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Welcome to Model Citizen.
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I'm Connor Kennedy Ryan, and this podcast we will pull back the curtain on the modeling industry to show the who's who's, the what's what's, and the whys, whys.
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Pat Cleveland, I feel so lucky to get some time with you.
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Finally, after this mysterious runabout all over the world making calls, right?
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Yes.
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Um, I feel very lucky.
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Thank you for joining Model Citizens.
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Oh, we like to be model citizens for you.
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Well, working with you is one of the privileges of my career.
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Thank you.
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Um, I'm fascinated to see all the barriers that you've broken over decades and are continuing to break.
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Oh.
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First, I want to know you're 75.
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Yes, turning 76, which I'm proud of.
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When you were a young model, could you ever imagine that you would be working at this age?
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Oh, when you're young, you don't imagine anything.
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You're just so in the moment, like from day to day, there's so much ruckus going on.
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New people coming into your life.
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What direction am I going in?
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You cannot see the future like that.
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You don't know what every decade's going to bring.
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So you just sort of stamp your way one foot in front of the other, knock on doors, and if one opens, that's a miracle in itself, you know what I mean?
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It's kind of like, yeah, let the miracle happen in the moment.
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I didn't imagine the future like this.
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I had no idea I'd still be on the map.
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I feel like a whole new planet right now has opened up.
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I'm going to be 76 in June.
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I'm a can't say.
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And I had no idea I'd live this long, first of all.
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So I think the gratitude I have is having a good agent like you who helps me to keep everything focused on going forward.
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And um, I'd never I never really thought about that so much, except dreaming.
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Like, you know, you're influenced by the things that you see when you're young.
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And I think we all wanted to be the star that we're born to be.
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We all have those pointy things that we're heading at, like sparking out all new ideas of who we could be when we're very young, like a teenager.
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And my mother was an artist, right?
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So I always knew that the art world was for me in one way or another, but never out front in front of the cameras.
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I mean, that didn't exist.
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That was only in magazines.
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You didn't know that was something, except that I was already modeling as an infant.
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You see.
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When you first started, were there models that you looked up to as you got into your career?
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Did you have role models?
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Of course I had role models.
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Oh my God.
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First of all, all the classic paintings, every model in the museum that you see in a painting was my first.
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I think the first models I saw would actually show people like Josephine Baker and Sarah Bernhardt and Isidore Duncan.
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To me, they were sort of my models, my role models.
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I liked what they did, you know, the action of a person.
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And then when it came to magazines, there was the Vogue, and that magazine had um Verushka and Daniel Luna and Marissa Barenson, and they came a little before me, and Jean Shrimpton, of course, and um even Wilhelmina, you know, and I had those feelings that those women were traveling, and I thought they were really dressed beautifully, and I thought, oh, to dress up and stand with one foot on a stone at the pantheon.
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This is for me.
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I will do this one day.
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And do you know I met all of those ladies finally?
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And they became my friends.
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But I didn't know who they were.
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I thought they were just ladies traveling.
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I had no idea.
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See, you don't know.
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You don't know who a model is or what they are.
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Was there a moment in your career that you can remember where you felt like you had made it?
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Well, I think the dream is that I was when I was in the subway, and you know, I started as uh art student and a designer.
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And I was walking in the subway, and I had one of my outfits on, and this lady was following me, and she followed long enough across 42nd Street, and she stopped me and she said, Oh, my dear, she had an English accent.
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I really love the way you're dressed today.
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Could you please tell me who you are and where you got your clothes?
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I thought I had made it because when she handed me her card, she said, I'm going to write a story about you, and here's my card.
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Vogue it said.
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And I said, Oh, oh my God, Charlie's Chocolate Factory, the golden ticket.
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I had the golden ticket, and I think I made it at first as a designer.
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As fashion.
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What is fashion?
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That's what fashion is.
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Clothing.
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And um I thought I had made it.
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But as far as modeling, I had no idea.
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I mean, I had posed for my mother, um and I had um so what happened?
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My mother said, listen, those girls in the magazine covers, you look as good as they do.
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I said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
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Because you know, when you're an artist, I'm an artist, I call myself an artist because I paint and I design.
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I said, no, no, that's not for me.
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Well, if you don't put some eyeliner on, you're gonna be an old maid and die.
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I put the eyeliner on, I went to school, I got discovered in the subway.
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And so finally, um, she sent photographs of me to Mrs.
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Johnson of Ebony Magazine and all the magazines, but all the other magazines had no response to me.
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But I got this letter.
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Uh, Miss Cleveland, we would love to see you at the um, we would like for you to come for uh a meeting with Mrs.
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Johnson.
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Uh okay, so we went to this fabulous hotel of the presidential suite, and um there she was, and she said, Oh, could you walk for me?
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I was scared to death.
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I was what 15 years old.
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And I walked for her and she said, We want you to come and do our fashion show, which is the Ebony Fashion Fair, and it travels around America, but you'll need an escort, uh chaperon.
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And uh my mother went with me for three months on this Greyhound bus, traveling around America doing shows in every city in America.
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It was exhausting, but it was an amazing adventure.
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So therefore, I did runway, I did 90 shows, 90 shows, and um that's how I learned to do runway.
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And what the Ebony Fashion Fair, what was the place that it held in terms of selling clothes or introducing trends?
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It's something that's from a long time ago.
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So, what what how did it work?
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Well, the the whole idea, the uh intention of the show was Mrs.
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Johnson, the entrepreneur who started going to France in all different countries to go to the couture shows, which was for a woman of color, very much not the situation that was prominent.
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I mean, she was not even allowed into some of the houses.
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But the whole situation was is Mrs.
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Johnson bought entire collections.
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She put Yves Saint Laurent on the map.
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She bought all of the Corresh and Saint Laurent, Givenchy, and Madame Gray and all the big couture houses.
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She bought collections, entire collections.
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And what was the purpose?
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The purpose was that when she would travel and do these shows, they were paid.
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The two audience was paid, they paid to come to see the show.
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And the money would go to college funds for young people who had no money to go to college.
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And then the clothes would be auctioned off to raise money to send young people of color to college.
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And it was a very, very, very powerful thing because in the black society you had the doctors, the judges, the lawyers, the teachers, and all of these people looked forward to this because in the deep south in different areas, you never saw the couture clothes in person, up close.
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And so the ladies were very dressed up like Sunday school with hats and gloves and furs, and it was society, black society, and the jazz and the black movie stars, and you know, all of that was very prominent and fabulous.
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So she's really was going around all these doors that were closed and creating her own community and her own access.
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Yes, and Ebony Magazine was the Bible of black society.
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So I started with Ebony Magazine doing the shows, and my very first shooting, I was like 15 years old.
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I had never done shootings except for a few things that I had done with as a child with my mother and her artistic friends.
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But um, I had gone up to the college uh upstate Columbia and did these pictures jumping around like a schoolgirl, and then they were published in Ebony magazine.
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And by the time this had happened and I had come back from the Ebony Fashion Fair, the biggest thing ever, I had I had to leave school, and then I went to back to art school, and then I uh the woman who had discovered me in Vogue called me up again, and she said, Well, we'd like to see some of your designs.
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Can you bring them up?
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So by the time they called me back, I was like 16, 17 years old, and I I was so excited because that was really my intention to be a designer, right?
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This modeling thing was like, oh, well, you know, and it was fun showing off and everything, but very exhausting.
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Actually, I caught pneumonia while I was doing the shows.
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But anyway, uh got back and Carrie Donovan was an editor under Diana Vrelen, and uh she they called me to her office and I went out with my portfolio full of designs.
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I stayed up all night and all day drawing, drawing, drawing.
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Did you go by yourself?
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Yeah, of course.
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I went by myself.
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I it just seems like when you grow up in the city, you are your own boss.
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You're a kid who is your own boss.
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You go in the subways, you go do your things.
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And I hadn't really been modeling actually that at that moment.
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I was still in school and um I went up to the office and uh I showed her my clothes.
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She said, Um, oh my dear, my dear, I love your drawings.
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I'm going to take these to Paris with me to show to Jean Chie because he's looking for some young person to come and study under him.
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Oh boy, was I excited.
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But in that same visit up to Vogue to show her those drawings, she had left the office, and these two wacky young men were standing behind the door, staring at me, whispering.
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And every time I looked around, they'd close the door, and every time I wasn't looking, they were looking at me, and I thought, well, who are these people?
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One of them was Oriental and the other was very Nordic looking.
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And one was named Manning Obregon, and the other was Joel Schumacher.
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And the two of them said, Oh my God, she looks just like him.
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Who, him, who, what, what?
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Oh, my dear, my dear.
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They came out suddenly, grabbed me, and he said, Get your coat on, you're coming with me.
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We have to do a shooting, we have to do a shooting, and we need a model.
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No.
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Talk about the universe guiding you.
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We need a model.
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What?
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I'm here for clothes.
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So they quick, okay, put her in the limo, let's go.
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They put me in the limousine, and then they had the limousine packed with balloons and clothes.
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He said, We're going up the hill, we're going up the hill.
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We went to Doggy Hill next to the museum, uh, the museum, Metropolitan Museum.
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It was a dead of winter.
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And they took me up the hill, and then uh they said, No, you have to fly this kite.
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And I was up the hill flying this kite with this beautiful boy and this other beautiful girl.
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I guess they were models.
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And the picture was done.
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The picture came out in the magazine.
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It was my first picture in vogue.
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And um, I had still not done any modeling.
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I was still like in school drawing and sketching.
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They called me back to the office.
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They said, bring your clothing.
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We want to do some pictures.
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Same situation, everybody in the limo out to the park.
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And I had designed this maxi skirt and a lace blouse and a big straw hat.
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And sat on the rocks by the lake in the park.
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And I thought, this, I have really made it now.
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Turns out that the shooting ended up in Vogue double page spread with me in my clothes as a young and up-and-coming designer.
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Boom! I thought I had made it as a designer.
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That's an incredible journey.
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It sounds like a movie.
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And Joel Schumacher went on to become a big movie director in Hollywood.
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Yes, and he became my friend because at the time when I met him, he was a window dresser at Henry Bendel's.
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Okay, so the story goes: I go back up to Vogue and they say, uh, finally I'm working um with um Cassini, Olay Cassini, but not really working.
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At this time, I was dressing up and going to the club Cheetah, selling my clothes at the boutique when I went in and picking up the money when I went out.
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I was hustling my designs.
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And then I would go out dancing every night at Le Clube or Le Cheetah or the Peppermint Lounge, you know, wearing my clothes to show off.
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And I met this guy named Bobby Seligman, and he was producing this show called The Beautiful People, and he saw me dancing, line dancing, and uh he said, Oh, you have to come with me to Les Clubes.
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Now, Les Clubes was this very exclusive club uh in the 50s in Sutton Place, and the Kennedys went there, and the Supremes and all, and uh um uh MacArthur's Park is Anter Kell, which was a and her boyfriend, he was a famous actor, English actor.
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And so he said, Oh, can you sing?
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I was doing everything else, but but at the same time I was wearing my clothes and people saw me in those clothes.
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So I would dance at the club and sing at the club, and um finally uh I met Ole Cassini, which was uh Edgar and Ole Cassini were counts, and they were royals, and Ole Cassini was a famous uh designer in the 60s who dressed Jacqueline Kennedy and everybody.
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So he said, Oh, you have to model, you have to model.
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So he sent me over to I uh first of all, when I came back from the Ebony Fashion Fair, I went to American Girl, which was an all-black agency.
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And uh I had done some car shows, you know, modeling, sitting on cars, posing, selling the car.
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And then finally I met the Cassinis and said, no, no, you have to go to Eileen Ford.
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So they sent me to Eileen Ford, and this was a disaster for me because she was not, she was a bit racist and a little bit evil.
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And I came in and she said, My dear, you have to have your nose done.
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You first of all, your nose, you'll n and the first thing she said to me is, you'll never make it as a model.
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Ha ha.
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65 almost 65 years later.
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I'm still in it.
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But anyway, I have no no bad feelings.
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Um, you know, she just didn't understand how times were changing.
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How did you handle that kind of rejection from a very famous model agent?
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Well, I didn't feel anything.
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I felt I felt sorry for her.
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First of all, she was not very attractive to look at, and she was telling me how I should look, and I was young enough to have that kind of arrogance about me to say, later for you, darling.
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And actually, um the young man who was there who took me into the agency says, I'm so glad you here you're here.
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We only have one other girl, uh Cheryl.
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Sharine, uh, she was the only black girl there, and she was sort of caramel color and she was in vogue, Charlene Dash, and I and I was the uh second one at at uh Eileen Ford.
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But then after I had I had traveled um with Ole Cassini a bit and done shows and things, and I had gone around and done photographs and things, and I realized that she had not helped me one bit, Eileen Ford.
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And so I sort of left.
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I just well I I went into her office and I said to her, I'm sorry, Eileen, I'm leaving because you're not helping me.
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And um I I just left and I left for a while, and and when I was up at Vogue, they called me back to Vogue.
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And at the time, Diana Vrelen was the editor.
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And Diana Vrelin was like really the most freak of freaks that you can imagine.
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She was absolutely a Bohemian, free-spirited, beautiful, elegant, and wild-thinking creative woman.
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And she was so exquisite, skinny as can be, profile of a cockatoo, colored face of a Chinese opera singer, and long arms and beautiful attitude.
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And so I went up to Vogue, and the oriental guy that I had told you about, Menning Obergon, was her illustrator.
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So he kind of fell in love with me, and so did Joel Schumacher, because I reminded them of a boy named Juan Fernandez, who was a transient, and they wanted to use him, but those things were not possible back in the time.
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And I looked so much like him that they said, Oh my god, you're the spitting image of him.
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We can use you.
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And thank God, he was a friend of mine in in high school.
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Wow.
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And we used to wear raccoon coats, and people used to throw rocks at us because we were so odd-looking together, skinny with a raccoon coat on, screaming fashion.
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In those times, people we used to dress out of the secondhand store, so our clothes were like, you know, what they would call um vintage now.
00:18:25.680 --> 00:18:28.799
We were wearing vintage 1920s and 1800s.
00:18:29.039 --> 00:18:31.839
My vintage, the vintage now is my time.
00:18:32.960 --> 00:18:37.359
And so anyway, got there to Vogue and Manning Obergun.
00:18:37.759 --> 00:18:39.440
Ah, I must use you.
00:18:39.680 --> 00:18:42.000
I must use you to do illustrations.
00:18:42.319 --> 00:18:53.759
And he had been traveling with Dinah Freeland because he was the fastest sketcher, uh, illustrator, because during that time shows were not as they are now with hundreds of people, thousands of people.
00:18:53.920 --> 00:18:59.039
They were a closed at uh atelier or showroom of a house of a designer.
00:18:59.200 --> 00:19:04.000
Like each designer had their own building, Dior, Madame Gray, everyone.
00:19:04.160 --> 00:19:10.640
So when you would do the shows, uh even in New York, you would walk with a number in silence.
00:19:10.880 --> 00:19:18.640
And so, you know, it was number one, number two, and there were maybe ten girls in all who would do Seventh Avenue.
00:19:18.720 --> 00:19:24.160
There was an agency for girls who but the girls who did the shows were never in the photographs.
00:19:24.319 --> 00:19:28.480
And the girls in the photographs, oh my god, you would never do a show that was below you.
00:19:28.640 --> 00:19:29.759
Oh my gosh.
00:19:30.079 --> 00:19:35.359
So I think I kind of broke a barrier where I did both shows and photography.
00:19:35.759 --> 00:19:36.720
And which paid more?
00:19:36.799 --> 00:19:37.759
Did shows pay well?
00:19:37.839 --> 00:19:39.279
Did doing print work pay well?
00:19:39.519 --> 00:19:47.759
Well, okay, so when you talk about pay, my first job from Eileen Ford, I have to tell you this.
00:19:47.839 --> 00:19:49.440
This is what she thought of me.
00:19:49.680 --> 00:19:58.400
She sent me to a bank and they dressed me in a chicken outfit, and I had to stand outside the store, outside the bank and hand out leaflets.
00:19:58.559 --> 00:20:00.960
That's the kind of job she offered me.
00:20:01.920 --> 00:20:02.799
That was the beginning.
00:20:03.200 --> 00:20:04.079
That's somewhere.
00:20:04.240 --> 00:20:11.759
And then the other jobs I got were standing in a window on 57th Street for hours, very still like a mannequin.
00:20:11.920 --> 00:20:15.119
And if somebody would come and look, I would move a little bit.
00:20:15.279 --> 00:20:16.799
It was a crowd.
00:20:17.039 --> 00:20:19.519
That's the beginning of mime, model mime.
00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:22.160
I think my voguing started there.
00:20:22.319 --> 00:20:24.400
But anyway, back to reality.
00:20:24.640 --> 00:20:30.319
Up at Vogue, Manning said, Please, I need to, I need you, I need you, I need you.
00:20:30.480 --> 00:20:32.000
I you have to illustrate you.
00:20:32.160 --> 00:20:33.359
Come to the green room.
00:20:33.599 --> 00:20:39.759
So I ended up being in the green room, which is the room where they organize the September issue of Vogue.
00:20:40.079 --> 00:20:50.480
And what happens in there is the competition between all the editors of Vogue magazine, all trying to get their look most prominent in the pages.
00:20:50.720 --> 00:21:01.680
So what they would do is um Carrie Donovan was competing against the other ones, and oh, it was a big tear hair situation up in Vogue in the hallways.
00:21:01.839 --> 00:21:04.559
So Carrie Donovan and Manning were in cahoots.
00:21:04.880 --> 00:21:09.680
So Carrie would say, No, no, we're using the chubby jacket and the tall boots.
00:21:09.839 --> 00:21:12.319
Quick, put this on, Pat, and go behind the screen.
00:21:12.400 --> 00:21:20.000
It was like one of those Gypsy Rose Lee moments where I would throw the clothes over the screen and they'd throw the clothes back and I'd have to come out prancing.
00:21:20.240 --> 00:21:22.319
Now, Menning, make a quick sketch.
00:21:22.480 --> 00:21:27.920
Now, sketches in those days were six feet tall because everything was bigger.
00:21:28.160 --> 00:21:33.759
So if you did a sketch, it had to take up half the room like a movie screen, because the bigger, the better.
00:21:33.920 --> 00:21:36.160
More is more, you know, that kind of thing.
00:21:36.319 --> 00:21:41.920
And so finally, I am there with Menning Obregon and uh Carrie Donovan.
00:21:42.480 --> 00:21:43.839
Okay, go into Mrs.
00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:45.440
Veland's office.
00:21:45.680 --> 00:21:46.960
Oh, I had to go into Mrs.
00:21:47.119 --> 00:21:48.319
Veland's office.
00:21:48.480 --> 00:21:49.440
She's not there today.
00:21:49.519 --> 00:21:50.720
We have to go tomorrow.
00:21:51.680 --> 00:21:52.160
Come back.
00:21:52.400 --> 00:21:52.960
Come back.
00:21:53.119 --> 00:21:54.559
Oh, it was such a battle.
00:21:54.720 --> 00:21:59.759
So I worked with Menning Obregon every day up at Vogue for the next six months.
00:22:00.319 --> 00:22:01.680
Of doing looks.
00:22:01.920 --> 00:22:11.759
And then I really started going around knocking on doors, looking for model photographing jobs.
00:22:12.319 --> 00:22:14.559
Because I was modeling suddenly, you know.
00:22:14.720 --> 00:22:21.440
And then it was something being a lady of color, whatever I am, I'm a little bit of everything.
00:22:21.839 --> 00:22:23.759
Did you feel a lot of doors were closed to you?
00:22:24.079 --> 00:22:27.279
Absolutely, because I was not black enough, I was not white enough.
00:22:27.440 --> 00:22:34.240
It just seemed that the scale was so um bi, you know, dark or light, you and nowhere in between.
00:22:34.400 --> 00:22:36.160
So nobody knew what to do with me.
