Fashion victim

I had blue cowboy boots. I loved them; they were so cool. I had a pink leather teeshirt, and I had a pair of red jeans. I had red plastic cowboy boots too – and a yellow skirt with a matching top. When I first moved to France, I had practically no clothes, most of my stuff was lost – in suitcases and boxes scattered all over NY and Connecticut. When I went to Paris I left things behind, I travelled light, and when I got my pay, I usually hit the shops to buy clothes – my first favorite store was Kenzo, and I bought nearly everything there – dresses, skirts, teeshirts – and I got my shoes and boots at Miu Miu; (when I was buying those things, those designers were just starting out, and cheap – nowadays I couldn’t affort socks at Miu Miu or a teeshirt at Kenzo!) 

The blue lizard skin cowboy boots were fun – I can’t remember where I got them, but I remember wearing them until I wore the soles out. I loved (still do!) chunky, funky, fake jewelry. I loved to go to thrift shops – (still do) and find fun things that don’t mix and match. I am a fashion victim – I can’t seem to do ‘classic’ – I start off with the good intentions of wearing beige and black, and end up with a scarlet dress, a turquoise scarf, and shoes with rhinestones on the heels. I never thoguht I’d really like being a model – I thought I’d do it for a while to earn some money – but the truth is, I loved dressing up and trying new clothes and shoes  – the flashier, the better! Here I am in Italy, doing a shoot with Oliviero Toscani. He was a fun photographer to work with – I adored his style, and his assistant, Fafi, was a doll. We had a blast – I wish I could find all the pictures we did – but here is one of me as a fashion victim; chunky jewelry and all! 

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Model Madness

A day on a location shoot –  the Bahamas – 1982 .  We’re shooting sweaters for a German magazine. In the Bahamas. Sweaters. Think about it. 

4:30 am – the alarm goes off. Stagger into the shower. Dress in loose shorts, baggy tee shirt. Go down the hallway to the makeup artist’s room where I sit and wait for hair and makeup. There is a thermos of tea on the counter, I drink some before the makeup artist starts, because once she does I won’t be able to eat or drink anything for a while. No breakfast yet –  nothing is open. We’re staying at the Club Med – there is a cafeteria style restaurant that opens at 7 am, but we’ll already be on the road. We have to start shooting when the sun comes up. Hairdresser comes in late and has obviously been up all night. He doesn’t look good. Pours himself a tea – sees it’s tea and not coffee, swears, dumps cup into the garbage. Looks at the models sitting in our chairs. There are three of us. The makeup artist has put on our foundation and powder, and is working on my eyes. The other girls are reading magazines.  We have been there since 5 am; it is now nearly 6 and the art director pokes her head into the room.  “Leaving in fifteen minutes,” she announces. The hairdresser swears again and grabs a curling iron from his bag, plugs it in, and starts brushing one of the model’s hair. She winces, but doesn’t say anything. The makeup artist finishes my makeup and starts on the the third girl. The hairdresser is now busy crimping the first girl’s hair, rolling it in tight coils with his curling iron  and pinning all the curls with bobby pins in order to brush it out last minute. In ten minutes, he’s done. He looks at me (I have short, straight hair) and he makes a face. The art director comes in and claps his hands. “Let’s go!” she yells. We grab our bags. In the days before cellphones, we didn’t have much to carry: wallet, sun glasses, a hat, tissues, hairbrush, address book (a real book with paper pages!) sometimes a camera, and a book or magazine for reading. We pile into a minibus that is already packed with the photographer’s equipment. The makeup artist has her case, the hairdresser has his bag. We squeeze in. Next to the driver, in the front seat, is the photographer. There is a hierarchy to the shoots. Front seat photographer. The next seats are taken by the art director and the stylist. Then comes the makeup artist, the hair dresser, and in the very back are the models. The assistant photographer arrives at a run. There is no room for him – but he crams in anyhow, shoving the hairdresser into a corner. The door slams shut – we zoom off.

Half an hour later, we arrive at the location. The models are herded to a bench where we sit while the makeup artist adds finishing touches and while the hairdresser opens his case and takes out some curlers. He starts to put curlers in my short hair. He is pulling hard, rolling up my hair, then putting hair pins in to hold it tight. He keeps stabbing me with the hair pins. I ask him to be careful. He ignores me. He stabs me again. I cry “Ouch!” That does it. He jumps back, then yells at me. “Shut up!” Surprised, I  try to defuse the situation. “Look, just be more careful, that’s all. You’re hurting me.”  He throws his brush down on the ground and says, “That does it. I’m finished with you. I’m not touching you again, do you hear me? You can do your own hair. I’m not going to bother with you.”  

