Model: The Ugly Business of Beautiful Women (78 page)

I covered models, fashion, and fashion photography for a decade beginning in 1983 for
Photo District News
, the
East Side Express, Manhattan, inc., Vanity Fair, The New York Times
, and
New York
. Like the editors of each of those publications, William Morrow’s Paul Bresnick saw that there are dramatic depths to these most superficial of subjects, and made it possible for me to plumb them.

Modeling owes Richard Avedon a great debt. So do I. He pointed out to me that no one had ever told the story of the trade in pretty people and suggested I write this book.

Thanks, too, are due to the biggest names in modeling. Eileen, Jerry, and Katie Ford endured long interview sessions that I’m sure they would have preferred to avoid
and
gave me private rundowns on everyone in the industry. John Casablancas talked a blue streak through several morning-long conversations and was more open than I had any right to expect. François Lano was gracious enough to spend several hours with me on two separate trips to Paris. Dorian Leigh Parker was a wonderful hostess for the three days I spent with her—and far-and-away the most interesting, complex person I met in the modeling world.

Many people sat for interviews with me in the ten years I wrote about models and the year when I wrote about little else. Some have not been mentioned in the book. A few preferred it that way, and a few made it a condition of cooperation. I thank them in their anonymity. For the record, most are currently active in the fashion business and are justifiably concerned about remaining so. The rest were left out inadvertently or because there simply wasn’t space. Of those, I would particularly like to thank Susan Moncur and
Marie Helvin, whose careers are given short shrift here. That’s because each of them has written her own book. Moncur’s spare, impressionistic
They Still Shoot Models My Age
and Helvin’s
Catwalk
are two of the best books by models on modeling. Naomi Sims’s
How to Be a Top Model
is the best of many guidebooks available and was the source of most of the information on her pioneering career.

Some special people gave me special courtesy. Helen Rogers was my entrée to the world of modeling, her conventions a story I stumbled upon in 1982. She introduced me to Jérôme Bonnouvrier. His willingness to share memories of his family’s thirty-five years in the modeling business was a gift. Suzy Parker Dillman is as delightful as she is different from her sister, Dorian. Polly Mellen is an inspiration always. Wilhelmina Cooper’s family, particularly Melissa Cooper, and her stepmother, Judith Duncanson Cooper, allowed me into an attic full of Wilhelmina’s belongings. More important was their desire to air the truth behind her legend. Judith Cooper also introduced me to Hannah Lee Sherman, who agreed to talk about her career for the first time since it ended almost sixty years ago.

Almost all my sources are cited in the text in a way that makes clear where information came from. Any quotations in the present tense (i.e., followed by “she says”) were spoken directly to me. Quotations from previously published sources are attributed in the past tense (i.e., “she said”). In general, newspaper and magazine clippings are not cited in the text. Most of the clippings came from two newspaper morgues, at the New York
Post
and at the Harry Ranson Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas in Austin, where the morgue of the defunct New York
Journal-American
remains a living resource. The Ranson Center’s Ken Craven deserves a special thanks. As the clippings often present or repeat unsourced information, I have tried to indicate in the text what may be exaggerated, one-sided, or apocryphal.

Only a few of the living key figures in the history of modeling refused to give interviews, or to update old ones. Bettina Graziani, Irving Penn, David Bailey, Twiggy Lawson, Jean Shrimpton, Bob Williamson, Arthur Elgort, Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Steven Meisel, Donna Broome, Terry Broome, Stephanie Seymour, Peter Brant, Jean-Pierre Dollé, Jacques Buchi and Claude Grangier of Models S.A. in Switzerland, Alan Finkelstein, Thierry Roussel, Penelope Tree, Alan Clore, Carlo Cabassi, and Patti Hansen all declined or didn’t respond to requests for interviews. Riccardo Gay began one and then never completed it. China Machado, Giorgio Piazzi, Karl Lagerfeld, Bill Helburn, Justin de Villeneuve, Kelly Emberg, Ann Turkel, Tony
Spinelli, Susan Train, Peter Lindbergh, and Beverly Johnson all agreed to interviews that were never successfully arranged. Dorothea McGowan, Esme Marshall, Brian Duffy, Eileen Green, Cherry Marshall, Claudio Caccia, Giorgio Rotti, Pier Luigi Torri, Laura Royko, Joan Furboch, Lisa Vale, John Stember, Evelyn Tripp, and survivors of Walter Thornton and Sunny Harnett are believed to be living but could not be located.