00:22:36.240 --> 00:22:46.799
If I went to the black magazine, which is starting out, I think um they said, well, you're not dark enough for this issue, or and then I went to the other.
00:22:46.880 --> 00:22:49.680
Oh, well, we don't we can't sell in the south.
00:22:49.839 --> 00:22:52.000
Um, okay, well, where do I belong?
00:22:52.079 --> 00:22:53.839
I just kept doing testing.
00:22:54.799 --> 00:22:56.559
Now testing was very important.
00:22:57.039 --> 00:23:00.480
You had to have a portfolio of photographs.
00:23:00.960 --> 00:23:15.759
And I remember knocking on doors, and sometimes I'd set up my own appointments because I had a list of photographers, and my my ambitious self started to think, why can't I go knock on these doors myself?
00:23:16.079 --> 00:23:16.720
I did.
00:23:17.119 --> 00:23:20.640
The first one I thought I'd go knock on was Avidon's door.
00:23:20.799 --> 00:23:25.200
So I went boldly with my little portfolio and my three or four photographs.
00:23:25.839 --> 00:23:27.440
I didn't even have a comp card.
00:23:27.680 --> 00:23:28.559
Were you nervous?
00:23:28.799 --> 00:23:32.160
No, I wasn't nervous because I'm from the art world and you don't care.
00:23:32.240 --> 00:23:34.559
You scribble outside the lines all the time.
00:23:34.720 --> 00:23:39.119
I'm always stumbling and mendering in and out of the situation.
00:23:39.279 --> 00:23:40.160
I don't care.
00:23:40.400 --> 00:23:48.000
I'm you know, I'm very um I'm very um confident in the fact that maybe I'm guided or something like that.
00:23:48.079 --> 00:23:53.519
It's like some kind of angel said, Don't give up a heaven in a voice, saying, you deserve it, you know.
00:23:53.680 --> 00:23:56.079
After all, my family, they were slaves.
00:23:56.240 --> 00:23:58.799
My grandmother was a slave, and I'm a foreigner.
00:23:58.960 --> 00:24:00.000
My father's Swedish.
00:24:00.160 --> 00:24:01.440
I said, I'm a Viking.
00:24:01.519 --> 00:24:08.319
I'm gonna go in there, I'm gonna do it for my dad, who'm gonna take my hammer and hit him on the head, and I I deserve this.
00:24:08.480 --> 00:24:09.119
I'm a slave.
00:24:09.279 --> 00:24:12.480
So I had all of these ancestors talking to me.
00:24:12.720 --> 00:24:15.279
So when I enter a room, everybody enters with me.
00:24:15.920 --> 00:24:16.319
The crowd.
00:24:16.640 --> 00:24:17.599
Do you push yourself?
00:24:18.000 --> 00:24:18.400
I do.
00:24:18.480 --> 00:24:21.200
I'm I'm you know, I I sleep it and eat it.
00:24:21.359 --> 00:24:24.559
You know, I eat for it, I sleep for it, I wake up.
00:24:24.720 --> 00:24:29.359
I think when you're young, if you don't have a path to follow, you're just gonna go off.
00:24:29.519 --> 00:24:31.279
You know, it's so easy to go off.
00:24:31.440 --> 00:24:34.000
And people go off even when they have a path.
00:24:34.160 --> 00:24:38.079
You know, for me, it was either the street or the mountaintop.
00:24:38.559 --> 00:24:40.160
You were gonna make it no matter what.
00:24:40.480 --> 00:24:49.039
I was gonna make it, you know, besides falling in love and getting distracted by all of those, you know, those other things that you could become.
00:24:49.200 --> 00:24:52.240
It was just every day, don't forget, don't forget.
00:24:52.400 --> 00:24:54.559
This is your path, you know.
00:24:54.799 --> 00:25:03.279
And uh when you're young and you start a career like that, so young, you're just learning to grow into your own sense of yourself.
00:25:03.519 --> 00:25:07.119
And every rejection is like, oh well, next.
00:25:07.519 --> 00:25:11.200
And then you start thinking, you start enforcing yourself like today.
00:25:11.279 --> 00:25:21.920
They have all of this positive thinking videos and things, but you kind of had to get those values from yourself or from your own spirituality or from your own family.
00:25:22.079 --> 00:25:26.079
Like maybe they had to tell you, here, take the torch and run with it.
00:25:26.240 --> 00:25:30.400
And I wasn't just doing it for myself, I was doing it for my family.
00:25:30.640 --> 00:25:35.759
You know, my mother never really had a chance to have that.
00:25:35.920 --> 00:25:37.920
She had to, there was a glass ceiling.
00:25:38.079 --> 00:25:43.359
I mean, she won a scholarship to Pratt Institute when she was 15 years old.
00:25:43.519 --> 00:25:50.960
And and my grandmother was the first, one of the first students of Spelman College out of slavery.
00:25:51.200 --> 00:25:54.880
And they never had a chance to make it.
00:25:55.119 --> 00:26:02.799
My mother, when she being an artist, she created all the day glow colors for the paint uh factories in Brooklyn.
00:26:02.960 --> 00:26:07.759
And she was also the woman who did all the billboards and the subways in New York.
00:26:07.920 --> 00:26:12.319
She worked for Flair, but they treated her very, very badly.
00:26:12.559 --> 00:26:16.160
And so I figured, well, let's do some revenge here.
00:26:16.319 --> 00:26:17.759
This is revenge, you know.
00:26:17.839 --> 00:26:19.920
Like I'm sort of a warrior.
00:26:20.319 --> 00:26:23.359
And um and now I'm an ages warrior.
00:26:23.440 --> 00:26:25.519
I'm a warrior for aging, really.
00:26:25.599 --> 00:26:31.920
Like you know, don't put people down because they lived and they're like a bottle of champagne.
00:26:32.079 --> 00:26:35.920
You know, you're gonna have to taste it sooner or later, if you're curious.
00:26:36.319 --> 00:26:41.680
Well, I think age is something that is a big conversation in our culture and our society.
00:26:41.839 --> 00:26:53.359
And you know, I think about Madonna all the time as a pop star who's aging in a way she's outlasted her contemporaries, and she's continuing to make her own path.
00:26:53.599 --> 00:27:01.759
And I think a lot of the criticism does come from ageism and what's appropriate when you're in your 50s or 60s or 70s.
00:27:02.000 --> 00:27:15.839
So I really thank you for showing people that what's appropriate is what you want, and not to let people put you know obstacles in our way because we're all aging and learning.
00:27:16.240 --> 00:27:24.319
And I mean, this week you worked with Inez and Vinud for a very exciting beauty project for a major global brand.
00:27:24.799 --> 00:27:31.279
You know, what is it like being on set when everyone else is 25, 50 years younger?
00:27:31.440 --> 00:27:32.079
Tell me about that.
00:27:32.559 --> 00:27:35.039
You feel like you've fallen into the right fishbowl.
00:27:35.119 --> 00:27:38.240
You're all swimming all over each other and grooving in the moment.
00:27:38.400 --> 00:27:39.759
It was like a party.
00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:42.880
I mean, dance is dance and love is love.
00:27:42.960 --> 00:27:44.799
It never ages, you know?
00:27:44.960 --> 00:27:51.119
And if you take your vitamins and you feel happy, I think that glow is where everybody connects, you know.
00:27:51.279 --> 00:27:54.160
Like we all want that moment where we all feel happy.
00:27:54.480 --> 00:27:57.359
And it was just a beautiful experience.
00:27:57.680 --> 00:28:01.279
Every one of those young people that I worked with yesterday.
00:28:01.440 --> 00:28:04.880
There's no age, it's just that passion they have.
00:28:04.960 --> 00:28:08.079
Like it's the same hot passion.
00:28:08.480 --> 00:28:12.559
It's the same, like I feel what they feel, you know, it doesn't die.
00:28:12.640 --> 00:28:22.880
If you have passion and you want to live something, and you're in a place with other people who have that same, it's not like, it's not like an aggressivist thing.
00:28:22.960 --> 00:28:31.200
It's like they all work, they live for it, you know, they have something sizzling, all with the intention of doing their best.
00:28:31.359 --> 00:28:37.440
You know, I want to do my best, they want to do their best, and there's there's no competition.
00:28:37.599 --> 00:28:42.480
Everyone is so different, and everyone is just in that place at that moment.
00:28:42.559 --> 00:28:45.039
It's mind-blowing, it's like a hot air balloon.
00:28:45.119 --> 00:28:46.480
It's like you had a good time.
00:28:46.720 --> 00:28:47.920
Oh my god, yes.
00:28:48.079 --> 00:28:55.599
I met so many young people, singers, actresses, young models from our our own agency, you know, from Muse.
00:28:55.759 --> 00:28:59.119
And uh one of the girls I met, yes, and she's from Muse, our agency.
00:28:59.440 --> 00:29:00.240
Anastasia.
00:29:00.559 --> 00:29:01.599
Yeah, and she's singing.
00:29:01.759 --> 00:29:02.000
Yes.
00:29:02.319 --> 00:29:04.480
And we we were humming together.
00:29:04.640 --> 00:29:05.119
I loved her.
00:29:05.200 --> 00:29:06.559
I hugged her a lot.
00:29:07.200 --> 00:29:08.640
I was so happy to be with her.
00:29:08.720 --> 00:29:10.640
And the boys were so beautiful.
00:29:10.720 --> 00:29:12.160
And oh my God.
00:29:12.240 --> 00:29:14.559
I'm glad I'm not twinny anymore.
00:29:14.799 --> 00:29:17.039
Because I'd be out all night with everybody.
00:29:17.920 --> 00:29:20.480
But they're pretty sensible now, these kids, you know.
00:29:20.720 --> 00:29:22.720
Well, some say this generation is boring.
00:29:22.880 --> 00:29:23.440
What do you think?
00:29:23.759 --> 00:29:25.359
I think they are sensible.
00:29:25.519 --> 00:29:34.079
You know, they've seen a lot of stuff growing up, the pandemic, the the things that happen out in the outer, outer part, outside of fashion.
00:29:34.240 --> 00:29:36.400
And they feel like I want to survive.
00:29:36.480 --> 00:29:39.680
And I a lot of them say, I'm going home to get some sleep.
00:29:40.240 --> 00:29:42.240
Yeah, they're very into self-care.
00:29:42.559 --> 00:29:43.039
Yeah.
00:29:43.200 --> 00:29:46.880
And I think the there there's more information now.
00:29:47.119 --> 00:29:54.880
You know, we have an example of yes and no's, you know, and I can I think they're wise, they have all that information, like you said.
00:29:55.359 --> 00:30:02.640
So you came from an era of a lot of smoking, a lot of partying, a lot of other substances.
00:30:03.359 --> 00:30:05.599
How did you skate through that?
00:30:05.759 --> 00:30:06.880
Was that your personality?
00:30:07.039 --> 00:30:08.559
Was that something your family taught?
00:30:08.720 --> 00:30:09.920
You must have seen a lot.
00:30:10.400 --> 00:30:14.240
Well, you just have to think of a phoenix rising from ashes, right?
00:30:14.480 --> 00:30:28.960
And when you have um you have a deep soul, spiritual intention, like you you you love the people around you, but you know it's something that if things get out of hand and off balance, you don't rush into the fire.
00:30:29.119 --> 00:30:35.920
You know, if your friends are doing too many drugs, you have to say, Well, I love you so much, but I just can't do this.
00:30:36.079 --> 00:30:37.039
I'm sorry.
00:30:37.200 --> 00:30:44.319
You know, you see situations that are like a little bit too dark and scary.
00:30:44.480 --> 00:30:47.759
You say, I don't think that's my cup of tea, darling.
00:30:47.920 --> 00:30:49.440
I need to leave, you know.
00:30:49.599 --> 00:30:53.599
Then I have been caught in many very dangerous situations.
00:30:53.839 --> 00:30:59.759
I mean, I could have been trafficked it so many times with the allure of glamour, you know.
00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:05.680
But uh I think there's a lot to think about when it comes to that, you know.
00:31:06.000 --> 00:31:08.400
And uh you need people to protect you.
00:31:08.480 --> 00:31:12.000
You need to stay in communications with the people who care for you.
00:31:12.240 --> 00:31:20.079
You have to have a little family, a little tribe of people that you trust to say, hey, I'm going here or I'm not going there, I'll see you later.
00:31:20.240 --> 00:31:23.519
And if you don't show up for a few days, they'll wonder where you are.
00:31:23.680 --> 00:31:27.680
So you should have some friends in the business that you are close to.
00:31:27.839 --> 00:31:29.920
You know, try to stay connected.
00:31:30.079 --> 00:31:40.880
I think people are connected in a kind of AI way, but I mean physically, you know, go have dinner together, talk, be friends, make friends.
00:31:41.039 --> 00:31:42.880
I think my friends saved me.
00:31:43.039 --> 00:31:46.960
I remember one time I thought, let me go rogue or whatever they call that.
00:31:47.119 --> 00:31:50.720
And I went down to mix, so I came back all frizzed out more than I am now.
00:31:50.880 --> 00:32:00.000
And I had this poncho, and I was like walking around the streets trying to find some trouble, you know, going out with strangers, you know, spending the night in strange places.
00:32:00.160 --> 00:32:08.720
Finally, I'm walking past this, I'm in Paris at the Saint-Germain, and I remember Eve and Fernando had a little apartment there.
00:32:08.880 --> 00:32:19.680
So I'm walking past the floor and I'm going down past the church, and I walk in this little street, and I hear somebody, Pat, Pat, Pat, where are you?
00:32:19.759 --> 00:32:20.480
What are you doing?
00:32:20.640 --> 00:32:21.279
Come up here.
00:32:21.440 --> 00:32:24.000
And it's Eve and Fernando Sanchez.
00:32:24.240 --> 00:32:26.160
You have to come up here right away.
00:32:26.400 --> 00:32:29.680
And they saw me dressed like this, and they took me up to the apartment.
00:32:29.839 --> 00:32:31.680
We had tea, they said, This is not you.
00:32:31.839 --> 00:32:34.319
You cannot be out in the street dressed like this.
00:32:34.480 --> 00:32:37.759
Go back to the atelier, to the cabine and get dressed.
00:32:38.240 --> 00:32:39.519
So they were watching out for you.
00:32:39.759 --> 00:32:42.480
Yeah, you have to have friends who watch out for you.
00:32:42.720 --> 00:32:43.359
You know.
00:32:43.920 --> 00:32:45.440
And it's kind of difficult.
00:32:46.000 --> 00:32:46.960
I mean, I don't know.
00:32:47.119 --> 00:32:52.880
There's so uh an expanded amount of people that you can make friends with now in the business.
00:32:53.039 --> 00:33:09.279
Because at the time we didn't have the hairdressers, we didn't have the style, we didn't have the stylists as much, we didn't have the makeup artists, we didn't have the um um people, the bookers, like not bookers, but um the people who find casting.
00:33:09.440 --> 00:33:13.759
So we didn't have that extra amount of people that you could make friends with.
00:33:13.920 --> 00:33:17.599
You only had yourself, your makeup bag, and maybe your little tribe.
00:33:18.079 --> 00:33:18.960
So you're really on your own.
00:33:19.200 --> 00:33:24.640
You are on your own knocking on the doors and making getting a list and making appointments.
00:33:24.880 --> 00:33:35.519
I remember um when I went to fa first to Paris, um uh they gave me a list and a little appoint a book with the um directions of Paris.
00:33:35.680 --> 00:33:46.640
We didn't have the telephone, and you had to find the place and walk over the cobblestones and the high heels and you know, with the heavy portfolio, which was uh a 24 by 18.
00:33:47.279 --> 00:33:51.200
You look like you were going to make a world plan architecture.
00:33:51.359 --> 00:33:54.319
But anyway, um yeah, I survived that.
00:33:54.400 --> 00:33:56.000
Um, I had some pretty good age.
00:33:56.480 --> 00:34:02.720
Uh I left Willem, I left um Eileen Ford and went to Wilhelmina, and I felt a lot of sympathy.
00:34:02.880 --> 00:34:04.960
I was her uh third model.
00:34:05.519 --> 00:34:14.079
She had Diane, which was a very beautiful girl, and one other, and and she was a beauty, and she believed in me.
00:34:14.400 --> 00:34:18.000
And my name was Patricia, Patricia Cleveland.
00:34:18.719 --> 00:34:22.719
And she said, no, that's too difficult.
00:34:23.039 --> 00:34:29.360
And at the time everybody was like girl, a boy, you know, unisex, so I became Pat.
00:34:30.159 --> 00:34:30.480
Mr.
00:34:30.800 --> 00:34:31.119
Pat.
00:34:32.079 --> 00:34:36.719
All the girls wanted to be a boy, so I became a boy.
00:34:37.519 --> 00:34:39.599
Did you embrace that, your new name?
00:34:39.920 --> 00:34:42.000
I embraced my manhood.
00:34:45.920 --> 00:34:56.719
And this is where my life got really interesting, because then my tribe became um I I met Stephen Burroughs, and I was a mistake, actually.
00:34:56.880 --> 00:35:04.480
Stephen Burroughs is this wonderful designer that was um African American and like the youngest designer ever.
00:35:04.639 --> 00:35:11.920
And I had been working for Bill Blass, and I was on 7th Avenue, Jean Jacques Tiffot, and everything before I went to Europe.
00:35:12.320 --> 00:35:14.880
And um it was wonderful.
00:35:15.039 --> 00:35:24.400
I was uh up at Vogue and Carrie Donovan said, Oh, they're looking for a model to go to Stephen Burroughs, and here's the uh address.
00:35:24.639 --> 00:35:30.400
But what they had intentionally made a mistake was, you know how all people look alike?
00:35:30.559 --> 00:35:33.519
They mstuck me for a girl named Norma Jean.
00:35:33.840 --> 00:35:36.079
So we look similar, you know.
00:35:36.239 --> 00:35:40.719
Oh, those all those black girls look alike, or whatever they are, whatever we are.
00:35:40.880 --> 00:35:42.480
So they sent me instead.
00:35:42.639 --> 00:35:48.000
So when I got up to Stephen Burroughs' atelier, the smoke was coming out from behind the door and the incense.
00:35:48.159 --> 00:35:51.679
You could smell musk all through the top floor of Henry Bendel's.
00:35:51.840 --> 00:35:53.360
This was my new life.
00:35:53.679 --> 00:35:54.800
Me and the boys.
00:35:55.039 --> 00:35:58.880
The door opened, poof, out came the Wizard of Oz, Mr.
00:35:59.039 --> 00:36:05.519
Stephen Burroughs, dressed in colors and his little gang of beautiful boys.
00:36:05.679 --> 00:36:07.519
Oh, beautiful boys.
00:36:08.079 --> 00:36:11.599
Out to Fire Island we went, and my life began.
00:36:11.920 --> 00:36:12.480
Wow.
00:36:13.920 --> 00:36:19.840
You know, that brings up your history and long deep relationship with the gay community.
00:36:20.159 --> 00:36:21.519
Oh, God, thank you.
00:36:22.159 --> 00:36:32.559
You know, in your life, gay rights have changed radically, representation has changed radically, queer people can get married, they can have kids.
00:36:32.719 --> 00:36:32.960
Yeah.
00:36:33.199 --> 00:36:38.880
You know, what did you see working with all these men before those changes and before Stonewall?
00:36:39.360 --> 00:36:48.320
I saw beautiful boys with passion and lots of talent, and they were my best friends because the girls pretty much hated me.
00:36:48.480 --> 00:36:56.559
So these were kind of like I could talk to them, they understood my plight and my drama, and then we can run after the same boys at the same time.
00:36:57.360 --> 00:36:58.400
Whoever wins, wins.
00:36:58.719 --> 00:37:00.880
When I was like, we're out to hunt.
00:37:01.039 --> 00:37:01.760
That's mine.
00:37:01.920 --> 00:37:04.239
No, get back, girl, that's mine.
