Arrivederci, Virna

VIRNA LISI

November 8, 1936 - December 18, 2014

Glamorous-Leigh

She was Richard Avedon's favorite fashion subject; graced the cover of over 50 magazines within a six year span; and after her modeling career ended, ran her own modeling agency and gourmet restaurants in Paris. She was Dorian Leigh, the first supermodel (Janice Dickinson be damned), and for nearly a decade, she was one of the most photographed women in the world, appearing on the cover of Vogue no less than seven times in one year (1946).

A John Rawling portrait of Dorian Leigh for the cover of Vogue, 1946

By the mid-1950's, Leigh's fame had been surpassed by that of her younger sister, Suzy Parker; she starred in a few French films, then relocated to Paris to launch the city's very first modeling agency. Leigh was enormously successful, and there are tantalizing and scandalous tales of the former cover girl joining transatlantic forces with her mentor, Eileen Ford, to drive competitor John Casablancas out of business -- and out of his mind. Eventually, Leigh herself was "run out" of the industry, thanks to the illegal schemes of one of her five husbands, which is when she entered the restaurant business. Relocating to New York in the 1980's, Leigh penned several cookbooks, including one devoted to crepes. Her son, Kim, died at 21 by his own hand; after that, the reputed inspiration for the glamorous and hedonistic Holly Golightly became a Born Again Christian. She died of complications from Alzheimer's Disease in 2008, at age 91; but through the lens of Avedon and other genius photographers, the breathtaking elegance and mystique of Dorian Leigh will never age.

DORIAN LEIGH
April 23, 1917 - July 7, 2008

Saint Anne Marie

Our absolute favorite supermodel of the 1950's is, paradoxically, the one we know the least about. Anne St. Marie fascinates us because she's simultaneously completely of her time, and absolutely outside of it: the quintessential elegant, distant, detatched 1950's mannequin, yet somehow alive and fresh and modern and real.


Unlike many of her contemporaries, St. Marie's beauty seems peculiarly contemporary, whereas the remarkable Dorian Leigh, for instance, seems permanently frozen (if spectacularly so) in 1954, or thereabouts. There was a canniness, an amused half-smile, a knowing raised eyebrow about Anne St. Marie, and in some of her photographs, it's near-impossible to pinpoint a date or decade.


Of all of the famously brittle beauties who graced the fashion magazines of the 1950's and early 1960's, Anne St. Marie seemed the most confident, the most assured, and the most aware. Yet there were demons lurking about, and it's reported that she suffered a mental breakdown. Her taped conversations with photographer turned filmmaker Jerry Schatzberg were the basis for the film Puzzle of a Downfall Child (1970), starring Faye Dunaway as an emotionally fragile ex-model on the skids. Apart from this, scant information is available or forthcoming on this most exquisite of women; we hope that eventually Miss St. Marie regained her footing and her happiness. Wherever she may be, we thank her for all she may have sacrificed in the name of beauty for our consumption.










SPECIAL THANKS

Portrait of Dorian Leigh

She was Richard Avedon's favorite fashion subject; graced the cover of over 50 magazines within a six year span; and after her modeling career ended, ran her own modeling agency and gourmet restaurants in Paris. She was Dorian Leigh, the first supermodel (Janice Dickinson be damned), and for nearly a decade, she was one of the most photographed women in the world, appearing on the cover of Vogue no less than seven times in one year (1946).

A John Rawling portrait of Dorian Leigh for the cover of Vogue, 1946

By the mid-1950's, Leigh's fame had been surpassed by that of her younger sister, Suzy Parker; she starred in a few French films, then relocated to Paris to launch the city's very first modeling agency. Leigh was enormously successful, and there are tantalizing and scandalous tales of the former cover girl joining transatlantic forces with her mentor, Eileen Ford, to drive competitor John Casablancas out of business -- and out of his mind. Eventually, Leigh herself was "run out" of the industry, thanks to the illegal schemes of one of her five husbands, which is when she entered the restaurant business. Relocating to New York in the 1980's, Leigh penned several cookbooks, including one devoted to crepes. Her son, Kim, died at 21 by his own hand; after that, the reputed inspiration for the glamorous and hedonistic Holly Golightly became a Born Again Christian. She died of complications from Alzheimer's Disease in 2008, at age 91; but through the lens of Avedon and other genius photographers, the breathtaking elegance and mystique of Dorian Leigh will never age.

Friends of Dorothea

FROM TIME, DECEMBER 22, 1961: DOROTHEA MCGOWAN is the exception in the new crop [of international models]: she speaks only English and was bom in Brooklyn. Her pre-modeling life took her as far from home as Staten Island, where she finished her freshman year at Notre Dame College before taking a summer job modeling $2.98 house dresses. A few months later, her first photographic try at a cover made Vogue; this year she set some kind of a record by appearing on four Vogue covers in a row (nobody but her mother or agent could have told that it was the same girl). Twenty-year-old Dorothea ("My middle initial is E, and Dorothy sounded so ordinary") makes $60 an hour, has her own apartment in New York, studies French at Manhattan's French Institute twice a week ("so that when my dream of living in Paris comes true, I'll be ready for it"). In the relentless search of fashion editors for bizarre backdrops, Dorothea has been sent, all expenses paid, to be photographed in front of the great architectural monuments of Europe, among Middle East bazaars and under Caribbean palms, is absolutely "infatuated with the idea of being paid to travel."