I’m gaping at him, and I feel my cheeks get red. The photographer has worked with me before. He just shrugs when the hairdresser goes to him to complain. “Her hair is fine the way it is,” he says. The hair dresser is furious that I didn’t get fired on the spot. I want to make peace, but for the remaining five days we’re on location, he won’t even speak to me. The makeup artist is super nice to me. She can’t stand the hairdresser, she confides to me. The art director doesn’t care either. As long as the photographer is happy, she’s happy. The photographer is happy – I’m the first one up in the morning, I don’t drink, don’t go out at night, don’t take drugs. One model goes out every night. She’s wasted most mornings. The other model is homesick and cries a lot. She’s my roommate, and I tell her stories about growing up in St. Thomas every night so she can fall asleep. She’s Dutch. A big girl, with a round, baby face.

On the third day, the photographer tells the model who goes out at night that she’s going to be sent back home if she comes in with dark circles around her eyes once more.  He’s serious. She apologizes. Says she’s met the love of her life at the nightclub. The rest of the shoot goes smoothly, except for the hairdresser’s tiff with me. We wake up at 4:30, we work until 11, then we break for lunch. We nap afterwards, because we start work again at 3 pm and finish when it’s dark. Then we have dinner and go to bed early, because at 4:30, our alarms go off. It’s beautiful in the Bahamas, but we don’t see much of it. We stay in the shade, don’t go to the beach, because the slightest sun tan, the slightest pink nose, is a disaster. No marks on the skin – no bathing suit mark, tan, sunburn. We stay indoors. On the last day, I take my Dutch roommate out to the beach. We slather sunscreen on ourselves and swim in the surf. We stay exactly half an hour, then run back indoors. Are our noses pink? We each bought a shell necklace from a beach vendor. a souvenir from the Bahamas.

Me on the beach in the Bahamas with another model – 1982. The necklace vendor took our picture for us. We were happy to pose for him.

Our plane is late. We boarded, but it doesn’t taken off. A problem with the radio, we’re told. Another hour goes by – we disembark and are loaded onto another plane. Everyone is in a hurry. We all have connecting flights to other places – from Miami I’m going to Paris. So are the photographer, his assistant, and the art director. The other two models are going to Milan. The makeup artist is going to London. The hairdresser to New York. When we get to Miami, we’re all in a tearing hurry. The luggage arrives, and one suitcase is open and its contents scattered over the carousel – it’s the hairdresser’s suitcase – it has broken open. We all help pick everything up. The models, the art director, even the assistant and the photographer. We pick up the pins, the clothes, the brushes, the curlers – even though we’re all late for our flights. Despite everything, we stay and help out. Because you never know who your next shoot will be with – and if I have to work with this hairdresser again,  he’ll be nicer to me next time. I drop a handful of hairpins in his outstretched hand, and he gives me an apologetic smile.

 

 

In the eye of the beholder

Someone asked me recently what it felt like to be told I was beautiful. The question is hard to answer because everyone likes to be appreciated, and beauty is something that we all seem to value. But at the same time, beauty is fleeting and only skin deep, so it’s the kind of compliment you can make to someone without really caring about the person.

Swimsuits in the winter, coats in the summer

The pictures a model takes come out months later – half the time I forgot when and where the pictures would come out, and I didn’t collect my magazine photos. The pictures I have left come from one of the books I had (there were three at the Agency – I don’t know where they are now, probably in the trash). What I knew from the beginning was how ephemeral a model’s job was. I would pose for a picture that would be looked at in a few months, sit on someone’s coffee table for a week, then end up in the trash. So, I never made it a point to look for my photos or keep them. I don’t regret much – I look back at the photos and they don’t mean anything to me – it’s like it’s someone else, and I’m even a little jealous of this person’t slenderness – where did this person go? Her bones are hiding somewhere in my body, but she’s no longer there. I think it must be worse for an actor – there you are walking, talking and laughing – and it’s no longer you. You moved on – but the image stayed the same…

