Hillevi Rombin

Welcome to the only official website about Hillevi Rombin

Hillevi Rombin (September 14, 1933 – June 19, 1996), became Miss Sweden and then went on to become the fourth winner of Miss Universe in 1955.

Born in Sweden, she grew up in the city of Uppsala and was a Swedish national decathlon champion before competing in the pageant. A remarkable athlete, Rombin excelled in gymnastics, track & field, and downhill snow skiing.

After winning the Miss Universe pageant, she moved to Hollywood to fulfill her acting contract with Universal Pictures, part of the prize package as Miss Universe. She studied acting along with John Gavin, Clint Eastwood, and Barbara Eden, among the other contract actors also in training.

Universal put her in a couple films, with just one or two lines, to give her some exposure and experience. She can be seen in The Benny Goodman Story (1955) as someone who asks for an autograph and in Istanbul (1957) as a flight attendant near the end; she has small speaking roles in both films and her name can be seen in the credits. Before she would get much further with acting, she left it when she married.

During her year reign as Miss Universe, while traveling around the U.S., she met her future husband G. David Schine, whose family was in the hotel business and would later himself be in the film and music businesses. She would not pursue an acting career and instead married, soon starting a large family with Schine. They married in 1957 (the first and only marriage for both) and by 1965 had six children together.

They remained married for almost 40 years until their deaths in 1996. She, her husband, and one of their sons died tragically in a plane crash in 1996, the result of an engine failure shortly after take off.

As of 2015, Hillevi Rombin remains as the only Miss Universe winner to have died.