Yolande Betbeze Fox, Alabama's first Miss America and the woman who changed the rules on wearing swimsuits, has died, a family spokesperson has confirmed to a news portal. Fox died on Monday, Feb. 22, at a hospice in Washington, D.C. She was 87.

"She died of lung cancer," said Nancy Collins, longtime friend and spokeswoman for the family. "I was with her when she died."

Fox was a legendary figure in the history of Miss America. Her refusal to wear swimsuits during her reign made her a hero to feminists, changed pageant tradition and led to the launch of competitors including Miss USA. She was married to Matthew Fox, president of Universal Pictures, from 1954 until his death in 1964. They had one daughter, Dolly, who lives in New York.

Fox lived in a house in the Georgetown district of Washington that was previously owned by the widowed Jacqueline Kennedy, who lived there after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

"She was unquestionably the last of the grand dames of Georgetown," said Carol Ross Joynt, a neighbour who had known her since 1992 and whose son attended school with Fox's granddaughter, Paris Campbell. "She was a supportive, good friend."

Fox donated her Miss America crown, scepter and sash to the Smithsonian Institution. She was always elegant, even in her later years. "She just looked great, a natural beauty, great cheekbones," Joynt said. "She was one of those people."

She was also a political activist who campaigned for civil rights and against nuclear weapons. "She was a Democrat with a capital D," Joynt said.

"She was funny till the end," said Collins, a former Washington Post reporter. "Her mind was a steel trap."

She had been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer in September.

"I grew up hearing about Yolande Betbeze," Collins said. "To me, she was Elizabeth Taylor."

Born Nov. 29, 1928, Fox was the only child of William and Ethel Betbeze of Mobile. She had a beautiful voice and wanted to be an opera singer. She competed at the Miss Alabama contest in Birmingham in hope of earning a scholarship to sing in New York.

"I was not into pageants; nice young ladies in Mobile didn't do that," she said in a 2014 interview with Sally Ericson of AL.com.

She was 21 when she won the title of Miss Alabama, then triumphed at the finals in Atlantic City and went on to live a glamorous life in New York, Paris and Washington. In Birmingham, she sang "Summertime" from Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess"; in Atlantic City, she performed the "Caro Nome" aria from Verdi's "Rigoletto."