Every single germ in Europe

Did I mention the fact that I catch everything that goes around? It got worse when I arrived in Europe. Apparently, your body gets used to the germs in your country. Leave it, and you are open season to every new contagion you meet – and I met a lot. There were days I was so dazed by fever I hardly knew where I was. That I had still not replaced my glasses, and navigated in a blur, didn’t help. Picture me on the metro, squinting desperately at the walls, trying to read what station I was in. Or standing under the street sign and peering up – is that a B or a D? I didn’t speak French, but my first words were: “Where is  ____?” and “Left and Right.” “Straight on” in French sounds just like “Right”, so if someone told me to go straight on, I’d hang a right, and they would have to run after me (if they were nice). So I wandered around in a fog, usually with a dreadfully congested chest, sore throat, and migraine. It was April, and I had a shoot for the cover of a magazine. The photographer took us to a house in the country with an outdoor pool, and that is where I spent an hour – in the freezing water, in the pale April sunshine, jumping and splashing to keep warm – and of course, I caught bronchitis.

Wait a minute – didn’t you say you worked with Richard Avedon?

Yes, I worked for Richard Avedon. The story is this: I was in NYC, I was just starting out, and so far I hadn’t had any great jobs except for two non-speaking parts as an  extra in films – one with with Michelle Pfeiffer and my role was sitting in a nightclub trying not to watch her on the dance floor. “Stop watching the actors! You’re just extras!” the director would shout – then “Roll ’em!” (honest, he did shout roll ’em) and then “Cut!” So we sat and pretended to drink and talk and not look at Michelle, who was so gorgeous she glowed. The other spot was on roller skates, and I had to walk down a spiral staircase on roller skates, then skate past the camera (me and two other girls). We giggled and tripped and blundered about, and drove the director crazy (he was cool though, he just made us do it until not one of us tripped) – and that was it. I never knew what either film was for – and honestly at the time I didn’t think it was important. It was a day’s work – that was what was important!

All the girls in the agency wanted to work with the big three: Vogue, Glamour, or Mademoiselle. Anything else was treated with disdain. One day I was in the agency and the booker, on the phone, raised her head and shouted “I need a girl to pose for a shot about breast cancer awareness. No face,  no nothing – just tits. Who wants it?” And everyone snorted and turned their backs but me. I raised my hand. “I’ll take it,” I said. (I was never prudish – nudity didn’t bother me).  The booker put the phone down, after telling the client my name, and said, “Well, Jennifer, it’s your lucky break. The photographer is Richard Avedon.” I just looked blank. I had no idea who that was. But the other girls in the room either screamed or burst into tears.

The next day, off I went to post nude for Richard Avedon. I arrived at the studio and they put me in a well-lit dressing room in front of the makeup station, next to a tall, big-boned blond girl who had a strong Texan accent. “Heya, what’s your name?” she asked. “Jennifer. What’s yours?” She widened her eyes. “Jerry. Jerry Hall.” I shook her hand.  “Pleased to meet you.” Her name didn’t mean anything to me. You have to remember – I came from the Virgin Islands, had grown up with no television (our TV was on the porch, covered with a cloth, used as a table). She put on her makeup, and looked at me out of the corner of her eye. Finally, she put her blusher down and said, “Why aren’t you putting on makeup?” I explained I was just there for a tit shot. Here eyebrows went up again. “Put on makeup anyhow,” she said. “You always have to look your best for the photos.” I took her advice, while she flipped through my press book (you always bring your book with you). ‘These are real nice,” she said. Then she got up and went to do her shoot.  She would be the lead photo for the article, and my tits would be a small photo in the side, illustrating the importance, I supposed, of having breast cancer awareness. When it was my turn, Jerry came in and gave me a quick hug. I thought that was really sweet, and told her so. Then I took off my shirt and posed for Richard Avedon, whose name still didn’t mean anything to me. He took about five shots, then, and I remember this, he took off his glasses, and peered at me. “Show me your book,” he ordered. I fetched my book and handed it to him. Still standing behind his tripod, he flipped through the pages. I was proud of the photographers who’d taken my pictures, so I pointed and said, “That was was Sing-Si Schwartz – he usually does still life shots, and he set up that whole stage to look like snow. And that’s Andrew Bruckner – he used to work as an assistant. He’s freinds with Doug Healey who took this at the pool the other day.” I  was chatting, and he was just looking at the pictures, then he put the book down and hollered at his assistant, “Get me Vogue on the phone!”  They brought a phone over (this was in the day before portables, and the assistant held the phone while he spoke), and what he said was, “I have this girl here and she’s very interesting and I think you should use her.” 