However, hundreds of people in the world’s four modeling centers—New York, Paris, London, and Milan—and beyond took time to see me, talk to me on the telephone, or, at the least, confirm facts about themselves. I’d like to thank Azzedine Alaïa, Pucci Albanese, Suzy Amis, Marie Anderson, Sara Foley-Anderson, Ruth Ansel, Jeff Aquilon, Douglas Asch, Laraine Ashton, Gloria and Valerie Askew, Kevyn Aucoin, Lisa Baker, Judy Baldwin, Mark Balet, Bryan Bantry, Gianpaolo Barbieri, Neal Barr, Lillian Bassman, Kenneth Battelle, Peter Beard, Simone d’Aillencourt Benezeraf, Chuck Bennett, Gilles Bensimon, Marisa Berenson, Nancy Berg, Jacques Bergaud, Pauline Bernatchez, Olivier Bertrand, Bernadette Reinhardt Bishop, Bernard Blanceneaux, Nina Blanchard, Bill Blass, Anthony Bloomfield, Jeff Blynn, Gillian Bobroff, Beth Boldt, Christine Bolster, Eric Boman, Ulla Bomser, David Bonnouvrier, Giselle Bonnouvrier, Tina Bossidy, Ingrid Boulting, Nancy Bounds and Mark Sconce, Patti Boyd, Mark Bozek, Dan Brennan, Bob Brenner, Christie Brinkley (and her assistant, Margot McNabb), Dana Brockman, Emerick Branson, Barbara Brown, David Brown, Jean-Luc Brunel, Rose Bruner, Nan Bush, Jule Campbell, Umberto Caproni, Paul Caranicas, Christieve Carothers, Joyce Caruso, Tiziana Casali, Patrice Casanova, Shaun Casey, Oleg Cassini, Michel Castellano, Cindy Cathcart, Simon Chambers, Sue Charney, Jade Hobson Charnin, Alex Chatelain, Bennie Chavez, Servane Cherouat, Cheyenne, Jeanette Christjansen.

Willy Christy, Serene Cicora, Geraldine Frank Clark, Dennie Cody, Carol Conover, Harry Conover, Jr., Monique Corey, Bernie Cornfeld, Francine Counihan Okie, Stewart Cowley Cindy Crawford, Mary Webb Davis, Kim Dawson, Jean-Marie de Gueldre, Inès de la Fressange, Jacques de Nointel, Barbara deWolf, Gerald Dearing, Dan Deely, Carmen Dell’Orefice, Patrick Demarchelier, Micki Denhoff, Louise Despointes, Cathy di Montezemolo, Richard di Pietro, Martine Diacenco, Debbie Dickinson, Janice Dickinson, Lorraine Dillon, Clay Deering Dilworth, Guido Dolce, Terence Donovan, Betty McLauchlen Dorso, Sarah Doukas, April Ducksbury, Giuliana Ducret, Mary Duffy, Diana Edkins at the Condé Nast Archive, Bernadette Marciano Ellinger, Dieter and Natasha Esch, Jinx Falkenburg, Ed Feldman, Fabrizio
Ferri, Bob Fertig, Christa Fiedler, Michael Flutie, José Fonseca, Fernand Fonssagrives, Susan Forristal, Juli Foster, Jeremy Foster-Fell, Judith Foster-Fell, Bob Frame, Dottie Franco, Edward Gainsley, Marcella Galdi, Colette Gambier.

Marilyn Gaulthier, Diane Gérald, Marco Glaviano, Richard Golub, Jan Gonet, Wynne Gordine-Dalley, Sunny Griffin, Frances Grill, Brigitte Grosjean, Lisa Gubernick, Lucy Angle Guercio, Jean-François Guille, Sean Gunson, Claude Haddad, Anthony Haden-Guest, Paul Hagnauer, Maarit Halinen, Chad Hall, Jerry Hall (and her assistant, Jane Hayes), Jane Halleran, Shirley Hamilton, Celia Hammond, Beth Ann Hardison, Huntington Hartford, Juliet Hartford, Ellen Harth, Bonnie Haydon, Charles Haydon, Will Helburn, Guy Héron, Astrid Herrene, Steve Hiett, Jane Hitchcock, Horst P. Horst, Jane Hsiang, Marion Hume, Joe Hunter, Lauren Hutton (and her assistant, Dee Galucci), Pippa Imrie, Just Jaeckin, Stanley Juba, Leslie Kark, Faith Kates, Lizette Kattan, Harry King, Sally Kirkland, Alain Kittler, William Klein, Polly Ferguson Knaster, Bitten Knudsen, Paul Kopp, Lee Kraft, Ewing Krainin, Gene Krell, Karin Mossberg LaMotte, Judy Lane, Stéphane Lanson, Barbara Lantz, Roberto Lanzotti, Barry Lategan, Estée Lauder, Leonard Lauder, Guy Le Baube, Kim LeManton.