00:37:04.719 --> 00:37:06.719
What was Fire Island like at that time?
00:37:07.199 --> 00:37:10.239
God, it was just a paradise for artists.
00:37:10.480 --> 00:37:18.480
All the designers at the end of the week, from Henry Bendel's, we'd jump in the limo with bags and bags full of clothes to show off.
00:37:18.719 --> 00:37:34.880
And all the designers on 7th Avenue, all the boys and all the girls, we get in their limos, drive out there, some on water planes and some in the train and some in the limos, and the ride out would be puffy puffy, smoky smoky, yay, we're going to a party.
00:37:35.039 --> 00:37:41.280
And when you arrived there on the ferry, everybody was dancing at the bottel and waving their hands and dressed.
00:37:41.440 --> 00:37:59.199
It was like I felt like I went to paradise because everybody was talented, and there were architects, and there were dictators' sons and princes and Tennessee Williams, and I mean, there were just marvelous Broadway stars.
00:37:59.360 --> 00:38:06.880
Everybody was out there having a beautiful time on the beach, and the wonderful thing is everything was art.
00:38:07.119 --> 00:38:14.320
Everything is about when you walk down that boardwalk, everybody's showing off with their little group and getting inspired.
00:38:14.400 --> 00:38:19.039
Like half the time, the clothes that we wore would show up on somebody else's collection.
00:38:19.280 --> 00:38:21.039
So we all inspired each other.
00:38:21.199 --> 00:38:23.039
I mean, that's what it should be.
00:38:23.280 --> 00:38:30.239
It should be everybody inspiring each other, love who you love, and be free to dance your night away.
00:38:30.400 --> 00:38:35.599
And that was the situation, dancing and dressing, and what is it all for?
00:38:36.000 --> 00:38:36.960
Community.
00:38:37.280 --> 00:38:37.840
Enjoy.
00:38:38.159 --> 00:38:38.880
Enjoy life.
00:38:39.280 --> 00:38:47.039
When I think especially at that time, Fire Island's the place where gay men could be out, live their real life, be free, cook, that's what we all want.
00:38:47.440 --> 00:38:57.760
Love, plant flowers, redecorate your home, and challenging, decorating, who has the nicest gymnasium home, who has the nicest floral orange.
00:38:58.320 --> 00:39:00.159
I mean, just gorgeous.
00:39:00.400 --> 00:39:02.960
I don't know if that exists anymore, you know.
00:39:03.119 --> 00:39:13.039
Like I I've been out recently, but ever there was a tornado and it turned everything upside down, all the pools, and the houses aged and they're closer together.
00:39:13.199 --> 00:39:14.880
And you can never repeat that.
00:39:15.119 --> 00:39:23.119
But you, you know, people try to repeat that when they go flying around like birds of a feather from collection to collections in different countries.
00:39:23.280 --> 00:39:34.000
You know, we do the rounds, we do New York, we do Milan, we do Paris, we do London, we do Spain, we do Japan, and then you maybe find your little uh dancing group somewhere.
00:39:34.719 --> 00:39:34.960
Totally.
00:39:35.039 --> 00:39:36.239
Well, we're all trying to connect.
00:39:36.559 --> 00:39:37.039
Yes, right.
00:39:37.360 --> 00:39:37.920
That's the point.
00:39:38.000 --> 00:39:44.719
You go out to dinner, you make new friends in person, you dress nice, you feel good.
00:39:44.960 --> 00:39:47.760
It's the reward of all the hard work.
00:39:48.079 --> 00:40:09.039
No, all my friends who are gay, trans, LBGTQ are people who are imaginative, have a vision, and they are generous, loving people who really deserve to be in this world to teach people how to live in love.
00:40:09.440 --> 00:40:17.039
You know, it just in my heart, it's just that's where I found actually the most, you know, un not critical love.
00:40:17.199 --> 00:40:21.679
And yeah, we dive in each other and we talk about each other like dirt when we leave the room.
00:40:21.840 --> 00:40:22.719
But that's the fun.
00:40:22.800 --> 00:40:24.159
We are bantering.
00:40:24.320 --> 00:40:27.679
We are the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful.
00:40:27.840 --> 00:40:28.400
We're all those.
00:40:28.960 --> 00:40:29.519
I love that.
00:40:29.920 --> 00:40:32.559
I want to ask you about your relationship with Halston.
00:40:33.119 --> 00:40:34.400
How did that start?
00:40:34.639 --> 00:40:38.000
You know, this is a figure that's been really mythologized.
00:40:38.079 --> 00:40:40.320
There have been movies, there's been TV.
00:40:40.639 --> 00:40:43.039
Do you think those portrayals are accurate?
00:40:43.199 --> 00:40:46.320
What was what was your relationship and your view of him like?
00:40:46.800 --> 00:40:52.559
Well, the point is that he is a beautiful and generous human being with a delicate soul.
00:40:52.800 --> 00:40:59.519
And the thing is, is he has so much love for the people that he takes care of that he has to defend them.
00:40:59.679 --> 00:41:09.440
And he puts on this mask of harsh, like what he did, um, he would always say, Oh, so they think they're gonna hurt the people I love.
00:41:09.599 --> 00:41:11.679
Well, they haven't seen anything yet.
00:41:11.920 --> 00:41:18.719
Wait till they see this 10-ton bite, and then he go, like that, and then he get to business.
00:41:19.039 --> 00:41:28.239
And he is like a delicate human being that caught got caught up in an evil greedy world of business.
00:41:28.880 --> 00:41:35.440
And being with Halston is like a healing because he really, really cares for everyone.
00:41:35.599 --> 00:41:41.679
You know, he may be like a parent and say this is good and that's not good, but he'll tell you the truth.
00:41:41.840 --> 00:41:49.519
And he was very honest with everybody, but then they just peeked him apart like a beautiful flower when you pull the petals off.
00:41:49.760 --> 00:41:53.519
And he always used to say things like, Oh, my neck is so long.
00:41:53.599 --> 00:41:57.280
I said, No, you're like a swan, you're so beautiful.
00:41:57.440 --> 00:41:59.679
And he was generous with us girls.
00:41:59.760 --> 00:42:02.000
I mean, we traveled the world together.
00:42:02.239 --> 00:42:14.480
We went to China when it wasn't even open to go to the silk factories, and he made entire wardrobes, individual wardrobes for each of the ten girls that he took, and the boys, too.
00:42:15.039 --> 00:42:22.480
And we went to the Great Wall of China, and we went to all the bonsai gardens, and we went to the silk factories.
00:42:22.800 --> 00:42:45.599
And I had been traveling with him since the beginning of his opening of um his atelier on 68th Street, which was his first house, and Elsa Peretti was there, and Naomi Sims and um Marina Scavina Scavuno, these were his first models, and Angelica came along and I was there too.
00:42:46.079 --> 00:42:49.360
And um these were his first models.
00:42:50.000 --> 00:43:05.679
And um it was just wonderful being in the cutting room with him and watching him throw the fabric on the floor, and you know, I think the drama that they create around him was not exactly what he wanted because he he was like an orchid.
00:43:06.000 --> 00:43:19.119
He had uh so many orchids and he created beautiful scents and you know the fact that when you become vulnerable to business, it takes away from your private life.
00:43:19.440 --> 00:43:27.760
So everything that you do becomes public and you never have a private moment, you know, and then people take advantage of your generosity.
00:43:28.079 --> 00:43:36.320
I think people have really, you know, sort of stabbed him in the back in a way with some of the things they say about him.
00:43:36.719 --> 00:43:40.639
Because actually he never did go to the meat market, he never did.
00:43:41.039 --> 00:43:46.559
And just because he was in love with a crazy Argentinian artist, that's his right, you know.
00:43:46.639 --> 00:43:51.840
And just because AIDS came around and killed everybody with love, it's not their fault.
00:43:52.239 --> 00:43:54.719
You know, our song was Love the One You're With.
00:43:54.960 --> 00:43:59.679
And he did such wonderful things for me and Elsa and Lula.
00:44:00.480 --> 00:44:14.400
De Falaise, and you know, he made everybody feel so elegant, and even the women, the society women that loved him because he was a good listener and generous, you know.
00:44:14.880 --> 00:44:16.079
Um, you brought up AIDS.
00:44:16.239 --> 00:44:28.000
I wanted to ask you what it was like in the 80s watching the creative community and the queer community just be devastated by this terrifying disease.
00:44:28.239 --> 00:44:30.480
Um what how did you feel?
00:44:30.639 --> 00:44:32.000
How did you get through it?
00:44:32.159 --> 00:44:34.000
How did you deal with the loss?
00:44:34.480 --> 00:44:38.880
I don't know how I I escaped that because half of my boyfriends were gay.
00:44:40.880 --> 00:44:51.360
They're so beautiful, but they all died and um they all died and um they died because they were uh lovers.
00:44:51.599 --> 00:44:53.360
What can they say, you know?
00:44:53.599 --> 00:45:00.480
I think I came along in a time when a free love and all of that was just the the trend, you know, love the one you're with.
00:45:00.960 --> 00:45:06.639
When you're down and feel confused and you don't know who you're talking to.
00:45:06.800 --> 00:45:09.360
It's that song, Love the One You With.
00:45:09.679 --> 00:45:14.880
And um, everybody was just free spirited and young, very young.
00:45:15.039 --> 00:45:21.599
I mean, when you're young, you get out and you have the chocolate box and you have the different flavors, and you want to try them all.
00:45:21.920 --> 00:45:31.760
You want to try them all, and everybody was partying and not aware that I knew the zero, I knew the zero person who came to America.
00:45:32.079 --> 00:45:39.920
He was a model, and he had a boyfriend who was uh traveling a great deal, and he was number one.
00:45:40.960 --> 00:45:48.880
And um, I s I suddenly saw the boys I knew becoming pale and sick and covered with marks.
00:45:48.960 --> 00:45:54.320
And I remember I got in the elevator with one, and I was you know, we all kiss each other all said, No, no, no, no, kiss me.
00:45:54.480 --> 00:45:55.840
Something's wrong with me.
00:45:56.159 --> 00:45:58.719
I said, My God, what's going on with your skin?
00:45:58.800 --> 00:46:00.320
You need to go to the dermatologist.
00:46:00.559 --> 00:46:02.880
I don't know, I don't nobody knew what it was.
00:46:03.440 --> 00:46:06.320
People were getting sick, and I don't know.
00:46:06.480 --> 00:46:08.480
I don't know how I survived that at all.
00:46:09.039 --> 00:46:12.400
Did that teach you how to deal with loss?
00:46:12.559 --> 00:46:17.199
I mean, to go to funerals or see men who are 30 dying people.
00:46:17.599 --> 00:46:18.400
That's not normal.
00:46:18.559 --> 00:46:19.840
That's not what we grow up with.
00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:21.039
Like it's a tragedy.
00:46:21.519 --> 00:46:25.760
It's such a a devastating thing because everybody would disappear.
00:46:26.159 --> 00:46:30.800
Disappear, and they were treated like a floor mat.
00:46:31.199 --> 00:46:37.199
They were looked at and scorned, you know, and people were seeing nasty things.
00:46:37.840 --> 00:47:17.760
On top of not being well, having all of that hatred guy guided towards the gay community, like, oh, it's their fault because they're young and free and enjoying life and and it's their fault, and it was so mean and it was mean and evil and cruel, and all of my creative friends who had to die under that kind of energy of people being mean and cruel to them, you know, like Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson were like out the front helping everybody and trying to speak up, and there were no, you know, I just I'm so devastated now.
00:47:17.840 --> 00:47:19.760
Like it makes my heart cry.
00:47:20.079 --> 00:47:26.559
Because you have to live a full life so that you can get wisdom and know not to do certain things or to do certain things.
00:47:26.719 --> 00:47:31.920
And they were just young and expressive and and they got caught up in something.
00:47:32.159 --> 00:47:34.639
And um, oh God, I cry even now.
00:47:34.719 --> 00:47:38.639
You know, I'm like, I'm I'm so it's so painful, really.
00:47:39.119 --> 00:47:41.760
Well was a generation of people lost.
00:47:42.000 --> 00:47:42.320
Yeah.
00:47:42.559 --> 00:47:45.760
And, you know, their creativity, their wisdom, their love.
00:47:46.239 --> 00:47:52.639
I think it's interesting to look at this time and think, you know, we've we've come through that.
00:47:52.880 --> 00:47:58.320
And now, of course, there's different medicines and there's different pre preventative possibilities.
00:47:58.559 --> 00:48:11.199
And this is the first generation of gay men my age and now aging who are here, happy, alive, yeah, and we finally get to see them live their whole journey.
00:48:11.519 --> 00:48:14.480
Yeah, the whole journey of loving, living, giving.
00:48:14.880 --> 00:48:15.760
That's what I put.
00:48:15.920 --> 00:48:20.800
I put on this generation loving, living, giving.
00:48:21.119 --> 00:48:37.599
Because um, with our own experiences, you know, like, you know, it just seems like um being in America and having the present things happening with hatred and all that, putting up with hatred is really uh poison.
00:48:37.920 --> 00:48:58.639
And uh when I find the gay community is sort of a buffer in a way, because they're so bright, they're like really the rainbow and butterflies, that they take all the hits, you know, even more than women or ages and and and even people who are handicapped, you know, sometimes they get hit on.
00:48:59.039 --> 00:49:04.400
But now um with science, I'm a product of science, actually, because I'm alive.
00:49:04.639 --> 00:49:21.920
And I think with all of that, you know, with all of that, the funds and the things, I hope they're never taken away, or people can get health care and and uh, you know, and sometimes we actually do um benefits in fashion for these things, you know.
00:49:22.320 --> 00:49:31.519
And uh that that I think that's where fashion comes in handy sometimes, really in a bigger way than even uh, you know, business.
00:49:31.920 --> 00:49:37.679
Well, there's always been a history of fashion helping out, whether it's raising money or raising awareness.
00:49:38.159 --> 00:49:44.159
Um I you I know a few years ago you had a very serious health scare and life threatening.
00:49:44.880 --> 00:49:46.400
How did you get through that?
00:49:46.480 --> 00:49:49.280
Like how do you always have your positive attitude?
00:49:49.679 --> 00:49:57.199
Well, I think you know, after so many years, I was like, um, that was like uh 10 uh seven, eight, eight years ago, so seven or eight years ago.
00:49:57.440 --> 00:50:06.400
And I was already so embedded in the world of fashion that I had so many friends and I had been traveling around the world so much for so many decades.
00:50:06.719 --> 00:50:09.199
It was like my tribe, you know.
00:50:09.440 --> 00:50:16.719
And uh when I got, I wasn't well, I had a show for L'Oreal, and that night my belly swelled up like a watermelon.
00:50:16.800 --> 00:50:18.480
I called my friend, said I have a show tomorrow.
00:50:18.559 --> 00:50:19.679
I don't even fit in my clothes.
00:50:19.760 --> 00:50:21.119
She said, Call the doctor.
00:50:21.360 --> 00:50:24.000
I called the doctor, he said, No, you have to go to the hospital.
00:50:24.159 --> 00:50:28.000
I had an emergency operation, uh, colon cancer.
00:50:28.239 --> 00:50:31.760
If I hadn't gotten to the hospital that night, I would have died.
00:50:32.000 --> 00:50:34.880
He says, I have to do an emergency operation on you.
00:50:35.119 --> 00:50:40.639
And I was at the American hospital and uh I had no money or anything.
00:50:40.880 --> 00:50:45.760
And uh I did, he said, I have to do an emergency operation, but you might have to wear a colossally.
00:50:46.000 --> 00:50:47.760
He said, I can't wear that, I'm a model.
00:50:47.920 --> 00:50:50.639
So I have a special operation for you.
00:50:50.800 --> 00:50:51.679
Will you let me do it?
00:50:51.840 --> 00:50:53.039
I said, is it couture?
00:50:53.199 --> 00:50:55.039
He said, Yes, I have the couture cut.
00:50:55.119 --> 00:50:56.239
I said, give it to me.
00:50:56.400 --> 00:51:06.960
I woke up the next day, and all my fashion community were sending me happy get well, and not only that, there was a GoFund set up for me.
00:51:07.119 --> 00:51:25.760
Jean-Paul Gautier had been to the hospital, had the same doctor, and he he made it so that I could, and a whole bunch of designers, all the fashion houses chipped in, paid my hospital bill anonymously, all the names, I know who they are, I know it was Diane and everybody.
00:51:26.000 --> 00:51:28.639
I know they all chipped in and all my friends.
00:51:28.800 --> 00:51:31.760
And it was$100,000,$150,000.
00:51:32.320 --> 00:51:35.679
They chipped in, uh, GoFund paid my hospital.
00:51:36.000 --> 00:51:38.480
And while I was there, I had the strangest thing.
00:51:38.639 --> 00:51:40.079
Carl had died the week before.
00:51:40.159 --> 00:51:41.599
I didn't know where he was.
00:51:41.840 --> 00:51:46.239
And I said to the nurse, I had the strangest thing happen to me last night.
00:51:46.400 --> 00:51:49.679
I have a friend who is a designer, his name is Carl.
00:51:49.840 --> 00:51:52.000
He came and he sat on the edge of my bed.
00:51:52.079 --> 00:51:55.280
And he said, Don't worry, my darling, you're going to be okay.
00:51:55.519 --> 00:51:57.119
He didn't look like himself, though.
00:51:57.280 --> 00:51:59.119
He was like strange.
00:51:59.679 --> 00:52:04.000
And I said, She said, Carl, he was on the fifth floor.
00:52:04.159 --> 00:52:05.840
He died on the fifth floor.
00:52:06.079 --> 00:52:08.960
I said, Oh my God, I had a visitation.
00:52:09.199 --> 00:52:10.960
I'm pretty spooky like that.
00:52:11.199 --> 00:52:11.760
Anyway.
00:52:12.800 --> 00:52:15.679
You really saw a whole community come together to help you.
00:52:16.000 --> 00:52:20.559
Yeah, and they were just marvelous and they were just sending all their love.
00:52:20.719 --> 00:52:31.840
And that's why when people say, Oh, I hate my telephone, I hate science, I hate technology, I said, listen, if you didn't have that, if I didn't have it, I wouldn't be alive today.
00:52:32.159 --> 00:52:38.079
So, you you know, no matter what you do, check yourself out, you know, take care of yourself.
00:52:38.239 --> 00:52:46.880
Don't be too extreme with the beauty treatments, you know, just keep that as minimal as you can if possible.
00:52:47.440 --> 00:52:55.679
And um be kind of normal sometimes, get fresh air and sit in a garden and and just use the tools that are there.
00:52:55.760 --> 00:53:02.320
You know, use your phone, call, stay in touch, take care of yourself, take some vitamins, you know.
00:53:02.639 --> 00:53:13.760
Well, I think we really learned during the COVID pandemic how much we need people, connection, relationships, because when it's gone, you realize we have nothing.
00:53:14.400 --> 00:53:20.880
We are just so fortunate, you know, like people of like mind, they always say birds of a feather.
00:53:20.960 --> 00:53:24.480
I always think of my peacocks, all our beautiful peacocks.
00:53:24.880 --> 00:53:30.159
We love to show off, we love to stand back and malt a little bit, let our feathers go.
00:53:30.400 --> 00:53:39.599
So if we just give ourselves time enough to let our feathers go, be in love, and and have some normal things and then go show off our feathers again.
00:53:39.760 --> 00:53:42.159
I think it's sort of like the seasons.
00:53:42.239 --> 00:53:44.800
We have to melt down, come back up.
00:53:44.880 --> 00:53:49.920
And I think that's kind of like the longevity thing, you know, disappear for a while, come back.
00:53:50.000 --> 00:53:56.880
And you know, sometimes you have your seasons, sometimes you don't, but um, don't don't kill yourself over it.
00:53:57.199 --> 00:53:59.280
I think that's great advice, that kind of balance.