When I got back to the agency,  my booker got up from behind her desk, ran over and hugged me. “You got a job at Vogue!” she shouted. “And Mademoiselle just called, and they want you in Miami next week! Richard Avedon loved you!” (We know where that Miami  shoot went, don’t we?)  I looked at her and frowned. “Who is Richard Avedon?” I asked.

I also didn’t find out who Jerry Hall was until I met her again in Milan, Italy.  We recognized each other and had a drink together (“You have to try this orange juice,” she told me, “It’s red – so weird, but really good!” It was orange sanguine and looked just like tomato juice but tasted like orange juice – too weird!) We talked, I told her what I’d been doing, and I thanked her for telling me to put on makeup. She finished her drink and waved goodbye. That’s when Johnny Casablanca came over and said “You know Jerry?” I said, “Yeah, I met her in New York once. She’s really nice.” And he said, “Did you ever meet her boyfriend, Mick Jagger?” I was floored.  Shit – I knew who that was!

(Two shots from my book that Richard Avedon saw.) 

The suppository story

I went to Europe in April 1979, that was the good news. The bad news was that I was a very immature 18 years old, 5’7″, weighed 49 kilos, had four broken wisdom teeth and a bad back.  One of my vertebra was displaced, making some movements agony. My broken teeth were sore and kept me from enjoying eating.  Being a hypochondriac is only fun when you can go to a doctor. Most days I was convinced I was probably dying from some dreadful cancer.  (Go see a doctor? Do I have health insurance? in America? don’t make me laugh!). But I’d been sickly most my life – catching every stomach bug and strep throat germ that came by, colds usually turned into bronchitis, and sore throats turned into laryngitis. I had chest pains, stomach pains, back and leg pains – but there was nothing new there, I just thought being in pain was part of being human. And to top it off, my glasses fell overboard on a ferry one day and I never got them replaced – so add migraines from eye strain to all that and you have an idea of my physical state in 1979.  After starting modelling I had the opportunity to go to Europe, so off I went. I, and five other models, flew across the Atlantic. The other girls had money for taxis. I met some fun people on the plane, and they told me to take the “choo”, as it was much cheaper. We debarked, and they helped me to the Underground station where we took a metro. I decided “choo” must be short for “choo choo train”. I was embarrassed when I told the story at dinner only to have everyone burst into laughter and tell me I’d made friends with Cockney’s and their “choo” was actually “Tube” – what the English called their subway.

Our first first stop was London and for three day I hardly slept, going on “go sees” during the day and going out nearly every night with the group of models. Next stop was Milan, where I suddenly came down with strep throat. I had a fever, and could hardly talk. That day Johnny Casablanca – owner of the modelling agency – was coming  to meet us at the hotel. He took one look at me and ordered me back up to my room. He called a doctor, much to my horror, and sat at the foot of my bed until the doctor came – then he dispatched a groom to fetch the medicine for me. When it came; he gave me the package and said, “Here! Take one now, and another in the morning. Do that for five days.” I looked at the medicine. I had no idea what it was. In a plastic pack were what looked like ten bullets. “What are they?” I croaked.  He frowned and said, “Suppositories. It has an antibiotic and will take care of your sore throat. Best thing for that. You’ll feel better in no time.” I shook my head. “But – what – I mean how?” I asked, perplexed. He heaved a sigh. “Americans,” he said, “don’t know anything. You put it in your rectum. Push it in. Pop! Up it goes. Best way to take medicine. Now, do it.”  I refused point blank. He insisted. I protested. He got mad. I got stubborn. He glared at me and said, “No one wants to take pictures of a sick model. You’re sick. You need to get better. You go in the bathroom right now and use that suppository.” I tottered into the bathroom and locked the door. He pounded on it. “No flushing the toilet!” he yelled. I cringed. I looked at the sink, but the drain was hidden beneath a sieve-like cover. Johnny knocked on the door again. “Hurry up!” he cried. I crawled into the shower, opened the suppository, and pushed it as far as I could down the drain. Then I tottered back out and collapsed on the bed. Johnny went in and inspected the toilet, garbage, drawers, and sink. Then he came back beaming. “So far, you’re the smartest American I’ve met,” he said. “Usually they have to be tied up and held down for suppositories.” He saw my expression and laughed. “Just kidding. I’ll have dinner sent up for you. Soup? Yes? That will be fine. And tomorrow is a big day. Get lots of rest!” 

