Sondra Fortunato appeared at Giants and Jets games as an oversized figure called Miss Liberty USA.
By any other name she was still Sondra Fortunato.
And she had many other names:
Among them were Miss Big Blue, Miss Red Hot Devil (for Devils games), Miss Super Bowl and, perhaps most appropriately, Miss Popular Culture.
Fortunato was her own myth maker and title giver, a local celebrity who through her will made herself a public figure.
Her decades-long presence at various events made her a fixture in New Jersey. But now their crowns, robes and bold signs will be missing from the crowd.
Fortunato has died, Weird New Jersey reports.
The longtime Toms River resident had been fundraising online for her medical expenses after she was diagnosed with stage four cancer. Her GoFundMe page said she lost her home after being unable to work and relying on Social Security, which didn't cover her living expenses and medical treatment over the past year.
When Fortunato appeared as a kind of volunteer cheerleader at events like football games, her Cadillac was covered in white signs emblazoned with words like “CELEBRITY” and “QUEEN” in capital letters.
Fortunato, seen here at a Giants game at MetLife Stadium in 2013, loved her signs.
Some had ambiguities about their appearance.
“DEFINED WITH A PURPOSE,” read one.
“THESE GIANTS ARE REAL,” she read in another song to the crowd at MetLife Stadium.
“I don’t know what it is,” Fortunato told The Star-Ledger in December 2013. “I walk in and people notice I’m there.”
At the time, she claimed to be about 50 years old, although public records at the time said otherwise – 65, meaning she was about 75 when she died.
Fortunato welcomed Star-Ledger reporters to her Toms River home, called “The Sondra Estate.” She wore a white dress with a voluminous tulle skirt, the bodice of which was draped with Christmas lights and small silver bells.
She showed off years of memorabilia and photos she took with celebrities like OJ Simpson, Bill Parcells and Sylvester Stallone.
If she didn't have a photo with a star she liked, she would put her picture next to it and hang that up too.
“I think since I've been a Giant, she's been coming to the games,” former Giants team captain and Pro Football Hall of Famer Harry Carson told the Ledger before the 2014 Super Bowl.
Fortunato at her Toms River home – “The Sondra Estate” – in 2013. As she was saddled with medical costs, she later lost the house.
Carson, now 70, joined the Giants in 1976. He clearly remembered her dress and sash and how she would be a one-woman cheerleading squad for a team with no cheerleaders.
“I think she had it down to the science of waiting until there was a timeout to make her appearance happen,” he said. “She went down and you heard like a roar from the crowd.”
Fortunato was asked to leave a Giants game in 2008. Author James Hester, a friend who helped her come up with slogans, said it was due to ageism. Apparently the powers that be didn't appreciate a mature woman in a Santa Claus ensemble with fishnet stockings. However, she didn't let that stop her from attending games for years to come.
“When she was young and this beautiful blonde bombshell, in front of Pamela Anderson, everything was hoo-hoo-hoo,” Hester told the Ledger. “She would just go to her place and they would go crazy. The game would almost stop.”
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Amy Kuperinsky can be reached at [email protected] and followed at @AmyKup.
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