00:53:59.599 --> 00:54:04.880
Now, so you're of course mother of Anna, who's also had an amazing modeling career.
00:54:05.039 --> 00:54:05.199
Yeah.
00:54:05.440 --> 00:54:06.639
Your grandmother.
00:54:07.840 --> 00:54:19.280
What advice do you give to to your kids and to your grandchildren about growing up in this world and and finding a way to enjoy life and be positive?
00:54:19.679 --> 00:54:23.119
Well, first of all, we're all kind of yogis in my family.
00:54:23.360 --> 00:54:29.280
And I think when they were growing up, they saw me doing that, so they have that.
00:54:29.679 --> 00:54:44.559
And I think, you know, if you need to be something, be your true self, which means that even though we have these facades and these things that we do on the outside and the world is chaotic, you really need somewhere to go back to.
00:54:45.199 --> 00:54:54.320
And so when my daughter was out and, you know, knocking on doors and trying to find a way and trying to be her own person separate from me.
00:54:54.719 --> 00:54:55.840
It's a big shadow.
00:54:56.159 --> 00:54:58.800
Well, I didn't sh I did shadow her in a way.
00:54:58.880 --> 00:55:09.519
I was behind her, watching, watching and not standing in front of her, not blocking her way or, you know, making sure that she didn't get into trouble.
00:55:09.840 --> 00:55:17.519
Because, you know, when that door is closed and somebody has a different intention, I've seen it many times even in front of me.
00:55:17.760 --> 00:55:21.280
When you're so young, you need do need a chaperone.
00:55:21.760 --> 00:55:26.320
Because you look like and you smell like a ra radiant flower.
00:55:26.559 --> 00:55:31.119
The bumblebee's going to come over, whatever that might be.
00:55:31.280 --> 00:55:43.280
So I think when you're young, you know, I did own a model agency for 25 years in Italy, and I had all these girls come in that were from different countries who were underage.
00:55:43.760 --> 00:55:46.719
13, 14, 15 without a parent.
00:55:47.039 --> 00:55:51.920
And then sometimes they would like to not return to their country.
00:55:52.079 --> 00:56:00.559
So they would go to parties with playboys, and I'd have to gather them all back and send them home because they would really get into a lot of trouble.
00:56:00.960 --> 00:56:10.960
Well, and Milan was always a gateway from Eastern Europe, and so I feel like a lot of models would start really young from Eastern Europe and they would end up in Milan, and some of them would never leave.
00:56:11.360 --> 00:56:15.039
They would never leave because they had nothing to go back to.
00:56:15.199 --> 00:56:18.239
I remember one time I went to do a show in Russia.
00:56:18.480 --> 00:56:21.039
You know, not to say that a place is bad or whatever.
00:56:21.199 --> 00:56:25.599
I don't know, but opportunity is where it is, centered.
00:56:25.840 --> 00:56:30.480
And some people want to get away from what their situation is.
00:56:30.559 --> 00:56:36.159
And I was with Lara Bia Joty when they opened Russia to all the boutiques and everything.
00:56:36.320 --> 00:56:46.400
And uh models were lined up in hundreds, sitting for hours in long hallways with their portfolios sitting in perfect posture, waiting for that opportunity.
00:56:46.639 --> 00:56:50.719
So when they land in Milan, they may never return to where they are.
00:56:50.880 --> 00:56:54.159
And they may be get into a lot of trouble.
00:56:54.320 --> 00:57:02.880
If you don't have a really caring agent, you were a caring agent, and you don't have someone watching, it's not a good thing.
00:57:03.599 --> 00:57:06.719
Is that was that one of the lessons you learned from owning an agency?
00:57:07.199 --> 00:57:18.880
I did learn and watch that there, you know, there m modeling is such a raw and vulnerable profession.
00:57:19.280 --> 00:57:24.639
Uh when you're young and um you have all of these ideas about what it is.
00:57:24.880 --> 00:57:32.719
There are invaders, people who come in and sort of they say, Ah, new meat, we want to have this.
00:57:32.960 --> 00:57:36.400
And it's scary, it's really really frightening.
00:57:36.639 --> 00:57:39.599
You don't know where you're going, who's behind that door.
00:57:40.000 --> 00:57:46.000
You know, you could be trafficked at any moment if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time.
00:57:46.320 --> 00:57:49.199
You know, I've had to avoid things like that myself.
00:57:49.440 --> 00:57:55.360
And um, watching it happen or not not under my watch.
00:57:55.679 --> 00:57:58.880
It never happened under my watch, but it could happen.
00:57:59.360 --> 00:58:00.079
Could happen.
00:58:00.239 --> 00:58:03.280
If you don't have a really caring agent, you're caring.
00:58:03.440 --> 00:58:04.960
And so thank you so much.
00:58:05.280 --> 00:58:07.760
Did you always want Anna to model?
00:58:07.920 --> 00:58:09.679
Was that something that came from her?
00:58:10.000 --> 00:58:13.760
What was the journey of watching her become her own?
00:58:14.400 --> 00:58:17.199
Oh God, she's been modeling since she was born.
00:58:17.360 --> 00:58:24.639
From her first passport picture, two weeks, until her very first um show with Moschino.
00:58:24.800 --> 00:58:28.639
When she was like four and a half, she did the Moschino show.
00:58:28.800 --> 00:58:35.840
So I think after that she started dressing up with a little plastic high heels click-clacking all over.
00:58:36.000 --> 00:58:39.679
I did teach her to do the Pollyanna walk with the book in the head.
00:58:39.840 --> 00:58:45.039
And after that, I think she did some dancing and you know, she was like ready.
00:58:45.280 --> 00:58:47.360
She wanted to do that herself.
00:58:47.599 --> 00:58:50.400
I didn't push her into anything.
00:58:50.639 --> 00:58:51.920
She grew up with it.
00:58:52.079 --> 00:58:57.119
She was always backstage and she loved the model girls and they played with her.
00:58:57.280 --> 00:58:59.760
She sat on the designers' knees.
00:58:59.840 --> 00:59:03.440
You know, they loved her as a little girl, Carl and Giovanni.
00:59:03.679 --> 00:59:06.639
Everybody, Given, she everybody loved Anna.
00:59:06.960 --> 00:59:08.639
And they loved her growing up.
00:59:09.280 --> 00:59:13.760
I mean, she really grew up in the industry more than almost anyone.
00:59:14.000 --> 00:59:14.800
It's fascinating.
00:59:15.119 --> 00:59:20.320
Yeah, she grew up knowing how it is to be with those creative people.
00:59:20.639 --> 00:59:25.440
And then Stephen Burroughs used her for the first time for orange babies in Amsterdam.
00:59:25.519 --> 00:59:26.480
It was a benefit.
00:59:26.639 --> 00:59:29.440
And she walked with Varushka and me on the runway.
00:59:29.679 --> 00:59:32.239
So I mean, with Verushka.
00:59:32.559 --> 00:59:33.599
Oh my god.
00:59:34.079 --> 00:59:37.760
Oh she's one of the people I love.
00:59:37.920 --> 00:59:38.480
Anyway.
00:59:38.800 --> 00:59:42.880
Well, I've always been impressed by Anna's approach to the business.
00:59:43.039 --> 00:59:43.280
Yeah.
00:59:43.519 --> 00:59:55.760
And clearly it comes from somewhere, somewhere you, where she really has her own gut about what she's excited about, what she wants to do, and she has a very strong inner voice.
00:59:56.159 --> 00:59:56.800
That's it.
00:59:57.199 --> 00:59:59.840
And I think it's it's beautiful, and I really respect it.
00:59:59.920 --> 01:00:03.440
And working with people like that, I I think it's such a pleasure.
01:00:03.840 --> 01:00:04.639
Thank you.
01:00:04.960 --> 01:00:05.760
Thank you.
01:00:06.239 --> 01:00:26.800
Well, she's got the torch, and I think she has the passion, and she's always had the passion, 24-7, dedicated, going, going, traveling, learning, you know, being coming strong from experience, being quiet and available and sensitive to what people need.
01:00:27.199 --> 01:00:29.039
And she's very sensitive.
01:00:29.199 --> 01:00:32.000
I think you have to have you have respect.
01:00:32.239 --> 01:00:38.960
You have um she just respects the passion of the designers and the artists she's with.
01:00:39.119 --> 01:00:44.400
And she tries to um g give as much as a hundred percent.
01:00:44.559 --> 01:00:45.920
You know, that's a lot.
01:00:46.079 --> 01:00:48.159
When you're supposed to only give maybe 80%.
01:00:49.199 --> 01:00:50.000
No, but I can tell.
01:00:50.079 --> 01:00:56.320
I mean, she and you, when you commit to a job, yeah, you show up and it's going to be everything.
01:00:56.639 --> 01:00:57.760
Yeah, well, you learn that.
01:00:57.920 --> 01:01:00.559
If you don't show up, it's over.
01:01:01.039 --> 01:01:05.360
So, like someone like Zach Posen, you've had this long history with, so has Anna.
01:01:05.599 --> 01:01:05.920
Yeah.
01:01:06.159 --> 01:01:09.440
What is it like when you keep working with these people over your career?
01:01:09.920 --> 01:01:19.920
Well, first of all, you know, I came in as sort of like this person that Zach, his partner Christopher, knew about me.
01:01:20.159 --> 01:01:25.199
I went to this booking with Anna, and it was in a train station in Brooklyn.
01:01:25.280 --> 01:01:27.760
And I was escorting her because she was so young.
01:01:27.840 --> 01:01:30.800
You know, I had to go with her everywhere to every booking.
01:01:30.960 --> 01:01:33.760
And I was sitting in the bus, and in walks this Christopher.
01:01:33.920 --> 01:01:36.079
He said, Oh my god, it's Pat Cleveland.
01:01:36.239 --> 01:01:40.159
This is one of my down days, you know, like just like incognito walking around.
01:01:40.239 --> 01:01:40.960
He recognized me.
01:01:41.119 --> 01:01:43.199
He said, Oh no, what am I gonna do?
01:01:43.360 --> 01:01:44.159
He found me out.
01:01:44.320 --> 01:01:44.960
I'm in the bus.
01:01:45.039 --> 01:01:48.480
He said, Oh my god, you have to meet my friend Zach Posen.
01:01:49.199 --> 01:01:54.000
Ah, so he introduced me to Zach Posen with Anna.
01:01:54.480 --> 01:02:14.559
And then Zach was so history-wise, he knew who I was, and and he and he loved Anna, and he started dressing us and and photographing us, and he made such a beautiful photos of us, and the shooting was so good.
01:02:14.639 --> 01:02:26.639
And Anna Winter was there, and she was falling in love with Zach, and and Andre Leontali was actually the one who introduced us more to Zach after.
01:02:27.119 --> 01:02:34.960
And uh it just became like a little family, Anna and Zach, Anna and Zach, Anna and Zach, Andre, Anna.
01:02:35.280 --> 01:02:43.039
And then I was in there too somehow, and then it felt like a new world for me because I wasn't thinking about myself at all.
01:02:43.199 --> 01:02:45.599
I was just saying, this is great for Anna.
01:02:46.000 --> 01:02:48.159
And he's wonderful, he's so creative.
01:02:48.320 --> 01:02:53.440
He, you know, he's an international perspective on creativity.
01:02:54.320 --> 01:02:57.280
And then recently uh Anna moved to London.
01:02:57.440 --> 01:03:03.840
She married, and she has a little baby who's one year old, Presley, and her husband's Jefferson Hack.
01:03:04.480 --> 01:03:11.840
And um Zach is the godfather, and he was in London, and uh I got to go do the gap.
01:03:12.159 --> 01:03:22.320
And Zach was there and he dressed me in a couture way, made sure I looked very prominent and with my waist pincher thing on, and he made it.
01:03:22.400 --> 01:03:23.840
And that was Tim Walker shooting, right?
01:03:24.159 --> 01:03:25.039
Tim Walker.
01:03:25.599 --> 01:03:26.400
Can you imagine?
01:03:26.800 --> 01:03:27.840
Tim Walker.
01:03:27.920 --> 01:03:30.719
I mean, he's just the most beautiful I love working with him.
01:03:31.039 --> 01:03:36.079
Uh we did LaVon last time, and we did uh and he's so creative.
01:03:36.159 --> 01:03:51.440
He worked a lot doing very um haronymous Bosch photos with Anna and quite expressive um artistic things, Tim Walker with Anna and with me the few times I got to work with him.
01:03:51.840 --> 01:03:53.440
I hope to work with him again.
01:03:54.000 --> 01:03:54.559
Let's do it.
01:03:54.880 --> 01:04:08.639
Yeah, I want to do more creative things with him because I feel I feel like he feels you know, when we work with people who have a feeling for what art is, and you know, it's good.
01:04:09.039 --> 01:04:12.960
It's good to be inspired by the person who's taking the picture.
01:04:13.840 --> 01:04:17.199
I mean, you've worked with all the great photographers.
01:04:18.320 --> 01:04:26.719
Who is someone who stands out that you worked with where you just felt like as a model it was the true fulfillment of your potential?
01:04:27.199 --> 01:04:30.480
Oh my god, I worked with everybody from A to C.
01:04:30.960 --> 01:04:38.000
But I must say, you know, when you're first starting, Charles Tracy was this photographer who could make anything out of anything.
01:04:38.159 --> 01:04:42.159
And we used to travel to Puerto Rico and do pictures under waterfalls.
01:04:42.320 --> 01:04:50.079
And any photographer who takes me on a journey like Barry McKinley or Parkinson, I went to Africa with Barry McKinley.
01:04:50.159 --> 01:05:00.239
We went on the Queen Mary across and we did shuffleboard pictures for Harper's Queen, and then we went to Africa and that safari where we almost got eaten by everything.
01:05:00.400 --> 01:05:01.760
But it was wonderful.
01:05:01.920 --> 01:05:03.840
I love going on location.
01:05:04.079 --> 01:05:07.599
And I worked with Horst, and it was so funny.
01:05:07.760 --> 01:05:10.719
I was up at the Olympic Towers with Halston.
01:05:11.039 --> 01:05:12.239
This is funny.
01:05:12.480 --> 01:05:16.800
And Horst was taking photographs in color, and he showed me the picture.
01:05:16.960 --> 01:05:19.519
He said, Horst, my teeth look black.
01:05:19.679 --> 01:05:21.280
He said, Oh, I'm so sorry.
01:05:21.360 --> 01:05:23.440
I'm only good with black and white.
01:05:24.079 --> 01:05:26.000
My idol is only good.
01:05:26.400 --> 01:05:26.880
Horst.
01:05:26.960 --> 01:05:27.280
Come on.
01:05:27.679 --> 01:05:28.480
He knew what he was good at.
01:05:28.639 --> 01:05:29.519
Yeah, he knew what it was good.
01:05:30.000 --> 01:05:30.559
I worked with him.
01:05:30.639 --> 01:05:36.239
I worked with Avedon, and Avedon used to take me in the dark room to help develop the pictures.
01:05:36.320 --> 01:05:39.840
I was so interested because I did study photography in art school.
01:05:39.920 --> 01:05:40.880
I went to art and design.
01:05:40.960 --> 01:05:42.960
We had photography, design, illustration.
01:05:43.119 --> 01:05:44.079
Oh, you can come in.
01:05:44.239 --> 01:05:47.760
I've been in the dark room with Hero Avidon.
01:05:48.159 --> 01:05:54.400
Um, I have I worked for Oliviero Toscani on location in the Red Sea in a banana boat.
01:05:54.480 --> 01:05:59.360
For I've been all over the world working with photographers on location.
01:05:59.679 --> 01:06:04.960
Uh Helmut Newton took me to Mexico and um, oh, we used to fight all the time.
01:06:05.119 --> 01:06:07.280
He'd say, you're a little bit bow-legged.
01:06:07.440 --> 01:06:12.960
If it wasn't for those ankles you and Jerry Hall have, I said, don't be mean, take the picture.
01:06:13.679 --> 01:06:18.079
And Terry Moogler would put me on the top of the Chrysler building with the wind blowing.
01:06:18.320 --> 01:06:19.920
Terry, I don't want to die.
01:06:20.880 --> 01:06:26.480
Everybody was challenging me to stand on rocks, and you know, things were not AI in those days.
01:06:26.559 --> 01:06:28.239
You actually had to be an athlete.
01:06:28.400 --> 01:06:30.480
Gib Bourdin had me in the North Sea.
01:06:30.559 --> 01:06:31.760
I caught pneumonia.
01:06:31.920 --> 01:06:32.880
Oh my god.
01:06:33.199 --> 01:06:39.519
Nude on the North Sea, painted blue like a oh God, I can't tell you how much I suffered.
01:06:40.000 --> 01:06:42.320
Well, that was also the time of location sheets, right?
01:06:42.400 --> 01:06:46.320
And budgets where magazines could travel anywhere they wanted, and you did.
01:06:46.719 --> 01:06:47.119
I did.
01:06:47.280 --> 01:06:48.400
I was so lucky.
01:06:48.639 --> 01:06:55.920
That was the whole idea when I told you I had to cut out those photographs of those girls standing in those beautiful locations.
01:06:56.320 --> 01:06:57.760
I get to do it.
01:06:58.000 --> 01:07:04.239
But I didn't do the um the photograph that I love the most of Daniel Luna standing on a piano in the water.
01:07:04.400 --> 01:07:05.519
I didn't get to do that one yet.
01:07:05.679 --> 01:07:06.159
Well, not yet.
01:07:06.480 --> 01:07:07.679
Maybe we can do that one.
01:07:08.159 --> 01:07:09.519
Okay, that will be our goal.
01:07:09.760 --> 01:07:15.679
Well, I want to thank you so much for your time today and all your wisdom and for sharing it with us.
01:07:15.840 --> 01:07:16.400
We're lucky.
01:07:16.719 --> 01:07:18.800
Don't forget, love is free.
01:07:19.360 --> 01:07:24.239
I'm going out to do um pride this summer in San Francisco.
01:07:24.559 --> 01:07:27.199
Yeah, and I'm gonna sing, so I'm glad.
01:07:27.519 --> 01:07:28.719
I can't wait to see that.
01:07:29.039 --> 01:07:32.000
Thank you very much, and we all can't wait to see what's next.
01:07:32.239 --> 01:07:34.559
Okay, what's next at a muse?
01:07:34.719 --> 01:07:35.360
Yes.
01:07:36.239 --> 01:07:37.039
Okay, we're good.
01:07:37.199 --> 01:07:39.519
Let me just ask him is there's there's a noise in here?
01:07:39.599 --> 01:07:40.400
Is that okay?
00:00:00.479 --> 00:00:02.160
Welcome to Model Citizen.
00:00:02.240 --> 00:00:11.839
I'm Connor Kennedy Ryan, and this podcast we will pull back the curtain on the modeling industry to show the who's who's, the what's what's, and the whys, whys.
00:00:12.240 --> 00:00:17.039
Pat Cleveland, I feel so lucky to get some time with you.
00:00:17.679 --> 00:00:22.800
Finally, after this mysterious runabout all over the world making calls, right?
00:00:22.879 --> 00:00:23.120
Yes.
00:00:23.440 --> 00:00:24.960
Um, I feel very lucky.
00:00:25.039 --> 00:00:26.879
Thank you for joining Model Citizens.
00:00:27.039 --> 00:00:30.079
Oh, we like to be model citizens for you.
00:00:30.879 --> 00:00:34.960
Well, working with you is one of the privileges of my career.
00:00:35.280 --> 00:00:35.840
Thank you.
00:00:36.079 --> 00:00:43.840
Um, I'm fascinated to see all the barriers that you've broken over decades and are continuing to break.
00:00:44.159 --> 00:00:44.479
Oh.
00:00:45.520 --> 00:00:48.079
First, I want to know you're 75.
00:00:48.399 --> 00:00:51.439
Yes, turning 76, which I'm proud of.
