. Ambition and beauty became her tickets to a life quite unlike her mother’s.
Lota’s mother, Nannie, led a life marked by tragedy—something her daughter likely wished to forget. When Lota was still a small child, Nannie was arrested on charges of complicity in the murder of her first husband, William Danzey. His brother also died in the incident, which was rooted in a custody dispute over children from Nannie’s first marriage. Nannie was sentenced to two years in prison for involuntary manslaughter.
She entered prison carrying a three-month-old baby, her son James. Nannie was released early only when the baby’s health became endangered. She died in 1917, four years before her daughter would be crowned America’s most beautiful woman. Nannie never saw Lota’s triumph.
A Rebellion Against Fashion
1921 brought Lota her first significant victory. She won a beauty contest in Boston, taking home a prize of a thousand dollars—a fortune at the time. This success opened the doors to an even larger competition in the heart of American show business.
In 1922, Lota competed for the title of America’s most beautiful girl in New York City. She beat out six thousand rivals, gaining not only the crown but the nation’s attention. The media went wild for her, and her photos graced front pages coast to coast.
What set Lota apart from the thousands of pretty girls of the era was her open rebellion against prevailing fashion. As flapper girls cut their hair short en masse, Lota wore her long, unconventional curls with pride. This act of nonconformity only made her more appealing to the press and a public hungry for originality.
Broadway, Advertising, and Scandals
Fame opened the doors of New York theaters to Lota. She performed in popular Broadway revues, including the famous Earl Carroll’s Vanities of 1923. She used the stage name Lota Sanders, which she adopted after one of her subsequent marriages. Lota appeared in other theatrical productions, but never achieved leading-lady status.
Alongside her acting career, she developed a reputation as a model. In 1927, her face appeared in a national advertising campaign for Colgate toothpaste. She also worked as a music teacher, suggesting that despite all the Hollywood glamour, she maintained a practical approach to earning a living.
Lota’s private life, however, was far more complicated than her public image. She first married in 1916 in Alabama, wedding Robert Platt Stout. The marriage ended in divorce in 1920, just before her breakthrough in beauty pageants.
The true scandal erupted in 1922, when a Mrs. Simmons named Lota as a co-respondent in her divorce proceedings. It turned out that the man whom Lota married had not finalized his divorce from his previous wife. Lota’s marriage was invalid from the start, and she herself became the victim of a bigamist. For the newly crowned beauty queen, this was a blow to her public image.
A Quiet Old Age
In 1924, Lota tried her luck at love again. On Manhattan, she married British actor Tyrell Davis, her Broadway colleague. Yet, the romantic marriage of two artists lasted only a few months. Davis returned to England, Lota stayed in the U.S., and the pair divorced.
It was not until about 1925 that Lota finally found stability with a man named Sanders. She adopted his surname and kept it for the rest of her life. The couple had two children, and Lota gradually withdrew from public life.
The woman once dubbed the most beautiful girl in America spent the last decades of her life far from the spotlight. She died on April 22, 1978, in Tucson, Arizona, aged seventy-nine.
Rory Thornfield
Rory's grandfather left behind a wartime diary filled with accounts of a minor Burma skirmish that history books never mentioned. Reading it, Rory realized: behind every famous battle are dozens of forgotten struggles, each with its own human drama.
His preferred topics: The overlooked corners of military history – secondary campaigns, shadow battalions, local conflicts that never made headlines. From medieval sieges to twentieth-century expeditions, he focuses on the soldiers, not the generals. The people who faced impossible choices and carried those experiences forever.
Rory strips away the romanticism without losing respect for those who served. He combines tactical analysis with personal stories, examining human endurance and moral complexity rather than celebrating warfare. His writing is balanced, thoughtful, and deeply researched.
Outside work, Rory visits forgotten battlefields (now quiet farmland), photographs war memorials nobody tends anymore, and interviews veterans' families.