Michel Levaton, Angie Lewis, Alexander Liberman, Freddie Lieba, Gunilla Lindblad, Christine Lindgren, Jean Louis, Gene Loyd, Peter Hope Lumley, Gillis MacGil, Robert MacLeod, Francesca Magugliani, Jacques Malignon, Nikki Maniscalco, Gérald Marie, Irene Marie, Fabienne Martin, Jo Matthews, Mark McCormack, Tex McCrary, Eric McGrath, Bob McKeon, Peggy McKinley, Nando Miglio, Iris Minier, Grace Mirabella, Donna Mitchell, Kay Mitchell, Robbie Montgomery, Linda Morand, Barbara Mullen Morel, Daniel Moriarty, Gara Morse, Kate Moss, Jean-Jacques Naudet, Ruth Neumann Derujinsky, S. I. Newhouse, Jr., Bruce Oldfield, Livia Rendessy Oliver, Natálie Nickerson Paine, Sir Mark Palmer, Tom Palumbo, Dorothy Parker and Sebastien Sed, Norman Parkinson, Jean Patchett, Lorenzo Pedrini, Giuseppe and Patrizia Piazzi.

Hervé Picard, Betsy Pickering Kaiser, Monique Pillard, Aldo Pinto, Jan Kaplan Planit, Giorgio Poli, Michele Pommier, Paulina Porizkova, Jean-Michel Pradwilov, Vickie Pribble, Roger Prigent, Craig Pyes, Karen Radkai, Charles Rainey, Juan Ramos, Abel Rapp, Mike Reinhardt, Giorgio Repossi, Matthew Rich, Bob Richardson, Herb Ritts, Jeni Rose, David Rosenzweig, Isabella Rossellini, Fran Rothschild, Chris Royer, Edward and Mary Jane Russell, D. D. Ryan, Giorgio Sant’Ambrogio, Odile Sarron, Percy Savage, Francesco Scavullo, Jerry Schatzberg, Giuseppe della Schiava, Claudia Schiffer,
Barbara Schlager, Mark Sconce, Chelita Secunda, Tara Shannon, Jacques Silberstein, Steven Silverberg, Babs Simpson, Victor Skrebneski, Sarah Slavin, Marion Smith.

Shelley Smith, Jerrold Smockler, Lynn Snowden, Evelyn Kuhn Sokolsky, Melvin Sokolsky, Mia Fonssagrives Solow, Franca Sozzani, Richard Stein, Norma Stephens, Bert Stern, Eleanor Stinson, Don Stogo, Dick and Barbara Thorbahn Stone, Peter Strongwater, Constance Stumin, Geraldine Stutz, Massimo Tabak, Richard Talmadge, Trudi Tapscott, Dick Tarlow, Lisa Taylor, Ingo Thouret, Alberta Tiburzi, Tichka, Cheryl Tiegs (and her assistant, Barbara Shapiro), Elizabeth Tilberis, Reeshe Tivnan, Beatrice Traissac, Sarah Trimble, Christy Turlington, Barbara Tyler, Apollonia van Ravenstein, Mary Anne van Sickle, Auro Varani, Rosie Vela, Vera “Veruschka” von Lehndoff, Edward von Saher, Ellen von Unwerth, Gaby Wagner, Paul Wagner, John Warren, Ben Washington, Veronica Webb, Bruce Weber, Bill Weinberg, John Weitz, Lenno Wells, Preston Westenburg, Anna Wintour, Marysia Woronieka, Dan Wynn, Jean-Pierre Zachariasen, and Rusty Zeddis.

Finally, thanks to my agent, Ellen Levine, and Ann Dubuisson and Diana Finch of her office; my fashion rabbi, Bernadine Morris; Fabien Baron, who designed a cover with both impact and grace; picture editor Philip Gefter; photographer’s agent Pamela Reed; Bill Tonelli of
Esquire
magazine, who helped wrestle the manuscript into shape; my assistant, Stephanie Frank; transcriber Jean Brown; researchers Emma Beal in London (and Miles Chapman, who found her), Cecile Bloc-Rodot in Paris (and Alexis DuClos), Chris Lynch in Milan (and Richard Buckley); and interns Dorian May, Tim Kitchen, Vanessa Richardson, and Allegra Abramo.

And for care, feeding, and otherwise tending to my needs, thanks to Jerry Simon Chasen, Kee and Lee Neidringhaus, Zoe Beresford, Peter Waldman, Thorn O’Dwyer, Jane Proctor, Gene Gutowski, and Lisa Eveleigh; Lyssa Horn, Claude Roland, Jim Haynes, Pamela Hanson and George Klarsfeld, Katell Le Bourhis, and Christy and J. P. Sadron; Fabrizio Ferri, Lisa Immordino, and Kim Clyde of Industria; Gerlinde and Eduardo Guelfenbein, Marpessa Hennink, Giorgio Guidotti, Giulio Viggi, Giorgio and Lavinia Cesana, Noona Smith-Peterson, Gabriella Forte, Romeo Gigli, Grazia d’Annunzio, Nando Miglio, Tom Ford and Karla Otto; Andre Balazs, Janis Kaye French, Peter Herbst, Eric Pooley, Mary Michele Rutherfurd, Christine Biddie and Michael Millius, Holly Solomon, Margery Goldberg, Maury Rogoff, Scott Manning, Ted Savaglio, and Susan Wiggins.