00:00:51.840 --> 00:00:57.520
When you were a young model, could you ever imagine that you would be working at this age?
00:00:57.840 --> 00:01:00.079
Oh, when you're young, you don't imagine anything.
00:01:00.159 --> 00:01:04.799
You're just so in the moment, like from day to day, there's so much ruckus going on.
00:01:05.040 --> 00:01:06.719
New people coming into your life.
00:01:06.879 --> 00:01:08.400
What direction am I going in?
00:01:08.560 --> 00:01:10.319
You cannot see the future like that.
00:01:10.400 --> 00:01:12.879
You don't know what every decade's going to bring.
00:01:13.040 --> 00:01:21.120
So you just sort of stamp your way one foot in front of the other, knock on doors, and if one opens, that's a miracle in itself, you know what I mean?
00:01:21.359 --> 00:01:24.799
It's kind of like, yeah, let the miracle happen in the moment.
00:01:24.959 --> 00:01:27.040
I didn't imagine the future like this.
00:01:27.200 --> 00:01:29.599
I had no idea I'd still be on the map.
00:01:29.840 --> 00:01:33.280
I feel like a whole new planet right now has opened up.
00:01:33.439 --> 00:01:35.359
I'm going to be 76 in June.
00:01:35.519 --> 00:01:36.319
I'm a can't say.
00:01:37.040 --> 00:01:40.239
And I had no idea I'd live this long, first of all.
00:01:40.400 --> 00:01:48.480
So I think the gratitude I have is having a good agent like you who helps me to keep everything focused on going forward.
00:01:48.640 --> 00:01:53.680
And um, I'd never I never really thought about that so much, except dreaming.
00:01:53.920 --> 00:01:57.920
Like, you know, you're influenced by the things that you see when you're young.
00:01:58.079 --> 00:02:01.680
And I think we all wanted to be the star that we're born to be.
00:02:01.920 --> 00:02:10.080
We all have those pointy things that we're heading at, like sparking out all new ideas of who we could be when we're very young, like a teenager.
00:02:10.319 --> 00:02:12.479
And my mother was an artist, right?
00:02:12.639 --> 00:02:19.680
So I always knew that the art world was for me in one way or another, but never out front in front of the cameras.
00:02:19.840 --> 00:02:21.120
I mean, that didn't exist.
00:02:21.199 --> 00:02:22.960
That was only in magazines.
00:02:23.360 --> 00:02:27.919
You didn't know that was something, except that I was already modeling as an infant.
00:02:28.159 --> 00:02:28.639
You see.
00:02:29.039 --> 00:02:34.879
When you first started, were there models that you looked up to as you got into your career?
00:02:35.039 --> 00:02:36.240
Did you have role models?
00:02:36.560 --> 00:02:38.400
Of course I had role models.
00:02:38.560 --> 00:02:39.439
Oh my God.
00:02:39.599 --> 00:02:46.000
First of all, all the classic paintings, every model in the museum that you see in a painting was my first.
00:02:46.960 --> 00:02:55.759
I think the first models I saw would actually show people like Josephine Baker and Sarah Bernhardt and Isidore Duncan.
00:02:55.919 --> 00:02:58.960
To me, they were sort of my models, my role models.
00:02:59.120 --> 00:03:02.080
I liked what they did, you know, the action of a person.
00:03:02.240 --> 00:03:32.400
And then when it came to magazines, there was the Vogue, and that magazine had um Verushka and Daniel Luna and Marissa Barenson, and they came a little before me, and Jean Shrimpton, of course, and um even Wilhelmina, you know, and I had those feelings that those women were traveling, and I thought they were really dressed beautifully, and I thought, oh, to dress up and stand with one foot on a stone at the pantheon.
00:03:32.560 --> 00:03:33.759
This is for me.
00:03:33.919 --> 00:03:35.360
I will do this one day.
00:03:35.520 --> 00:03:39.280
And do you know I met all of those ladies finally?
00:03:39.599 --> 00:03:41.280
And they became my friends.
00:03:41.439 --> 00:03:42.719
But I didn't know who they were.
00:03:42.800 --> 00:03:45.439
I thought they were just ladies traveling.
00:03:45.759 --> 00:03:46.960
I had no idea.
00:03:47.840 --> 00:03:48.960
See, you don't know.
00:03:49.120 --> 00:03:51.120
You don't know who a model is or what they are.
00:03:51.680 --> 00:03:56.479
Was there a moment in your career that you can remember where you felt like you had made it?
00:03:57.520 --> 00:04:05.520
Well, I think the dream is that I was when I was in the subway, and you know, I started as uh art student and a designer.
00:04:05.840 --> 00:04:22.079
And I was walking in the subway, and I had one of my outfits on, and this lady was following me, and she followed long enough across 42nd Street, and she stopped me and she said, Oh, my dear, she had an English accent.
00:04:22.319 --> 00:04:24.079
I really love the way you're dressed today.
00:04:24.240 --> 00:04:27.439
Could you please tell me who you are and where you got your clothes?
00:04:27.759 --> 00:04:34.160
I thought I had made it because when she handed me her card, she said, I'm going to write a story about you, and here's my card.
00:04:34.480 --> 00:04:35.439
Vogue it said.
00:04:35.519 --> 00:04:40.000
And I said, Oh, oh my God, Charlie's Chocolate Factory, the golden ticket.
00:04:40.160 --> 00:04:45.040
I had the golden ticket, and I think I made it at first as a designer.
00:04:45.439 --> 00:04:46.240
As fashion.
00:04:46.399 --> 00:04:47.120
What is fashion?
00:04:47.519 --> 00:04:49.360
That's what fashion is.
00:04:50.079 --> 00:04:50.639
Clothing.
00:04:51.199 --> 00:04:53.199
And um I thought I had made it.
00:04:53.600 --> 00:04:56.079
But as far as modeling, I had no idea.
00:04:56.240 --> 00:05:02.639
I mean, I had posed for my mother, um and I had um so what happened?
00:05:02.879 --> 00:05:08.480
My mother said, listen, those girls in the magazine covers, you look as good as they do.
00:05:08.560 --> 00:05:10.720
I said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
00:05:10.879 --> 00:05:16.560
Because you know, when you're an artist, I'm an artist, I call myself an artist because I paint and I design.
00:05:17.120 --> 00:05:18.800
I said, no, no, that's not for me.
00:05:18.959 --> 00:05:22.720
Well, if you don't put some eyeliner on, you're gonna be an old maid and die.
00:05:22.879 --> 00:05:27.199
I put the eyeliner on, I went to school, I got discovered in the subway.
00:05:27.360 --> 00:05:30.800
And so finally, um, she sent photographs of me to Mrs.
00:05:30.959 --> 00:05:38.319
Johnson of Ebony Magazine and all the magazines, but all the other magazines had no response to me.
00:05:38.560 --> 00:05:39.920
But I got this letter.
00:05:40.160 --> 00:05:47.439
Uh, Miss Cleveland, we would love to see you at the um, we would like for you to come for uh a meeting with Mrs.
00:05:47.600 --> 00:05:48.240
Johnson.
00:05:48.800 --> 00:05:58.160
Uh okay, so we went to this fabulous hotel of the presidential suite, and um there she was, and she said, Oh, could you walk for me?
00:05:58.240 --> 00:05:59.199
I was scared to death.
00:05:59.279 --> 00:06:01.360
I was what 15 years old.
00:06:01.759 --> 00:06:12.639
And I walked for her and she said, We want you to come and do our fashion show, which is the Ebony Fashion Fair, and it travels around America, but you'll need an escort, uh chaperon.
00:06:13.199 --> 00:06:22.639
And uh my mother went with me for three months on this Greyhound bus, traveling around America doing shows in every city in America.
00:06:23.040 --> 00:06:27.120
It was exhausting, but it was an amazing adventure.
00:06:27.519 --> 00:06:37.120
So therefore, I did runway, I did 90 shows, 90 shows, and um that's how I learned to do runway.
00:06:37.600 --> 00:06:45.199
And what the Ebony Fashion Fair, what was the place that it held in terms of selling clothes or introducing trends?
00:06:45.439 --> 00:06:47.360
It's something that's from a long time ago.
00:06:47.439 --> 00:06:48.720
So, what what how did it work?
00:06:49.120 --> 00:06:53.199
Well, the the whole idea, the uh intention of the show was Mrs.
00:06:53.279 --> 00:07:07.680
Johnson, the entrepreneur who started going to France in all different countries to go to the couture shows, which was for a woman of color, very much not the situation that was prominent.
00:07:07.839 --> 00:07:11.040
I mean, she was not even allowed into some of the houses.
00:07:11.360 --> 00:07:13.759
But the whole situation was is Mrs.
00:07:13.920 --> 00:07:16.399
Johnson bought entire collections.
00:07:16.560 --> 00:07:18.879
She put Yves Saint Laurent on the map.
00:07:19.040 --> 00:07:26.480
She bought all of the Corresh and Saint Laurent, Givenchy, and Madame Gray and all the big couture houses.
00:07:26.720 --> 00:07:29.759
She bought collections, entire collections.
00:07:29.920 --> 00:07:31.519
And what was the purpose?
00:07:31.759 --> 00:07:37.600
The purpose was that when she would travel and do these shows, they were paid.
00:07:37.759 --> 00:07:41.519
The two audience was paid, they paid to come to see the show.
00:07:41.759 --> 00:07:48.079
And the money would go to college funds for young people who had no money to go to college.
00:07:48.319 --> 00:07:55.839
And then the clothes would be auctioned off to raise money to send young people of color to college.
00:07:56.160 --> 00:08:14.639
And it was a very, very, very powerful thing because in the black society you had the doctors, the judges, the lawyers, the teachers, and all of these people looked forward to this because in the deep south in different areas, you never saw the couture clothes in person, up close.
00:08:14.959 --> 00:08:31.600
And so the ladies were very dressed up like Sunday school with hats and gloves and furs, and it was society, black society, and the jazz and the black movie stars, and you know, all of that was very prominent and fabulous.
00:08:31.920 --> 00:08:41.120
So she's really was going around all these doors that were closed and creating her own community and her own access.
00:08:41.519 --> 00:08:45.279
Yes, and Ebony Magazine was the Bible of black society.
00:08:45.519 --> 00:08:51.919
So I started with Ebony Magazine doing the shows, and my very first shooting, I was like 15 years old.
00:08:52.000 --> 00:09:01.039
I had never done shootings except for a few things that I had done with as a child with my mother and her artistic friends.
00:09:01.200 --> 00:09:14.159
But um, I had gone up to the college uh upstate Columbia and did these pictures jumping around like a schoolgirl, and then they were published in Ebony magazine.
00:09:14.480 --> 00:09:37.039
And by the time this had happened and I had come back from the Ebony Fashion Fair, the biggest thing ever, I had I had to leave school, and then I went to back to art school, and then I uh the woman who had discovered me in Vogue called me up again, and she said, Well, we'd like to see some of your designs.
00:09:37.200 --> 00:09:38.159
Can you bring them up?
00:09:38.399 --> 00:09:49.120
So by the time they called me back, I was like 16, 17 years old, and I I was so excited because that was really my intention to be a designer, right?
00:09:49.360 --> 00:09:56.159
This modeling thing was like, oh, well, you know, and it was fun showing off and everything, but very exhausting.
00:09:56.399 --> 00:10:00.000
Actually, I caught pneumonia while I was doing the shows.
00:10:00.159 --> 00:10:12.000
But anyway, uh got back and Carrie Donovan was an editor under Diana Vrelen, and uh she they called me to her office and I went out with my portfolio full of designs.
00:10:12.080 --> 00:10:14.720
I stayed up all night and all day drawing, drawing, drawing.
00:10:15.039 --> 00:10:15.840
Did you go by yourself?
00:10:16.080 --> 00:10:16.639
Yeah, of course.
00:10:16.720 --> 00:10:17.679
I went by myself.
00:10:17.840 --> 00:10:22.159
I it just seems like when you grow up in the city, you are your own boss.
00:10:22.320 --> 00:10:24.000
You're a kid who is your own boss.
00:10:24.080 --> 00:10:26.480
You go in the subways, you go do your things.
00:10:26.720 --> 00:10:31.200
And I hadn't really been modeling actually that at that moment.
00:10:31.600 --> 00:10:37.679
I was still in school and um I went up to the office and uh I showed her my clothes.
00:10:37.759 --> 00:10:41.440
She said, Um, oh my dear, my dear, I love your drawings.
00:10:41.600 --> 00:10:49.440
I'm going to take these to Paris with me to show to Jean Chie because he's looking for some young person to come and study under him.
00:10:49.600 --> 00:10:51.279
Oh boy, was I excited.
00:10:51.440 --> 00:11:01.759
But in that same visit up to Vogue to show her those drawings, she had left the office, and these two wacky young men were standing behind the door, staring at me, whispering.
00:11:01.919 --> 00:11:08.399
And every time I looked around, they'd close the door, and every time I wasn't looking, they were looking at me, and I thought, well, who are these people?
00:11:08.559 --> 00:11:12.000
One of them was Oriental and the other was very Nordic looking.
00:11:12.159 --> 00:11:16.399
And one was named Manning Obregon, and the other was Joel Schumacher.
00:11:16.799 --> 00:11:19.919
And the two of them said, Oh my God, she looks just like him.
00:11:20.159 --> 00:11:21.679
Who, him, who, what, what?
00:11:22.000 --> 00:11:23.679
Oh, my dear, my dear.
00:11:23.759 --> 00:11:27.519
They came out suddenly, grabbed me, and he said, Get your coat on, you're coming with me.
00:11:27.679 --> 00:11:30.720
We have to do a shooting, we have to do a shooting, and we need a model.
00:11:31.200 --> 00:11:31.519
No.
00:11:32.240 --> 00:11:35.200
Talk about the universe guiding you.
00:11:35.600 --> 00:11:36.559
We need a model.
00:11:36.639 --> 00:11:36.960
What?
00:11:37.039 --> 00:11:38.399
I'm here for clothes.
00:11:39.600 --> 00:11:42.960
So they quick, okay, put her in the limo, let's go.
00:11:43.120 --> 00:11:48.639
They put me in the limousine, and then they had the limousine packed with balloons and clothes.
00:11:48.720 --> 00:11:50.559
He said, We're going up the hill, we're going up the hill.
00:11:50.639 --> 00:11:55.200
We went to Doggy Hill next to the museum, uh, the museum, Metropolitan Museum.
00:11:55.279 --> 00:11:56.879
It was a dead of winter.
00:11:57.120 --> 00:12:01.679
And they took me up the hill, and then uh they said, No, you have to fly this kite.
00:12:01.840 --> 00:12:06.399
And I was up the hill flying this kite with this beautiful boy and this other beautiful girl.
00:12:06.559 --> 00:12:07.759
I guess they were models.
00:12:07.919 --> 00:12:09.759
And the picture was done.
00:12:10.159 --> 00:12:12.080
The picture came out in the magazine.
00:12:12.159 --> 00:12:14.480
It was my first picture in vogue.
00:12:14.639 --> 00:12:17.600
And um, I had still not done any modeling.
00:12:17.840 --> 00:12:20.799
I was still like in school drawing and sketching.
00:12:20.960 --> 00:12:22.799
They called me back to the office.
00:12:22.960 --> 00:12:24.399
They said, bring your clothing.
00:12:24.480 --> 00:12:26.399
We want to do some pictures.
00:12:26.639 --> 00:12:29.919
Same situation, everybody in the limo out to the park.
00:12:30.080 --> 00:12:35.200
And I had designed this maxi skirt and a lace blouse and a big straw hat.
00:12:35.440 --> 00:12:38.240
And sat on the rocks by the lake in the park.
00:12:38.399 --> 00:12:40.960
And I thought, this, I have really made it now.
00:12:41.200 --> 00:12:49.200
Turns out that the shooting ended up in Vogue double page spread with me in my clothes as a young and up-and-coming designer.
00:12:49.360 --> 00:12:52.399
Boom! I thought I had made it as a designer.
00:12:52.799 --> 00:12:54.080
That's an incredible journey.
00:12:54.159 --> 00:12:55.360
It sounds like a movie.
00:12:55.600 --> 00:12:59.519
And Joel Schumacher went on to become a big movie director in Hollywood.
00:12:59.840 --> 00:13:05.759
Yes, and he became my friend because at the time when I met him, he was a window dresser at Henry Bendel's.
00:13:06.000 --> 00:13:18.720
Okay, so the story goes: I go back up to Vogue and they say, uh, finally I'm working um with um Cassini, Olay Cassini, but not really working.
00:13:18.879 --> 00:13:27.279
At this time, I was dressing up and going to the club Cheetah, selling my clothes at the boutique when I went in and picking up the money when I went out.
00:13:27.440 --> 00:13:29.279
I was hustling my designs.
00:13:29.440 --> 00:13:36.320
And then I would go out dancing every night at Le Clube or Le Cheetah or the Peppermint Lounge, you know, wearing my clothes to show off.
00:13:36.480 --> 00:13:49.039
And I met this guy named Bobby Seligman, and he was producing this show called The Beautiful People, and he saw me dancing, line dancing, and uh he said, Oh, you have to come with me to Les Clubes.
00:13:49.200 --> 00:14:07.279
Now, Les Clubes was this very exclusive club uh in the 50s in Sutton Place, and the Kennedys went there, and the Supremes and all, and uh um uh MacArthur's Park is Anter Kell, which was a and her boyfriend, he was a famous actor, English actor.
00:14:07.440 --> 00:14:09.360
And so he said, Oh, can you sing?
00:14:10.000 --> 00:14:16.159
I was doing everything else, but but at the same time I was wearing my clothes and people saw me in those clothes.
00:14:16.320 --> 00:14:36.879
So I would dance at the club and sing at the club, and um finally uh I met Ole Cassini, which was uh Edgar and Ole Cassini were counts, and they were royals, and Ole Cassini was a famous uh designer in the 60s who dressed Jacqueline Kennedy and everybody.
00:14:37.039 --> 00:14:40.320
So he said, Oh, you have to model, you have to model.
00:14:40.559 --> 00:14:50.480
So he sent me over to I uh first of all, when I came back from the Ebony Fashion Fair, I went to American Girl, which was an all-black agency.
00:14:50.799 --> 00:14:57.200
And uh I had done some car shows, you know, modeling, sitting on cars, posing, selling the car.
00:14:57.440 --> 00:15:01.840
And then finally I met the Cassinis and said, no, no, you have to go to Eileen Ford.
00:15:02.000 --> 00:15:09.759
So they sent me to Eileen Ford, and this was a disaster for me because she was not, she was a bit racist and a little bit evil.
00:15:10.480 --> 00:15:14.559
And I came in and she said, My dear, you have to have your nose done.
00:15:14.799 --> 00:15:20.799
You first of all, your nose, you'll n and the first thing she said to me is, you'll never make it as a model.
00:15:21.120 --> 00:15:21.440
Ha ha.
00:15:23.200 --> 00:15:26.159
65 almost 65 years later.
00:15:26.639 --> 00:15:27.759
I'm still in it.
00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:30.559
But anyway, I have no no bad feelings.
00:15:30.639 --> 00:15:33.919
Um, you know, she just didn't understand how times were changing.
00:15:34.399 --> 00:15:40.399
How did you handle that kind of rejection from a very famous model agent?
00:15:40.799 --> 00:15:42.720
Well, I didn't feel anything.
00:15:42.879 --> 00:15:44.960
I felt I felt sorry for her.
00:15:45.200 --> 00:15:55.440
First of all, she was not very attractive to look at, and she was telling me how I should look, and I was young enough to have that kind of arrogance about me to say, later for you, darling.
00:15:55.679 --> 00:16:02.639
And actually, um the young man who was there who took me into the agency says, I'm so glad you here you're here.
00:16:02.879 --> 00:16:06.159
We only have one other girl, uh Cheryl.
