- Porntip Bui Simon was crowned Miss Universe in 1988 but knew she had to use the platform to do more than promote beauty products and bathing suits
- Her Angels Wings Foundation provides scholarships for Thai students in both the US and her native Thailand, where it also supports children
The chatter inside a packed function room at Beverly Hills' Montage Hotel quietens as Porntip Bui Simon glides into the room and takes her place on the podium.
Three decades after being crowned, the former Miss Thailand and Miss Universe still looks every inch the pageant queen. She smiles benevolently at the assembled guests, mostly members of the local Thai community.
Everyone stands for the Thai national anthem, accompanied by musicians playing Thai instruments. Outside, a lavish lunch is being prepared.
The occasion is the endowment of hundreds of thousands of US dollars in scholarship money to 41 of the brightest young Thais on the US west coast. The scholarships are provided by the Angels Wings Foundation, a charitable organisation founded by Simon.
The students are headed for some of the best universities in the US " MIT, Stanford and UCLA " where tuition fees can be in the tens of thousands of US dollars a year.
They plan to study neuroscience, world arts and engineering, among other subjects. One student says her ultimate goal is to manage a racing car speed track in Indiana.
As the students go up one by one to collect their awards, parents " many of whom never went to university " beam in delight.
For Simon, the need to give back to her community began when she was crowned Miss Universe in 1988.
"It was unintentional, but I took on this ethnic pride," the 51-year-old says. "I wanted to do my part as a prominent Thai citizen. I had the ability to help, so I felt the inclination and responsibility to do so."
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Since the scholarship programme began three years ago, she has personally read hundreds of applications. Her foundation provides US$5,000 or US$10,000 to each successful applicant.
The programme is an offshoot of a foundation that has traditionally helped children in Simon's native Thailand. During her time as Miss Universe, she visited schools and orphanages that were struggling to meet the most basic needs.
"Some of the schools had chalkboards in the dirt," she says.
"But no matter how destitute the kids were in material things, they were rich in spirit. They weren't interested in the balls and dolls in my hand. They wanted my hand; they wanted connection. I was fascinated with how they could be so happy with so little."
Over the years, Simon has given scholarships to students in rural Thai villages on condition they return to their provinces to teach after their own education is complete.
After the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami wreaked death and destruction along Thailand's southwest coast, Simon galvanised a team and with the Red Cross built 100 homes in 90 days.
I met Simon a few weeks before the Montage Hotel event at her Malibu mansion, steps away from Carbon Beach where her neighbours included film star Leonardo DiCaprio and film executive Jeffrey Katzenberg.
A mainstay of the international social scene, Simon drops in to Paris couture shows, has gone to parties with former supermodel Cindy Crawford and her husband, entertainment entrepreneur Rande Gerber, and is on a first-name basis with the world's top designers.
I said, 'I'm so honoured, but I'm going back to school.' And then I won the crown. I was on stage crying, and everyone thought I was so happy, but I was thinking, 'I'm stuck in Thailand for a year.'Simon on being crowned Miss Thailand in 1988
She has parlayed her love of fashion into an interesting endeavour.
She is a silent partner in the trendy but prestigious shoe brand The Office of Angela Scott, a maker of menswear-inspired women's shoes: brogues, wingtips and loafers made from polished leather that retail for around US$450.
The brand has acquired a cult following.
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Scott, the designer, used to be Simon's assistant. When Scott left to move to another state, Simon " who knew of Scott's dream to create a shoe line " asked her what she was going to do about it.
After Simon saw some of her initial sketches, she decided to invest.
"I respected her tenacity, her ability to create and her courage to go after her dreams," she says.
Simon expected Scott to make some samples and get pre-orders, to make sure that the market needed what she wanted to sell.
"She went door-to-door with her suitcase of shoes," Simon recalls. "She was willing to learn everything from the ground up."
Simon is not just an investor; sometimes Scott will show her new collections and Simon will ask savvy questions.
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"I edit," she says. "I ask her, 'Who is wearing the shoe, describe the client.' It's helped us refine the collection so it's more targeted towards the buyers."
Besides fashion and philanthropy, family is central to Simon's life. She and her husband Herb Simon, the 84-year-old billionaire co-founder of America's largest shopping mall operator, Simon Property, have a family that includes 10 children.
Herb Simon has five adult offspring from his previous marriages, while at home with the Simon couple now are the younger five, ranging in ages from nine to 24 (two biological, three adopted from Bui Simon's now-deceased sister).
Simon was born in Thailand to a Thai mother and American father, moving to the US with them when she was four.
During her first year at Pepperdine University in Malibu, she visited Bangkok to see her mother, who had returned to her native country.
She heard about casting for the Miss Thailand competition, and was encouraged by friends to show up at Bangkok's Little Duck Hotel for a casting call.
A corporate sponsor offered her US$2,000 to spend a couple of weeks training for the pageant.
"As a college student, that was a lot of money," Simon says. She ended up on stage, competing. When she was asked why she wanted to be Miss Thailand, she quietly demurred.
"I said, 'I'm so honoured, but I'm going back to school,'" she recalls. "And then I won the crown. I was on stage crying, and everyone thought I was so happy, but I was thinking, 'I'm stuck in Thailand for a year.'"
The Miss Universe pageant took place in Taipei, Taiwan's capital, a few weeks later. Again, Simon won the crown.
"Back in the US, I'd been driving a beat-up Honda," she says. "Now I was in a Maserati convertible. I was dining with kings and queens and prime ministers and presidents. It was a real Cinderella story. It was a whirlwind."
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The exposure led to deals with Pepsi, Colgate, Revlon and Sunsilk. She accompanied Thai athletes to the Summer Olympics and the Asian Games. She tried to be known as a "beauty queen with a calling".
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"I had this great platform," she says. "I knew I had to do something more than promote Revlon and bathing suits."
She eventually made her way back to the US and obtained a degree in psychology from Pepperdine. Later she returned to Bangkok, where she was lead anchor and co-producer on news show 60 Minutes in Thailand.
On another trip to the US, she went to dinner at the home of a friend in Santa Barbara, California, where she was seated next to Herb Simon. They have now been married for 17 years.
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Together, she and her husband run another foundation that supports hospitals, builds libraries and provides scholarships, but the pair prefer to stay out of the limelight.
"We pride ourselves on being a family first," she says. "It's not about the notoriety."
Simon says that her need to have a high-profile, jet-set life has mellowed in recent years. Instead of hosting yet another glittering party for a recent significant birthday, she instead went on her own to the luxury Amangani resort in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
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"There were bald eagles and falcons soaring in the sky; moose and elk just walking by," she says.
"It was a great way to slow things down, get some perspective. Meditating is a lot more interesting when you do it in a foreign place. You soak up the energy of where you are. I wanted to give that birthday time to myself, to circle back to who I am, outside of being a mother and a wife."
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