He left, and I thought about things. With a sigh, I got up, went back to the bathroom with another suppository, and managed to take my medicine. I was mortified, but there was no way he was going to think of me as a stupid American. I supposed that having gone so many years without a doctor or medicine made that antibiotic work like magic – whatever the reason – the next day I felt better than I’d felt in ages. And the rest of the week I finished the box of suppositories and was amazed – even my teeth had stopped aching. It was a good thing I got better – the next day I got a job modelling wedding dresses for an Italian magazine, and I spent four days in a real castle in the Alps. The weather was amazing, the scenery even more so – I felt like I was living in a fairy tale – and I thanked my lucky stars I wasn’t still sick in bed in Milan! Vive the suppository! 

Jennifer Macaire lives with her husband, three children, & various dogs & horses. She loves cooking, eating chocolate, growing herbs and flowering plants on her balcony, and playing golf. She grew up in upstate New York, Samoa, and the Virgin Islands. She graduated from St. Peter and Paul high school in St. Thomas and moved to NYC where she modeled for five years for Elite. She met her husband at the polo club. All that is true. But she mostly likes to make up stories.

Accent Press  : The Alexander series

Evernight Publishing: M.U.C.I – Mutant and Undead Criminal Investigation series

Evernight Teen: Welcome to Paradise / The Horse Passages series

Medallion Press: The Secret of Shabaz

 Double Dragon Publishing: The Promise

 

Go Sees

What does a model hear the most? “Go See!” Go Sees are open casting calls where you go, clutching your portfolio to your chest, to see a photographer about a possible job. Sometimes you just go see a photographer because he needs a certain type model for his own portfolio, so you “go see him or her” and if the photographer likes you, he’ll photograph you and give you some spread sheets or slides in exchange. I have a bunch of slides from when I was starting out. Many have the photographer’s name on them. The photographer, if he or she likes you, will often give you extra shots that you can use for your portfolio after a job. That’s how I came to have a  couple shots of me goofing off or just standing around looking bored while the photographer fiddled with lights and settings. Here’s what used to happen: the photographer would direct you to the set & make you move this way and that until he gets a good angle, the stylist would arrive and fix the background and the clothes, the assistant would dash up holding the light meter and stick in in front of your face, and then the photographer would sometimes shoot a polaroid to see if everything looked good. (This was in the dark ages, when nothing was digital, there were real rolls of film in the camera, and every shot counted.)

Here are some shots where the photographer’s name appears on the slides:

Here is a page of slides from a “go see” – the photographer needed lingerie shots for his book, and he gave me copies. Later, when he got a job shooting lingerie, he asked for me, so we both came out ahead. A lot of working as a model was getting along with photographers – so you can see why I was so upset when my job in Miami fell through because of an asshole photographer. 

Here I am fooling around and being silly on the set. The assistant had come up to take the light meter measure and we started being goofy. You stand around for hours sometimes, waiting for everything to be ready for a shot. (The worst was when I stood on a wooden box while the assistant threw buckets of water at me for a “splash shot” – we started the shoot at 12 noon and finished at midnight!) And here is another shot (in front of a fabulous car – where we are standing around looking bored, because we had been waiting for ages for the light to be just right and for the set to be finished. (I’m on the right).

Here is Andie MacDowell and me getting goofy on a set. We were roommates and best freinds, but we only worked together this one time.  I know it was for some hair product, but I can’t remember which one. The photographer gave us the extra slides from the shoot and I kept them as a souvenir. We can’t use these silly shots in our portfolios!

But we can use the good shots – here is one from the same shoot that I put in my portfolio: 

Most of my time in the beginning was spent hoofing it around NYC, going to photographers’ studios, and posing for free in exchange for pictures for my portfolio – it’s only after I posed for Richard Avedon that I stopped going on “go sees” and was promoted to the model board. But that’s a story for another day!

New York City Winters

Ah the pitfalls of looking back; you start to remember things. The good and the bad – the sad and the funny. When I first arrived in NYC, I was 17. I’d just graduated high school, gotten hired at a jewelry wholesale showroom, gotten fired for not sleeping with my boss, and turned into a punk.