00:16:06.480 --> 00:16:18.799
Sharine, uh, she was the only black girl there, and she was sort of caramel color and she was in vogue, Charlene Dash, and I and I was the uh second one at at uh Eileen Ford.
00:16:19.039 --> 00:16:34.799
But then after I had I had traveled um with Ole Cassini a bit and done shows and things, and I had gone around and done photographs and things, and I realized that she had not helped me one bit, Eileen Ford.
00:16:35.039 --> 00:16:36.879
And so I sort of left.
00:16:37.039 --> 00:16:45.039
I just well I I went into her office and I said to her, I'm sorry, Eileen, I'm leaving because you're not helping me.
00:16:45.279 --> 00:16:53.759
And um I I just left and I left for a while, and and when I was up at Vogue, they called me back to Vogue.
00:16:54.320 --> 00:16:57.600
And at the time, Diana Vrelen was the editor.
00:16:58.080 --> 00:17:03.519
And Diana Vrelin was like really the most freak of freaks that you can imagine.
00:17:03.679 --> 00:17:12.880
She was absolutely a Bohemian, free-spirited, beautiful, elegant, and wild-thinking creative woman.
00:17:13.119 --> 00:17:27.440
And she was so exquisite, skinny as can be, profile of a cockatoo, colored face of a Chinese opera singer, and long arms and beautiful attitude.
00:17:27.599 --> 00:17:35.519
And so I went up to Vogue, and the oriental guy that I had told you about, Menning Obergon, was her illustrator.
00:17:36.160 --> 00:17:52.160
So he kind of fell in love with me, and so did Joel Schumacher, because I reminded them of a boy named Juan Fernandez, who was a transient, and they wanted to use him, but those things were not possible back in the time.
00:17:52.559 --> 00:17:58.400
And I looked so much like him that they said, Oh my god, you're the spitting image of him.
00:17:58.559 --> 00:17:59.839
We can use you.
00:18:00.160 --> 00:18:03.839
And thank God, he was a friend of mine in in high school.
00:18:04.079 --> 00:18:04.319
Wow.
00:18:04.559 --> 00:18:15.119
And we used to wear raccoon coats, and people used to throw rocks at us because we were so odd-looking together, skinny with a raccoon coat on, screaming fashion.
00:18:16.960 --> 00:18:25.440
In those times, people we used to dress out of the secondhand store, so our clothes were like, you know, what they would call um vintage now.
00:18:25.680 --> 00:18:28.799
We were wearing vintage 1920s and 1800s.
00:18:29.039 --> 00:18:31.839
My vintage, the vintage now is my time.
00:18:32.960 --> 00:18:37.359
And so anyway, got there to Vogue and Manning Obergun.
00:18:37.759 --> 00:18:39.440
Ah, I must use you.
00:18:39.680 --> 00:18:42.000
I must use you to do illustrations.
00:18:42.319 --> 00:18:53.759
And he had been traveling with Dinah Freeland because he was the fastest sketcher, uh, illustrator, because during that time shows were not as they are now with hundreds of people, thousands of people.
00:18:53.920 --> 00:18:59.039
They were a closed at uh atelier or showroom of a house of a designer.
00:18:59.200 --> 00:19:04.000
Like each designer had their own building, Dior, Madame Gray, everyone.
00:19:04.160 --> 00:19:10.640
So when you would do the shows, uh even in New York, you would walk with a number in silence.
00:19:10.880 --> 00:19:18.640
And so, you know, it was number one, number two, and there were maybe ten girls in all who would do Seventh Avenue.
00:19:18.720 --> 00:19:24.160
There was an agency for girls who but the girls who did the shows were never in the photographs.
00:19:24.319 --> 00:19:28.480
And the girls in the photographs, oh my god, you would never do a show that was below you.
00:19:28.640 --> 00:19:29.759
Oh my gosh.
00:19:30.079 --> 00:19:35.359
So I think I kind of broke a barrier where I did both shows and photography.
00:19:35.759 --> 00:19:36.720
And which paid more?
00:19:36.799 --> 00:19:37.759
Did shows pay well?
00:19:37.839 --> 00:19:39.279
Did doing print work pay well?
00:19:39.519 --> 00:19:47.759
Well, okay, so when you talk about pay, my first job from Eileen Ford, I have to tell you this.
00:19:47.839 --> 00:19:49.440
This is what she thought of me.
00:19:49.680 --> 00:19:58.400
She sent me to a bank and they dressed me in a chicken outfit, and I had to stand outside the store, outside the bank and hand out leaflets.
00:19:58.559 --> 00:20:00.960
That's the kind of job she offered me.
00:20:01.920 --> 00:20:02.799
That was the beginning.
00:20:03.200 --> 00:20:04.079
That's somewhere.
00:20:04.240 --> 00:20:11.759
And then the other jobs I got were standing in a window on 57th Street for hours, very still like a mannequin.
00:20:11.920 --> 00:20:15.119
And if somebody would come and look, I would move a little bit.
00:20:15.279 --> 00:20:16.799
It was a crowd.
00:20:17.039 --> 00:20:19.519
That's the beginning of mime, model mime.
00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:22.160
I think my voguing started there.
00:20:22.319 --> 00:20:24.400
But anyway, back to reality.
00:20:24.640 --> 00:20:30.319
Up at Vogue, Manning said, Please, I need to, I need you, I need you, I need you.
00:20:30.480 --> 00:20:32.000
I you have to illustrate you.
00:20:32.160 --> 00:20:33.359
Come to the green room.
00:20:33.599 --> 00:20:39.759
So I ended up being in the green room, which is the room where they organize the September issue of Vogue.
00:20:40.079 --> 00:20:50.480
And what happens in there is the competition between all the editors of Vogue magazine, all trying to get their look most prominent in the pages.
00:20:50.720 --> 00:21:01.680
So what they would do is um Carrie Donovan was competing against the other ones, and oh, it was a big tear hair situation up in Vogue in the hallways.
00:21:01.839 --> 00:21:04.559
So Carrie Donovan and Manning were in cahoots.
00:21:04.880 --> 00:21:09.680
So Carrie would say, No, no, we're using the chubby jacket and the tall boots.
00:21:09.839 --> 00:21:12.319
Quick, put this on, Pat, and go behind the screen.
00:21:12.400 --> 00:21:20.000
It was like one of those Gypsy Rose Lee moments where I would throw the clothes over the screen and they'd throw the clothes back and I'd have to come out prancing.
00:21:20.240 --> 00:21:22.319
Now, Menning, make a quick sketch.
00:21:22.480 --> 00:21:27.920
Now, sketches in those days were six feet tall because everything was bigger.
00:21:28.160 --> 00:21:33.759
So if you did a sketch, it had to take up half the room like a movie screen, because the bigger, the better.
00:21:33.920 --> 00:21:36.160
More is more, you know, that kind of thing.
00:21:36.319 --> 00:21:41.920
And so finally, I am there with Menning Obregon and uh Carrie Donovan.
00:21:42.480 --> 00:21:43.839
Okay, go into Mrs.
00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:45.440
Veland's office.
00:21:45.680 --> 00:21:46.960
Oh, I had to go into Mrs.
00:21:47.119 --> 00:21:48.319
Veland's office.
00:21:48.480 --> 00:21:49.440
She's not there today.
00:21:49.519 --> 00:21:50.720
We have to go tomorrow.
00:21:51.680 --> 00:21:52.160
Come back.
00:21:52.400 --> 00:21:52.960
Come back.
00:21:53.119 --> 00:21:54.559
Oh, it was such a battle.
00:21:54.720 --> 00:21:59.759
So I worked with Menning Obregon every day up at Vogue for the next six months.
00:22:00.319 --> 00:22:01.680
Of doing looks.
00:22:01.920 --> 00:22:11.759
And then I really started going around knocking on doors, looking for model photographing jobs.
00:22:12.319 --> 00:22:14.559
Because I was modeling suddenly, you know.
00:22:14.720 --> 00:22:21.440
And then it was something being a lady of color, whatever I am, I'm a little bit of everything.
00:22:21.839 --> 00:22:23.759
Did you feel a lot of doors were closed to you?
00:22:24.079 --> 00:22:27.279
Absolutely, because I was not black enough, I was not white enough.
00:22:27.440 --> 00:22:34.240
It just seemed that the scale was so um bi, you know, dark or light, you and nowhere in between.
00:22:34.400 --> 00:22:36.160
So nobody knew what to do with me.
00:22:36.240 --> 00:22:46.799
If I went to the black magazine, which is starting out, I think um they said, well, you're not dark enough for this issue, or and then I went to the other.
00:22:46.880 --> 00:22:49.680
Oh, well, we don't we can't sell in the south.
00:22:49.839 --> 00:22:52.000
Um, okay, well, where do I belong?
00:22:52.079 --> 00:22:53.839
I just kept doing testing.
00:22:54.799 --> 00:22:56.559
Now testing was very important.
00:22:57.039 --> 00:23:00.480
You had to have a portfolio of photographs.
00:23:00.960 --> 00:23:15.759
And I remember knocking on doors, and sometimes I'd set up my own appointments because I had a list of photographers, and my my ambitious self started to think, why can't I go knock on these doors myself?
00:23:16.079 --> 00:23:16.720
I did.
00:23:17.119 --> 00:23:20.640
The first one I thought I'd go knock on was Avidon's door.
00:23:20.799 --> 00:23:25.200
So I went boldly with my little portfolio and my three or four photographs.
00:23:25.839 --> 00:23:27.440
I didn't even have a comp card.
00:23:27.680 --> 00:23:28.559
Were you nervous?
00:23:28.799 --> 00:23:32.160
No, I wasn't nervous because I'm from the art world and you don't care.
00:23:32.240 --> 00:23:34.559
You scribble outside the lines all the time.
00:23:34.720 --> 00:23:39.119
I'm always stumbling and mendering in and out of the situation.
00:23:39.279 --> 00:23:40.160
I don't care.
00:23:40.400 --> 00:23:48.000
I'm you know, I'm very um I'm very um confident in the fact that maybe I'm guided or something like that.
00:23:48.079 --> 00:23:53.519
It's like some kind of angel said, Don't give up a heaven in a voice, saying, you deserve it, you know.
00:23:53.680 --> 00:23:56.079
After all, my family, they were slaves.
00:23:56.240 --> 00:23:58.799
My grandmother was a slave, and I'm a foreigner.
00:23:58.960 --> 00:24:00.000
My father's Swedish.
00:24:00.160 --> 00:24:01.440
I said, I'm a Viking.
00:24:01.519 --> 00:24:08.319
I'm gonna go in there, I'm gonna do it for my dad, who'm gonna take my hammer and hit him on the head, and I I deserve this.
00:24:08.480 --> 00:24:09.119
I'm a slave.
00:24:09.279 --> 00:24:12.480
So I had all of these ancestors talking to me.
00:24:12.720 --> 00:24:15.279
So when I enter a room, everybody enters with me.
00:24:15.920 --> 00:24:16.319
The crowd.
00:24:16.640 --> 00:24:17.599
Do you push yourself?
00:24:18.000 --> 00:24:18.400
I do.
00:24:18.480 --> 00:24:21.200
I'm I'm you know, I I sleep it and eat it.
00:24:21.359 --> 00:24:24.559
You know, I eat for it, I sleep for it, I wake up.
00:24:24.720 --> 00:24:29.359
I think when you're young, if you don't have a path to follow, you're just gonna go off.
00:24:29.519 --> 00:24:31.279
You know, it's so easy to go off.
00:24:31.440 --> 00:24:34.000
And people go off even when they have a path.
00:24:34.160 --> 00:24:38.079
You know, for me, it was either the street or the mountaintop.
00:24:38.559 --> 00:24:40.160
You were gonna make it no matter what.
00:24:40.480 --> 00:24:49.039
I was gonna make it, you know, besides falling in love and getting distracted by all of those, you know, those other things that you could become.
00:24:49.200 --> 00:24:52.240
It was just every day, don't forget, don't forget.
00:24:52.400 --> 00:24:54.559
This is your path, you know.
00:24:54.799 --> 00:25:03.279
And uh when you're young and you start a career like that, so young, you're just learning to grow into your own sense of yourself.
00:25:03.519 --> 00:25:07.119
And every rejection is like, oh well, next.
00:25:07.519 --> 00:25:11.200
And then you start thinking, you start enforcing yourself like today.
00:25:11.279 --> 00:25:21.920
They have all of this positive thinking videos and things, but you kind of had to get those values from yourself or from your own spirituality or from your own family.
00:25:22.079 --> 00:25:26.079
Like maybe they had to tell you, here, take the torch and run with it.
00:25:26.240 --> 00:25:30.400
And I wasn't just doing it for myself, I was doing it for my family.
00:25:30.640 --> 00:25:35.759
You know, my mother never really had a chance to have that.
00:25:35.920 --> 00:25:37.920
She had to, there was a glass ceiling.
00:25:38.079 --> 00:25:43.359
I mean, she won a scholarship to Pratt Institute when she was 15 years old.
00:25:43.519 --> 00:25:50.960
And and my grandmother was the first, one of the first students of Spelman College out of slavery.
00:25:51.200 --> 00:25:54.880
And they never had a chance to make it.
00:25:55.119 --> 00:26:02.799
My mother, when she being an artist, she created all the day glow colors for the paint uh factories in Brooklyn.
00:26:02.960 --> 00:26:07.759
And she was also the woman who did all the billboards and the subways in New York.
00:26:07.920 --> 00:26:12.319
She worked for Flair, but they treated her very, very badly.
00:26:12.559 --> 00:26:16.160
And so I figured, well, let's do some revenge here.
00:26:16.319 --> 00:26:17.759
This is revenge, you know.
00:26:17.839 --> 00:26:19.920
Like I'm sort of a warrior.
00:26:20.319 --> 00:26:23.359
And um and now I'm an ages warrior.
00:26:23.440 --> 00:26:25.519
I'm a warrior for aging, really.
00:26:25.599 --> 00:26:31.920
Like you know, don't put people down because they lived and they're like a bottle of champagne.
00:26:32.079 --> 00:26:35.920
You know, you're gonna have to taste it sooner or later, if you're curious.
00:26:36.319 --> 00:26:41.680
Well, I think age is something that is a big conversation in our culture and our society.
00:26:41.839 --> 00:26:53.359
And you know, I think about Madonna all the time as a pop star who's aging in a way she's outlasted her contemporaries, and she's continuing to make her own path.
00:26:53.599 --> 00:27:01.759
And I think a lot of the criticism does come from ageism and what's appropriate when you're in your 50s or 60s or 70s.
00:27:02.000 --> 00:27:15.839
So I really thank you for showing people that what's appropriate is what you want, and not to let people put you know obstacles in our way because we're all aging and learning.
00:27:16.240 --> 00:27:24.319
And I mean, this week you worked with Inez and Vinud for a very exciting beauty project for a major global brand.
00:27:24.799 --> 00:27:31.279
You know, what is it like being on set when everyone else is 25, 50 years younger?
00:27:31.440 --> 00:27:32.079
Tell me about that.
00:27:32.559 --> 00:27:35.039
You feel like you've fallen into the right fishbowl.
00:27:35.119 --> 00:27:38.240
You're all swimming all over each other and grooving in the moment.
00:27:38.400 --> 00:27:39.759
It was like a party.
00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:42.880
I mean, dance is dance and love is love.
00:27:42.960 --> 00:27:44.799
It never ages, you know?
00:27:44.960 --> 00:27:51.119
And if you take your vitamins and you feel happy, I think that glow is where everybody connects, you know.
00:27:51.279 --> 00:27:54.160
Like we all want that moment where we all feel happy.
00:27:54.480 --> 00:27:57.359
And it was just a beautiful experience.
00:27:57.680 --> 00:28:01.279
Every one of those young people that I worked with yesterday.
00:28:01.440 --> 00:28:04.880
There's no age, it's just that passion they have.
00:28:04.960 --> 00:28:08.079
Like it's the same hot passion.
00:28:08.480 --> 00:28:12.559
It's the same, like I feel what they feel, you know, it doesn't die.
00:28:12.640 --> 00:28:22.880
If you have passion and you want to live something, and you're in a place with other people who have that same, it's not like, it's not like an aggressivist thing.
00:28:22.960 --> 00:28:31.200
It's like they all work, they live for it, you know, they have something sizzling, all with the intention of doing their best.
00:28:31.359 --> 00:28:37.440
You know, I want to do my best, they want to do their best, and there's there's no competition.
00:28:37.599 --> 00:28:42.480
Everyone is so different, and everyone is just in that place at that moment.
00:28:42.559 --> 00:28:45.039
It's mind-blowing, it's like a hot air balloon.
00:28:45.119 --> 00:28:46.480
It's like you had a good time.
00:28:46.720 --> 00:28:47.920
Oh my god, yes.
00:28:48.079 --> 00:28:55.599
I met so many young people, singers, actresses, young models from our our own agency, you know, from Muse.
00:28:55.759 --> 00:28:59.119
And uh one of the girls I met, yes, and she's from Muse, our agency.
00:28:59.440 --> 00:29:00.240
Anastasia.
00:29:00.559 --> 00:29:01.599
Yeah, and she's singing.
00:29:01.759 --> 00:29:02.000
Yes.
00:29:02.319 --> 00:29:04.480
And we we were humming together.
00:29:04.640 --> 00:29:05.119
I loved her.
00:29:05.200 --> 00:29:06.559
I hugged her a lot.
00:29:07.200 --> 00:29:08.640
I was so happy to be with her.
00:29:08.720 --> 00:29:10.640
And the boys were so beautiful.
00:29:10.720 --> 00:29:12.160
And oh my God.
00:29:12.240 --> 00:29:14.559
I'm glad I'm not twinny anymore.
00:29:14.799 --> 00:29:17.039
Because I'd be out all night with everybody.
00:29:17.920 --> 00:29:20.480
But they're pretty sensible now, these kids, you know.
00:29:20.720 --> 00:29:22.720
Well, some say this generation is boring.
00:29:22.880 --> 00:29:23.440
What do you think?
00:29:23.759 --> 00:29:25.359
I think they are sensible.
00:29:25.519 --> 00:29:34.079
You know, they've seen a lot of stuff growing up, the pandemic, the the things that happen out in the outer, outer part, outside of fashion.
00:29:34.240 --> 00:29:36.400
And they feel like I want to survive.
00:29:36.480 --> 00:29:39.680
And I a lot of them say, I'm going home to get some sleep.
00:29:40.240 --> 00:29:42.240
Yeah, they're very into self-care.
00:29:42.559 --> 00:29:43.039
Yeah.
00:29:43.200 --> 00:29:46.880
And I think the there there's more information now.
00:29:47.119 --> 00:29:54.880
You know, we have an example of yes and no's, you know, and I can I think they're wise, they have all that information, like you said.
00:29:55.359 --> 00:30:02.640
So you came from an era of a lot of smoking, a lot of partying, a lot of other substances.
00:30:03.359 --> 00:30:05.599
How did you skate through that?
00:30:05.759 --> 00:30:06.880
Was that your personality?
00:30:07.039 --> 00:30:08.559
Was that something your family taught?
00:30:08.720 --> 00:30:09.920
You must have seen a lot.
00:30:10.400 --> 00:30:14.240
Well, you just have to think of a phoenix rising from ashes, right?
00:30:14.480 --> 00:30:28.960
And when you have um you have a deep soul, spiritual intention, like you you you love the people around you, but you know it's something that if things get out of hand and off balance, you don't rush into the fire.
00:30:29.119 --> 00:30:35.920
You know, if your friends are doing too many drugs, you have to say, Well, I love you so much, but I just can't do this.
00:30:36.079 --> 00:30:37.039
I'm sorry.
00:30:37.200 --> 00:30:44.319
You know, you see situations that are like a little bit too dark and scary.
00:30:44.480 --> 00:30:47.759
You say, I don't think that's my cup of tea, darling.
00:30:47.920 --> 00:30:49.440
I need to leave, you know.
00:30:49.599 --> 00:30:53.599
Then I have been caught in many very dangerous situations.
00:30:53.839 --> 00:30:59.759
I mean, I could have been trafficked it so many times with the allure of glamour, you know.
00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:05.680
But uh I think there's a lot to think about when it comes to that, you know.
00:31:06.000 --> 00:31:08.400
And uh you need people to protect you.
00:31:08.480 --> 00:31:12.000
You need to stay in communications with the people who care for you.
00:31:12.240 --> 00:31:20.079
You have to have a little family, a little tribe of people that you trust to say, hey, I'm going here or I'm not going there, I'll see you later.
00:31:20.240 --> 00:31:23.519
And if you don't show up for a few days, they'll wonder where you are.
00:31:23.680 --> 00:31:27.680
So you should have some friends in the business that you are close to.
00:31:27.839 --> 00:31:29.920
You know, try to stay connected.
00:31:30.079 --> 00:31:40.880
I think people are connected in a kind of AI way, but I mean physically, you know, go have dinner together, talk, be friends, make friends.
00:31:41.039 --> 00:31:42.880
I think my friends saved me.
00:31:43.039 --> 00:31:46.960
I remember one time I thought, let me go rogue or whatever they call that.
00:31:47.119 --> 00:31:50.720
And I went down to mix, so I came back all frizzed out more than I am now.
00:31:50.880 --> 00:32:00.000
And I had this poncho, and I was like walking around the streets trying to find some trouble, you know, going out with strangers, you know, spending the night in strange places.
00:32:00.160 --> 00:32:08.720
Finally, I'm walking past this, I'm in Paris at the Saint-Germain, and I remember Eve and Fernando had a little apartment there.
00:32:08.880 --> 00:32:19.680
So I'm walking past the floor and I'm going down past the church, and I walk in this little street, and I hear somebody, Pat, Pat, Pat, where are you?
00:32:19.759 --> 00:32:20.480
What are you doing?
00:32:20.640 --> 00:32:21.279
Come up here.
00:32:21.440 --> 00:32:24.000
And it's Eve and Fernando Sanchez.
00:32:24.240 --> 00:32:26.160
You have to come up here right away.
00:32:26.400 --> 00:32:29.680
And they saw me dressed like this, and they took me up to the apartment.
00:32:29.839 --> 00:32:31.680
We had tea, they said, This is not you.
00:32:31.839 --> 00:32:34.319
You cannot be out in the street dressed like this.
00:32:34.480 --> 00:32:37.759
Go back to the atelier, to the cabine and get dressed.
00:32:38.240 --> 00:32:39.519
So they were watching out for you.
00:32:39.759 --> 00:32:42.480
Yeah, you have to have friends who watch out for you.
00:32:42.720 --> 00:32:43.359
You know.
00:32:43.920 --> 00:32:45.440
And it's kind of difficult.
00:32:46.000 --> 00:32:46.960
I mean, I don't know.
00:32:47.119 --> 00:32:52.880
There's so uh an expanded amount of people that you can make friends with now in the business.
00:32:53.039 --> 00:33:09.279
Because at the time we didn't have the hairdressers, we didn't have the style, we didn't have the stylists as much, we didn't have the makeup artists, we didn't have the um um people, the bookers, like not bookers, but um the people who find casting.
00:33:09.440 --> 00:33:13.759
So we didn't have that extra amount of people that you could make friends with.
00:33:13.920 --> 00:33:17.599
You only had yourself, your makeup bag, and maybe your little tribe.
00:33:18.079 --> 00:33:18.960
So you're really on your own.
00:33:19.200 --> 00:33:24.640
You are on your own knocking on the doors and making getting a list and making appointments.
00:33:24.880 --> 00:33:35.519
I remember um when I went to fa first to Paris, um uh they gave me a list and a little appoint a book with the um directions of Paris.
00:33:35.680 --> 00:33:46.640
We didn't have the telephone, and you had to find the place and walk over the cobblestones and the high heels and you know, with the heavy portfolio, which was uh a 24 by 18.
00:33:47.279 --> 00:33:51.200
You look like you were going to make a world plan architecture.
00:33:51.359 --> 00:33:54.319
But anyway, um yeah, I survived that.
00:33:54.400 --> 00:33:56.000
Um, I had some pretty good age.
00:33:56.480 --> 00:34:02.720
Uh I left Willem, I left um Eileen Ford and went to Wilhelmina, and I felt a lot of sympathy.
00:34:02.880 --> 00:34:04.960
I was her uh third model.
00:34:05.519 --> 00:34:14.079
She had Diane, which was a very beautiful girl, and one other, and and she was a beauty, and she believed in me.
00:34:14.400 --> 00:34:18.000
And my name was Patricia, Patricia Cleveland.
00:34:18.719 --> 00:34:22.719
And she said, no, that's too difficult.
00:34:23.039 --> 00:34:29.360
And at the time everybody was like girl, a boy, you know, unisex, so I became Pat.
00:34:30.159 --> 00:34:30.480
Mr.
00:34:30.800 --> 00:34:31.119
Pat.
00:34:32.079 --> 00:34:36.719
All the girls wanted to be a boy, so I became a boy.
00:34:37.519 --> 00:34:39.599
Did you embrace that, your new name?
00:34:39.920 --> 00:34:42.000
I embraced my manhood.
00:34:45.920 --> 00:34:56.719
And this is where my life got really interesting, because then my tribe became um I I met Stephen Burroughs, and I was a mistake, actually.
00:34:56.880 --> 00:35:04.480
Stephen Burroughs is this wonderful designer that was um African American and like the youngest designer ever.
00:35:04.639 --> 00:35:11.920
And I had been working for Bill Blass, and I was on 7th Avenue, Jean Jacques Tiffot, and everything before I went to Europe.
00:35:12.320 --> 00:35:14.880
And um it was wonderful.
00:35:15.039 --> 00:35:24.400
I was uh up at Vogue and Carrie Donovan said, Oh, they're looking for a model to go to Stephen Burroughs, and here's the uh address.
00:35:24.639 --> 00:35:30.400
But what they had intentionally made a mistake was, you know how all people look alike?
00:35:30.559 --> 00:35:33.519
They mstuck me for a girl named Norma Jean.
00:35:33.840 --> 00:35:36.079
So we look similar, you know.
00:35:36.239 --> 00:35:40.719
Oh, those all those black girls look alike, or whatever they are, whatever we are.
00:35:40.880 --> 00:35:42.480
So they sent me instead.
00:35:42.639 --> 00:35:48.000
So when I got up to Stephen Burroughs' atelier, the smoke was coming out from behind the door and the incense.
00:35:48.159 --> 00:35:51.679
You could smell musk all through the top floor of Henry Bendel's.
00:35:51.840 --> 00:35:53.360
This was my new life.
00:35:53.679 --> 00:35:54.800
Me and the boys.
00:35:55.039 --> 00:35:58.880
The door opened, poof, out came the Wizard of Oz, Mr.
00:35:59.039 --> 00:36:05.519
Stephen Burroughs, dressed in colors and his little gang of beautiful boys.
00:36:05.679 --> 00:36:07.519
Oh, beautiful boys.
00:36:08.079 --> 00:36:11.599
Out to Fire Island we went, and my life began.
00:36:11.920 --> 00:36:12.480
Wow.
00:36:13.920 --> 00:36:19.840
You know, that brings up your history and long deep relationship with the gay community.
00:36:20.159 --> 00:36:21.519
Oh, God, thank you.
00:36:22.159 --> 00:36:32.559
You know, in your life, gay rights have changed radically, representation has changed radically, queer people can get married, they can have kids.
00:36:32.719 --> 00:36:32.960
Yeah.
00:36:33.199 --> 00:36:38.880
You know, what did you see working with all these men before those changes and before Stonewall?
00:36:39.360 --> 00:36:48.320
I saw beautiful boys with passion and lots of talent, and they were my best friends because the girls pretty much hated me.
00:36:48.480 --> 00:36:56.559
So these were kind of like I could talk to them, they understood my plight and my drama, and then we can run after the same boys at the same time.
00:36:57.360 --> 00:36:58.400
Whoever wins, wins.
00:36:58.719 --> 00:37:00.880
When I was like, we're out to hunt.
00:37:01.039 --> 00:37:01.760
That's mine.
00:37:01.920 --> 00:37:04.239
No, get back, girl, that's mine.
00:37:04.719 --> 00:37:06.719
What was Fire Island like at that time?
00:37:07.199 --> 00:37:10.239
God, it was just a paradise for artists.
00:37:10.480 --> 00:37:18.480
All the designers at the end of the week, from Henry Bendel's, we'd jump in the limo with bags and bags full of clothes to show off.
00:37:18.719 --> 00:37:34.880
And all the designers on 7th Avenue, all the boys and all the girls, we get in their limos, drive out there, some on water planes and some in the train and some in the limos, and the ride out would be puffy puffy, smoky smoky, yay, we're going to a party.
00:37:35.039 --> 00:37:41.280
And when you arrived there on the ferry, everybody was dancing at the bottel and waving their hands and dressed.
00:37:41.440 --> 00:37:59.199
It was like I felt like I went to paradise because everybody was talented, and there were architects, and there were dictators' sons and princes and Tennessee Williams, and I mean, there were just marvelous Broadway stars.
00:37:59.360 --> 00:38:06.880
Everybody was out there having a beautiful time on the beach, and the wonderful thing is everything was art.
00:38:07.119 --> 00:38:14.320
Everything is about when you walk down that boardwalk, everybody's showing off with their little group and getting inspired.
00:38:14.400 --> 00:38:19.039
Like half the time, the clothes that we wore would show up on somebody else's collection.
00:38:19.280 --> 00:38:21.039
So we all inspired each other.
00:38:21.199 --> 00:38:23.039
I mean, that's what it should be.
00:38:23.280 --> 00:38:30.239
It should be everybody inspiring each other, love who you love, and be free to dance your night away.
00:38:30.400 --> 00:38:35.599
And that was the situation, dancing and dressing, and what is it all for?
00:38:36.000 --> 00:38:36.960
Community.
00:38:37.280 --> 00:38:37.840
Enjoy.
00:38:38.159 --> 00:38:38.880
Enjoy life.
00:38:39.280 --> 00:38:47.039
When I think especially at that time, Fire Island's the place where gay men could be out, live their real life, be free, cook, that's what we all want.
00:38:47.440 --> 00:38:57.760
Love, plant flowers, redecorate your home, and challenging, decorating, who has the nicest gymnasium home, who has the nicest floral orange.
00:38:58.320 --> 00:39:00.159
I mean, just gorgeous.
00:39:00.400 --> 00:39:02.960
I don't know if that exists anymore, you know.
00:39:03.119 --> 00:39:13.039
Like I I've been out recently, but ever there was a tornado and it turned everything upside down, all the pools, and the houses aged and they're closer together.
00:39:13.199 --> 00:39:14.880
And you can never repeat that.
00:39:15.119 --> 00:39:23.119
But you, you know, people try to repeat that when they go flying around like birds of a feather from collection to collections in different countries.
00:39:23.280 --> 00:39:34.000
You know, we do the rounds, we do New York, we do Milan, we do Paris, we do London, we do Spain, we do Japan, and then you maybe find your little uh dancing group somewhere.
00:39:34.719 --> 00:39:34.960
Totally.
00:39:35.039 --> 00:39:36.239
Well, we're all trying to connect.
00:39:36.559 --> 00:39:37.039
Yes, right.
00:39:37.360 --> 00:39:37.920
That's the point.
00:39:38.000 --> 00:39:44.719
You go out to dinner, you make new friends in person, you dress nice, you feel good.
00:39:44.960 --> 00:39:47.760
It's the reward of all the hard work.
00:39:48.079 --> 00:40:09.039
No, all my friends who are gay, trans, LBGTQ are people who are imaginative, have a vision, and they are generous, loving people who really deserve to be in this world to teach people how to live in love.
00:40:09.440 --> 00:40:17.039
You know, it just in my heart, it's just that's where I found actually the most, you know, un not critical love.
00:40:17.199 --> 00:40:21.679
And yeah, we dive in each other and we talk about each other like dirt when we leave the room.
00:40:21.840 --> 00:40:22.719
But that's the fun.
00:40:22.800 --> 00:40:24.159
We are bantering.
00:40:24.320 --> 00:40:27.679
We are the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful.
00:40:27.840 --> 00:40:28.400
We're all those.
00:40:28.960 --> 00:40:29.519
I love that.
00:40:29.920 --> 00:40:32.559
I want to ask you about your relationship with Halston.
00:40:33.119 --> 00:40:34.400
How did that start?
00:40:34.639 --> 00:40:38.000
You know, this is a figure that's been really mythologized.
00:40:38.079 --> 00:40:40.320
There have been movies, there's been TV.
00:40:40.639 --> 00:40:43.039
Do you think those portrayals are accurate?
00:40:43.199 --> 00:40:46.320
What was what was your relationship and your view of him like?
00:40:46.800 --> 00:40:52.559
Well, the point is that he is a beautiful and generous human being with a delicate soul.
00:40:52.800 --> 00:40:59.519
And the thing is, is he has so much love for the people that he takes care of that he has to defend them.
00:40:59.679 --> 00:41:09.440
And he puts on this mask of harsh, like what he did, um, he would always say, Oh, so they think they're gonna hurt the people I love.
00:41:09.599 --> 00:41:11.679
Well, they haven't seen anything yet.
00:41:11.920 --> 00:41:18.719
Wait till they see this 10-ton bite, and then he go, like that, and then he get to business.
00:41:19.039 --> 00:41:28.239
And he is like a delicate human being that caught got caught up in an evil greedy world of business.
00:41:28.880 --> 00:41:35.440
And being with Halston is like a healing because he really, really cares for everyone.
00:41:35.599 --> 00:41:41.679
You know, he may be like a parent and say this is good and that's not good, but he'll tell you the truth.
00:41:41.840 --> 00:41:49.519
And he was very honest with everybody, but then they just peeked him apart like a beautiful flower when you pull the petals off.
00:41:49.760 --> 00:41:53.519
And he always used to say things like, Oh, my neck is so long.
00:41:53.599 --> 00:41:57.280
I said, No, you're like a swan, you're so beautiful.
00:41:57.440 --> 00:41:59.679
And he was generous with us girls.
00:41:59.760 --> 00:42:02.000
I mean, we traveled the world together.
00:42:02.239 --> 00:42:14.480
We went to China when it wasn't even open to go to the silk factories, and he made entire wardrobes, individual wardrobes for each of the ten girls that he took, and the boys, too.
00:42:15.039 --> 00:42:22.480
And we went to the Great Wall of China, and we went to all the bonsai gardens, and we went to the silk factories.
00:42:22.800 --> 00:42:45.599
And I had been traveling with him since the beginning of his opening of um his atelier on 68th Street, which was his first house, and Elsa Peretti was there, and Naomi Sims and um Marina Scavina Scavuno, these were his first models, and Angelica came along and I was there too.
00:42:46.079 --> 00:42:49.360
And um these were his first models.
00:42:50.000 --> 00:43:05.679
And um it was just wonderful being in the cutting room with him and watching him throw the fabric on the floor, and you know, I think the drama that they create around him was not exactly what he wanted because he he was like an orchid.
00:43:06.000 --> 00:43:19.119
He had uh so many orchids and he created beautiful scents and you know the fact that when you become vulnerable to business, it takes away from your private life.
00:43:19.440 --> 00:43:27.760
So everything that you do becomes public and you never have a private moment, you know, and then people take advantage of your generosity.
00:43:28.079 --> 00:43:36.320
I think people have really, you know, sort of stabbed him in the back in a way with some of the things they say about him.
00:43:36.719 --> 00:43:40.639
Because actually he never did go to the meat market, he never did.
00:43:41.039 --> 00:43:46.559
And just because he was in love with a crazy Argentinian artist, that's his right, you know.
00:43:46.639 --> 00:43:51.840
And just because AIDS came around and killed everybody with love, it's not their fault.
00:43:52.239 --> 00:43:54.719
You know, our song was Love the One You're With.
00:43:54.960 --> 00:43:59.679
And he did such wonderful things for me and Elsa and Lula.
00:44:00.480 --> 00:44:14.400
De Falaise, and you know, he made everybody feel so elegant, and even the women, the society women that loved him because he was a good listener and generous, you know.
00:44:14.880 --> 00:44:16.079
Um, you brought up AIDS.
00:44:16.239 --> 00:44:28.000
I wanted to ask you what it was like in the 80s watching the creative community and the queer community just be devastated by this terrifying disease.
00:44:28.239 --> 00:44:30.480
Um what how did you feel?
00:44:30.639 --> 00:44:32.000
How did you get through it?
00:44:32.159 --> 00:44:34.000
How did you deal with the loss?
00:44:34.480 --> 00:44:38.880
I don't know how I I escaped that because half of my boyfriends were gay.
00:44:40.880 --> 00:44:51.360
They're so beautiful, but they all died and um they all died and um they died because they were uh lovers.
00:44:51.599 --> 00:44:53.360
What can they say, you know?
00:44:53.599 --> 00:45:00.480
I think I came along in a time when a free love and all of that was just the the trend, you know, love the one you're with.
00:45:00.960 --> 00:45:06.639
When you're down and feel confused and you don't know who you're talking to.
00:45:06.800 --> 00:45:09.360
It's that song, Love the One You With.
00:45:09.679 --> 00:45:14.880
And um, everybody was just free spirited and young, very young.
00:45:15.039 --> 00:45:21.599
I mean, when you're young, you get out and you have the chocolate box and you have the different flavors, and you want to try them all.
00:45:21.920 --> 00:45:31.760
You want to try them all, and everybody was partying and not aware that I knew the zero, I knew the zero person who came to America.
00:45:32.079 --> 00:45:39.920
He was a model, and he had a boyfriend who was uh traveling a great deal, and he was number one.
00:45:40.960 --> 00:45:48.880
And um, I s I suddenly saw the boys I knew becoming pale and sick and covered with marks.
00:45:48.960 --> 00:45:54.320
And I remember I got in the elevator with one, and I was you know, we all kiss each other all said, No, no, no, no, kiss me.
00:45:54.480 --> 00:45:55.840
Something's wrong with me.
00:45:56.159 --> 00:45:58.719
I said, My God, what's going on with your skin?
00:45:58.800 --> 00:46:00.320
You need to go to the dermatologist.
00:46:00.559 --> 00:46:02.880
I don't know, I don't nobody knew what it was.
00:46:03.440 --> 00:46:06.320
People were getting sick, and I don't know.
00:46:06.480 --> 00:46:08.480
I don't know how I survived that at all.
00:46:09.039 --> 00:46:12.400
Did that teach you how to deal with loss?
00:46:12.559 --> 00:46:17.199
I mean, to go to funerals or see men who are 30 dying people.
00:46:17.599 --> 00:46:18.400
That's not normal.
00:46:18.559 --> 00:46:19.840
That's not what we grow up with.
00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:21.039
Like it's a tragedy.
00:46:21.519 --> 00:46:25.760
It's such a a devastating thing because everybody would disappear.
00:46:26.159 --> 00:46:30.800
Disappear, and they were treated like a floor mat.
00:46:31.199 --> 00:46:37.199
They were looked at and scorned, you know, and people were seeing nasty things.
00:46:37.840 --> 00:47:17.760
On top of not being well, having all of that hatred guy guided towards the gay community, like, oh, it's their fault because they're young and free and enjoying life and and it's their fault, and it was so mean and it was mean and evil and cruel, and all of my creative friends who had to die under that kind of energy of people being mean and cruel to them, you know, like Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson were like out the front helping everybody and trying to speak up, and there were no, you know, I just I'm so devastated now.
00:47:17.840 --> 00:47:19.760
Like it makes my heart cry.
00:47:20.079 --> 00:47:26.559
Because you have to live a full life so that you can get wisdom and know not to do certain things or to do certain things.
00:47:26.719 --> 00:47:31.920
And they were just young and expressive and and they got caught up in something.