That summer, every afternoon, my sister and I would jog around Gramercy Park. This was just before the pooper-scooper laws, so it was like jogging through landmines. Then one day the law passed, and the poop vanished from the sidewalk. People walked around with colorful plastic shovels (pooper scoopers) and ladies would be hanging out their windows watching, and if the dog pooped on the sidewalk a loud voice would yell “You – yeah, you down there with the ugly dog. Pick that shit up or I call the police!”  Yes,  New Yorkers were cool.  And speaking of cool – I’d gotten fired, gotten a boy friend, and had started modelling. At first, jobs were scarce and money tight. I had to pay back the hotel where I’d spent the summer, so I didn’t have money for clothes, and that was tough because Winter Was Coming.  But right now, it was Summer, Summer of Sam in NYC and there were heatwaves, and a lunatic was shooting couples parked in cars, and I was 17 going on 18, and one night we couldn’t sleep because of the heat. In the middle of the night someone rapped on our door – it was a friend who whispered that the pool was open. At midnight we walked to the public pool and slipped through the fence where someone had cut the wire and sat in the water with about a hundred other people – we just sat and dozed, and when the dawn came, we walked back to our baking apartments. It was surreal – because no one spoke – we were all too tired and worn down by the heat. The next day a storm broke, the heatwave broke, and we went back to normal.

When winter came that year, it crashed in like a runaway train. My boyfriend gave me his old ski jacket (silver, held together in places with safety  pins) and a pair of old snow boots (the toe was separated from the sole so I used duct tape to hold it together).  I went to my “go sees” with a paper bag holding my Candies sandals, and when I got to the “go see”, I’d quick change and take off my boots and put on my sandals. Two feet of snow on the ground, and I walk into the casting room wearing my high-heel, summer sandals.  “I’m from  the Virgin Islands,” I told them – and this seemed to satisfy everyone.  “Ah – yes!”  The casting director would nod, as if that explained everything. I remember going to a ritzy hotel, sitting in the lobby and slipping off my boots, stuffing them under my chair, putting on my sandals and going to the casting, all the while praying no one would find my old boots and throw them away! My first paycheck went for a pair of boots, a long sleeved white blouse, and a woolen skirt. I stopped off at the studio of a friend photographer, who had just set up a snowy set for his pictures, and he used me to get the lighting right, then gave me the photos. Sing-Si Schwartz* was a great photographer and a wonderful friend.

Jennifer by Sing-Si Schwartz – 1979. I’m wearing the clothes I bought with my first paycheck!

One day I was booked for a shoot with a photographer in a theater near Times Square. That evening, a snowstorm roared down from the north and dumped three feet of snow on the ground.  I called the agency to make sure the shoot was still on, and they said to just “go see” (the words a model hears most…) so I sloughed through hip-deep snow to the subway, took it uptown and got off on Times Square. The shoot was in an apartment in a theater, with Duane Michals for Vogue, so I was very excited. I walked out of the subway and stared at Times Square – pristine – the streets were gone, he sidewalks were gone – there wasn’t a soul in sight except a lone policeman standing under an awning just behind me. It was glittery and beautiful. I stepped out of the subway, heading for the other side of the street, walked off the curb and fell, disappearing beneath 3 feet of fluffy snow.

The policeman hauled me to my feet and helped me make it to the right address. I was the first one there, and the owner of the apartment gave me a hot cup of tea while we waited for the crew to show up.  What I remember most about that shoot was the hairdresser took three hours to do my hair – tiny curl by tiny curl, and we sat around and looked at the snow, drank tea, and then when it was over, the snow had been trampled and there were paths everywhere – I followed the one leading to the subway, & waved at the policeman, still standing under his awning.  The photo was taken in November, and didn’t come out until May. Looking at it, I can still see the snow & hear the policeman’s laughter. (And the stylist took so long to make the curls -my hair is dead straight – I was sad to wash them out!)

“Fragrance, Your Personal Signal” by Duane Michals. Vogue, May 1979

*Sing-Si was a wonderful person and talented photographer. I met him in NYC, and we became good friends. He came to visit me in St Thomas, spent Christmas with us one year, and took some amazing shots of the islands.  When he passed away, it came as a terrible shock.

Climbing the ladder on your back

After I cut my hair and got turned into a punk, things moved quickly. I was fired, I had no job, but I got some gigs at the huge wholesale showrooms in NYC – one was working for a toy company, the other was a shoe designer who paid me in shoes as well as cash. Cool! I had two pairs of stilettos* that made my legs look absolutely fabulous. I dyed my hair back to its normal shade of dark ash blond, and posed for a neighbor who wanted to do some fashion shoots. He was a talented photographer, and I got some great photos. About that time I went to a party at Fiorucci in NYC and a model agent asked me if I wanted to be a model. Now, you have to realize that for my Entire Life, my mother had looked at me and said, “Don’t worry, you’re not a model!” (My bangs were crooked – my teeth were crooked, my nose was crooked, my eyes were crooked – to each of my complaints, she’d sigh and say, “So what? You’re not a model!” So when this guy came up to me at a party and asked if I wanted to be a model, the first thing I did was laugh. But then I thought he was a creep who just wanted to sleep with me, so I told him I’d meet him at the agency. To my surprise, he agreed, and we met at Elite in NYC and they signed me up that day. I was sure it was all some sort of candid camera joke, but no one popped out and shouted “Surprise!” So I signed on the dotted line and came back the next day to be sent off on what are called “Go See’s” as in, “Go see this person about a possible job.” And I also got sent to different photographers who were just starting out and who needed models for their press books. That’s how I got a ton of really cool photos. I discovered I had a knack for putting on my own makeup and posing for shots. It was fun. I wasn’t really working yet – I had a couple small jobs, but I was having fun. And then, one day, I got sent to a shot with Richard Avedon, who called Vogue and told them I was ‘hot’, and then Vogue booked me, and when Vogue booked me, then Mademoiselle had to book me, and suddenly I was  booked for a trip to Florida *gasp* with a photographer who happened to be going out with Janice Dickinson! Wow. I was going to be in a photo shoot with Janice Dickinson. I was psyched. The trip started off really well. I first spent a week on a shoot for Self  Magazine in the Florida keys, and the crew was terrific. I was starting to feel like a real model. Especially when the agency called and said a German magazine had asked me to show up for a half day shoot in Miami just before the big shoot (also in Miami) with Mike Reinhardt and Janice. So I arrived in Miami, did a half day shoot for a German mag and their very nice crew, then went to the hotel where I was supposed to meet the gang for the shoot for Mademoiselle that next week. It was the perfect job for me – it was for bathing suits – I have to admit that when I was younger, I had a bathing suit body and most of my work was for lingerie and bathing suits. A piece of cake – right? I met the photographer and his assistant, and the art director, and we all piled into the cab to go to a restaurant for dinner – and here’s where everything went to Hell. The photographer put his hand on my thigh and started squeezing. I’d been warned. Other models and my agent had warned about photographers getting fresh. So I took his hand and removed it. It came back. I removed it again. And again it came back, more insistant and more obnoxious. “Hey, just cut it out,” I said. “I have a boyfriend, and I’m not interested in you, OK?” He didn’t reply – but he started to sulk – and he sulked until the next day, when Janice arrived from somewhere glamorous, and Mike announced to the art director that I was not at all suitable for the job (without having me try on a single bathing suit) and that he wanted me gone. I was stunned. And furious. I sat next to Janice at the makeup table, while she got makeup on, I just sat there – trying not to cry. She looked over at me and said “You know, if you want to climb the ladder, you have to do it on your back. Like I did.” I turned to her and said, “I could have started with your boyfriend.” The temperature dropped to sub zero in the studio. I went back to the hotel and called my agency, complained, and got no pity. Then I emptied the mini-fridge, because Mademoiselle would have to pick up my bill, and spent hours calling all my freinds and family from the hotel phone (hit them where it hurts – in the wallet – that’s always been my theory) in those days, long distance was expensive. I got on a plane back to NY and told the agency that I never wanted to work with Mike Reinhardt again. But – the knife cuts both ways – because I wouldn’t let him grope me, he didn’t want to work with me again. I had a long career as a model, and that was the only time I had to fend off a photographer. When I came to work in Europe, I found the European photographers were a different breed – the work was more professional – and the men more respectful towards women in general. It might sound ridiculous, but that was my experience. A week after I arrived in Paris, I was shooting a cover shot for Marie Claire. Take that, Mike Reinhardt. 

*I now have two pairs of stiletto sandals, one pair of Candies slides, and a pair of flip flops – with that, I was facing a NYC winter… more on that next week!