00:47:32.159 --> 00:47:34.639
And um, oh God, I cry even now.
00:47:34.719 --> 00:47:38.639
You know, I'm like, I'm I'm so it's so painful, really.
00:47:39.119 --> 00:47:41.760
Well was a generation of people lost.
00:47:42.000 --> 00:47:42.320
Yeah.
00:47:42.559 --> 00:47:45.760
And, you know, their creativity, their wisdom, their love.
00:47:46.239 --> 00:47:52.639
I think it's interesting to look at this time and think, you know, we've we've come through that.
00:47:52.880 --> 00:47:58.320
And now, of course, there's different medicines and there's different pre preventative possibilities.
00:47:58.559 --> 00:48:11.199
And this is the first generation of gay men my age and now aging who are here, happy, alive, yeah, and we finally get to see them live their whole journey.
00:48:11.519 --> 00:48:14.480
Yeah, the whole journey of loving, living, giving.
00:48:14.880 --> 00:48:15.760
That's what I put.
00:48:15.920 --> 00:48:20.800
I put on this generation loving, living, giving.
00:48:21.119 --> 00:48:37.599
Because um, with our own experiences, you know, like, you know, it just seems like um being in America and having the present things happening with hatred and all that, putting up with hatred is really uh poison.
00:48:37.920 --> 00:48:58.639
And uh when I find the gay community is sort of a buffer in a way, because they're so bright, they're like really the rainbow and butterflies, that they take all the hits, you know, even more than women or ages and and and even people who are handicapped, you know, sometimes they get hit on.
00:48:59.039 --> 00:49:04.400
But now um with science, I'm a product of science, actually, because I'm alive.
00:49:04.639 --> 00:49:21.920
And I think with all of that, you know, with all of that, the funds and the things, I hope they're never taken away, or people can get health care and and uh, you know, and sometimes we actually do um benefits in fashion for these things, you know.
00:49:22.320 --> 00:49:31.519
And uh that that I think that's where fashion comes in handy sometimes, really in a bigger way than even uh, you know, business.
00:49:31.920 --> 00:49:37.679
Well, there's always been a history of fashion helping out, whether it's raising money or raising awareness.
00:49:38.159 --> 00:49:44.159
Um I you I know a few years ago you had a very serious health scare and life threatening.
00:49:44.880 --> 00:49:46.400
How did you get through that?
00:49:46.480 --> 00:49:49.280
Like how do you always have your positive attitude?
00:49:49.679 --> 00:49:57.199
Well, I think you know, after so many years, I was like, um, that was like uh 10 uh seven, eight, eight years ago, so seven or eight years ago.
00:49:57.440 --> 00:50:06.400
And I was already so embedded in the world of fashion that I had so many friends and I had been traveling around the world so much for so many decades.
00:50:06.719 --> 00:50:09.199
It was like my tribe, you know.
00:50:09.440 --> 00:50:16.719
And uh when I got, I wasn't well, I had a show for L'Oreal, and that night my belly swelled up like a watermelon.
00:50:16.800 --> 00:50:18.480
I called my friend, said I have a show tomorrow.
00:50:18.559 --> 00:50:19.679
I don't even fit in my clothes.
00:50:19.760 --> 00:50:21.119
She said, Call the doctor.
00:50:21.360 --> 00:50:24.000
I called the doctor, he said, No, you have to go to the hospital.
00:50:24.159 --> 00:50:28.000
I had an emergency operation, uh, colon cancer.
00:50:28.239 --> 00:50:31.760
If I hadn't gotten to the hospital that night, I would have died.
00:50:32.000 --> 00:50:34.880
He says, I have to do an emergency operation on you.
00:50:35.119 --> 00:50:40.639
And I was at the American hospital and uh I had no money or anything.
00:50:40.880 --> 00:50:45.760
And uh I did, he said, I have to do an emergency operation, but you might have to wear a colossally.
00:50:46.000 --> 00:50:47.760
He said, I can't wear that, I'm a model.
00:50:47.920 --> 00:50:50.639
So I have a special operation for you.
00:50:50.800 --> 00:50:51.679
Will you let me do it?
00:50:51.840 --> 00:50:53.039
I said, is it couture?
00:50:53.199 --> 00:50:55.039
He said, Yes, I have the couture cut.
00:50:55.119 --> 00:50:56.239
I said, give it to me.
00:50:56.400 --> 00:51:06.960
I woke up the next day, and all my fashion community were sending me happy get well, and not only that, there was a GoFund set up for me.
00:51:07.119 --> 00:51:25.760
Jean-Paul Gautier had been to the hospital, had the same doctor, and he he made it so that I could, and a whole bunch of designers, all the fashion houses chipped in, paid my hospital bill anonymously, all the names, I know who they are, I know it was Diane and everybody.
00:51:26.000 --> 00:51:28.639
I know they all chipped in and all my friends.
00:51:28.800 --> 00:51:31.760
And it was$100,000,$150,000.
00:51:32.320 --> 00:51:35.679
They chipped in, uh, GoFund paid my hospital.
00:51:36.000 --> 00:51:38.480
And while I was there, I had the strangest thing.
00:51:38.639 --> 00:51:40.079
Carl had died the week before.
00:51:40.159 --> 00:51:41.599
I didn't know where he was.
00:51:41.840 --> 00:51:46.239
And I said to the nurse, I had the strangest thing happen to me last night.
00:51:46.400 --> 00:51:49.679
I have a friend who is a designer, his name is Carl.
00:51:49.840 --> 00:51:52.000
He came and he sat on the edge of my bed.
00:51:52.079 --> 00:51:55.280
And he said, Don't worry, my darling, you're going to be okay.
00:51:55.519 --> 00:51:57.119
He didn't look like himself, though.
00:51:57.280 --> 00:51:59.119
He was like strange.
00:51:59.679 --> 00:52:04.000
And I said, She said, Carl, he was on the fifth floor.
00:52:04.159 --> 00:52:05.840
He died on the fifth floor.
00:52:06.079 --> 00:52:08.960
I said, Oh my God, I had a visitation.
00:52:09.199 --> 00:52:10.960
I'm pretty spooky like that.
00:52:11.199 --> 00:52:11.760
Anyway.
00:52:12.800 --> 00:52:15.679
You really saw a whole community come together to help you.
00:52:16.000 --> 00:52:20.559
Yeah, and they were just marvelous and they were just sending all their love.
00:52:20.719 --> 00:52:31.840
And that's why when people say, Oh, I hate my telephone, I hate science, I hate technology, I said, listen, if you didn't have that, if I didn't have it, I wouldn't be alive today.
00:52:32.159 --> 00:52:38.079
So, you you know, no matter what you do, check yourself out, you know, take care of yourself.
00:52:38.239 --> 00:52:46.880
Don't be too extreme with the beauty treatments, you know, just keep that as minimal as you can if possible.
00:52:47.440 --> 00:52:55.679
And um be kind of normal sometimes, get fresh air and sit in a garden and and just use the tools that are there.
00:52:55.760 --> 00:53:02.320
You know, use your phone, call, stay in touch, take care of yourself, take some vitamins, you know.
00:53:02.639 --> 00:53:13.760
Well, I think we really learned during the COVID pandemic how much we need people, connection, relationships, because when it's gone, you realize we have nothing.
00:53:14.400 --> 00:53:20.880
We are just so fortunate, you know, like people of like mind, they always say birds of a feather.
00:53:20.960 --> 00:53:24.480
I always think of my peacocks, all our beautiful peacocks.
00:53:24.880 --> 00:53:30.159
We love to show off, we love to stand back and malt a little bit, let our feathers go.
00:53:30.400 --> 00:53:39.599
So if we just give ourselves time enough to let our feathers go, be in love, and and have some normal things and then go show off our feathers again.
00:53:39.760 --> 00:53:42.159
I think it's sort of like the seasons.
00:53:42.239 --> 00:53:44.800
We have to melt down, come back up.
00:53:44.880 --> 00:53:49.920
And I think that's kind of like the longevity thing, you know, disappear for a while, come back.
00:53:50.000 --> 00:53:56.880
And you know, sometimes you have your seasons, sometimes you don't, but um, don't don't kill yourself over it.
00:53:57.199 --> 00:53:59.280
I think that's great advice, that kind of balance.
00:53:59.599 --> 00:54:04.880
Now, so you're of course mother of Anna, who's also had an amazing modeling career.
00:54:05.039 --> 00:54:05.199
Yeah.
00:54:05.440 --> 00:54:06.639
Your grandmother.
00:54:07.840 --> 00:54:19.280
What advice do you give to to your kids and to your grandchildren about growing up in this world and and finding a way to enjoy life and be positive?
00:54:19.679 --> 00:54:23.119
Well, first of all, we're all kind of yogis in my family.
00:54:23.360 --> 00:54:29.280
And I think when they were growing up, they saw me doing that, so they have that.
00:54:29.679 --> 00:54:44.559
And I think, you know, if you need to be something, be your true self, which means that even though we have these facades and these things that we do on the outside and the world is chaotic, you really need somewhere to go back to.
00:54:45.199 --> 00:54:54.320
And so when my daughter was out and, you know, knocking on doors and trying to find a way and trying to be her own person separate from me.
00:54:54.719 --> 00:54:55.840
It's a big shadow.
00:54:56.159 --> 00:54:58.800
Well, I didn't sh I did shadow her in a way.
00:54:58.880 --> 00:55:09.519
I was behind her, watching, watching and not standing in front of her, not blocking her way or, you know, making sure that she didn't get into trouble.
00:55:09.840 --> 00:55:17.519
Because, you know, when that door is closed and somebody has a different intention, I've seen it many times even in front of me.
00:55:17.760 --> 00:55:21.280
When you're so young, you need do need a chaperone.
00:55:21.760 --> 00:55:26.320
Because you look like and you smell like a ra radiant flower.
00:55:26.559 --> 00:55:31.119
The bumblebee's going to come over, whatever that might be.
00:55:31.280 --> 00:55:43.280
So I think when you're young, you know, I did own a model agency for 25 years in Italy, and I had all these girls come in that were from different countries who were underage.
00:55:43.760 --> 00:55:46.719
13, 14, 15 without a parent.
00:55:47.039 --> 00:55:51.920
And then sometimes they would like to not return to their country.
00:55:52.079 --> 00:56:00.559
So they would go to parties with playboys, and I'd have to gather them all back and send them home because they would really get into a lot of trouble.
00:56:00.960 --> 00:56:10.960
Well, and Milan was always a gateway from Eastern Europe, and so I feel like a lot of models would start really young from Eastern Europe and they would end up in Milan, and some of them would never leave.
00:56:11.360 --> 00:56:15.039
They would never leave because they had nothing to go back to.
00:56:15.199 --> 00:56:18.239
I remember one time I went to do a show in Russia.
00:56:18.480 --> 00:56:21.039
You know, not to say that a place is bad or whatever.
00:56:21.199 --> 00:56:25.599
I don't know, but opportunity is where it is, centered.
00:56:25.840 --> 00:56:30.480
And some people want to get away from what their situation is.
00:56:30.559 --> 00:56:36.159
And I was with Lara Bia Joty when they opened Russia to all the boutiques and everything.
00:56:36.320 --> 00:56:46.400
And uh models were lined up in hundreds, sitting for hours in long hallways with their portfolios sitting in perfect posture, waiting for that opportunity.
00:56:46.639 --> 00:56:50.719
So when they land in Milan, they may never return to where they are.
00:56:50.880 --> 00:56:54.159
And they may be get into a lot of trouble.
00:56:54.320 --> 00:57:02.880
If you don't have a really caring agent, you were a caring agent, and you don't have someone watching, it's not a good thing.
00:57:03.599 --> 00:57:06.719
Is that was that one of the lessons you learned from owning an agency?
00:57:07.199 --> 00:57:18.880
I did learn and watch that there, you know, there m modeling is such a raw and vulnerable profession.
00:57:19.280 --> 00:57:24.639
Uh when you're young and um you have all of these ideas about what it is.
00:57:24.880 --> 00:57:32.719
There are invaders, people who come in and sort of they say, Ah, new meat, we want to have this.
00:57:32.960 --> 00:57:36.400
And it's scary, it's really really frightening.
00:57:36.639 --> 00:57:39.599
You don't know where you're going, who's behind that door.
00:57:40.000 --> 00:57:46.000
You know, you could be trafficked at any moment if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time.
00:57:46.320 --> 00:57:49.199
You know, I've had to avoid things like that myself.
00:57:49.440 --> 00:57:55.360
And um, watching it happen or not not under my watch.
00:57:55.679 --> 00:57:58.880
It never happened under my watch, but it could happen.
00:57:59.360 --> 00:58:00.079
Could happen.
00:58:00.239 --> 00:58:03.280
If you don't have a really caring agent, you're caring.
00:58:03.440 --> 00:58:04.960
And so thank you so much.
00:58:05.280 --> 00:58:07.760
Did you always want Anna to model?
00:58:07.920 --> 00:58:09.679
Was that something that came from her?
00:58:10.000 --> 00:58:13.760
What was the journey of watching her become her own?
00:58:14.400 --> 00:58:17.199
Oh God, she's been modeling since she was born.
00:58:17.360 --> 00:58:24.639
From her first passport picture, two weeks, until her very first um show with Moschino.
00:58:24.800 --> 00:58:28.639
When she was like four and a half, she did the Moschino show.
00:58:28.800 --> 00:58:35.840
So I think after that she started dressing up with a little plastic high heels click-clacking all over.
00:58:36.000 --> 00:58:39.679
I did teach her to do the Pollyanna walk with the book in the head.
00:58:39.840 --> 00:58:45.039
And after that, I think she did some dancing and you know, she was like ready.
00:58:45.280 --> 00:58:47.360
She wanted to do that herself.
00:58:47.599 --> 00:58:50.400
I didn't push her into anything.
00:58:50.639 --> 00:58:51.920
She grew up with it.
00:58:52.079 --> 00:58:57.119
She was always backstage and she loved the model girls and they played with her.
00:58:57.280 --> 00:58:59.760
She sat on the designers' knees.
00:58:59.840 --> 00:59:03.440
You know, they loved her as a little girl, Carl and Giovanni.
00:59:03.679 --> 00:59:06.639
Everybody, Given, she everybody loved Anna.
00:59:06.960 --> 00:59:08.639
And they loved her growing up.
00:59:09.280 --> 00:59:13.760
I mean, she really grew up in the industry more than almost anyone.
00:59:14.000 --> 00:59:14.800
It's fascinating.
00:59:15.119 --> 00:59:20.320
Yeah, she grew up knowing how it is to be with those creative people.
00:59:20.639 --> 00:59:25.440
And then Stephen Burroughs used her for the first time for orange babies in Amsterdam.
00:59:25.519 --> 00:59:26.480
It was a benefit.
00:59:26.639 --> 00:59:29.440
And she walked with Varushka and me on the runway.
00:59:29.679 --> 00:59:32.239
So I mean, with Verushka.
00:59:32.559 --> 00:59:33.599
Oh my god.
00:59:34.079 --> 00:59:37.760
Oh she's one of the people I love.
00:59:37.920 --> 00:59:38.480
Anyway.
00:59:38.800 --> 00:59:42.880
Well, I've always been impressed by Anna's approach to the business.
00:59:43.039 --> 00:59:43.280
Yeah.
00:59:43.519 --> 00:59:55.760
And clearly it comes from somewhere, somewhere you, where she really has her own gut about what she's excited about, what she wants to do, and she has a very strong inner voice.
00:59:56.159 --> 00:59:56.800
That's it.
00:59:57.199 --> 00:59:59.840
And I think it's it's beautiful, and I really respect it.
00:59:59.920 --> 01:00:03.440
And working with people like that, I I think it's such a pleasure.
01:00:03.840 --> 01:00:04.639
Thank you.
01:00:04.960 --> 01:00:05.760
Thank you.
01:00:06.239 --> 01:00:26.800
Well, she's got the torch, and I think she has the passion, and she's always had the passion, 24-7, dedicated, going, going, traveling, learning, you know, being coming strong from experience, being quiet and available and sensitive to what people need.
01:00:27.199 --> 01:00:29.039
And she's very sensitive.
01:00:29.199 --> 01:00:32.000
I think you have to have you have respect.
01:00:32.239 --> 01:00:38.960
You have um she just respects the passion of the designers and the artists she's with.
01:00:39.119 --> 01:00:44.400
And she tries to um g give as much as a hundred percent.
01:00:44.559 --> 01:00:45.920
You know, that's a lot.
01:00:46.079 --> 01:00:48.159
When you're supposed to only give maybe 80%.
01:00:49.199 --> 01:00:50.000
No, but I can tell.
01:00:50.079 --> 01:00:56.320
I mean, she and you, when you commit to a job, yeah, you show up and it's going to be everything.
01:00:56.639 --> 01:00:57.760
Yeah, well, you learn that.
01:00:57.920 --> 01:01:00.559
If you don't show up, it's over.
01:01:01.039 --> 01:01:05.360
So, like someone like Zach Posen, you've had this long history with, so has Anna.
01:01:05.599 --> 01:01:05.920
Yeah.
01:01:06.159 --> 01:01:09.440
What is it like when you keep working with these people over your career?
01:01:09.920 --> 01:01:19.920
Well, first of all, you know, I came in as sort of like this person that Zach, his partner Christopher, knew about me.
01:01:20.159 --> 01:01:25.199
I went to this booking with Anna, and it was in a train station in Brooklyn.
01:01:25.280 --> 01:01:27.760
And I was escorting her because she was so young.
01:01:27.840 --> 01:01:30.800
You know, I had to go with her everywhere to every booking.
01:01:30.960 --> 01:01:33.760
And I was sitting in the bus, and in walks this Christopher.
01:01:33.920 --> 01:01:36.079
He said, Oh my god, it's Pat Cleveland.
01:01:36.239 --> 01:01:40.159
This is one of my down days, you know, like just like incognito walking around.
01:01:40.239 --> 01:01:40.960
He recognized me.
01:01:41.119 --> 01:01:43.199
He said, Oh no, what am I gonna do?
01:01:43.360 --> 01:01:44.159
He found me out.
01:01:44.320 --> 01:01:44.960
I'm in the bus.
01:01:45.039 --> 01:01:48.480
He said, Oh my god, you have to meet my friend Zach Posen.
01:01:49.199 --> 01:01:54.000
Ah, so he introduced me to Zach Posen with Anna.
01:01:54.480 --> 01:02:14.559
And then Zach was so history-wise, he knew who I was, and and he and he loved Anna, and he started dressing us and and photographing us, and he made such a beautiful photos of us, and the shooting was so good.
01:02:14.639 --> 01:02:26.639
And Anna Winter was there, and she was falling in love with Zach, and and Andre Leontali was actually the one who introduced us more to Zach after.
01:02:27.119 --> 01:02:34.960
And uh it just became like a little family, Anna and Zach, Anna and Zach, Anna and Zach, Andre, Anna.
01:02:35.280 --> 01:02:43.039
And then I was in there too somehow, and then it felt like a new world for me because I wasn't thinking about myself at all.
01:02:43.199 --> 01:02:45.599
I was just saying, this is great for Anna.
01:02:46.000 --> 01:02:48.159
And he's wonderful, he's so creative.
01:02:48.320 --> 01:02:53.440
He, you know, he's an international perspective on creativity.
01:02:54.320 --> 01:02:57.280
And then recently uh Anna moved to London.
01:02:57.440 --> 01:03:03.840
She married, and she has a little baby who's one year old, Presley, and her husband's Jefferson Hack.
01:03:04.480 --> 01:03:11.840
And um Zach is the godfather, and he was in London, and uh I got to go do the gap.
01:03:12.159 --> 01:03:22.320
And Zach was there and he dressed me in a couture way, made sure I looked very prominent and with my waist pincher thing on, and he made it.
01:03:22.400 --> 01:03:23.840
And that was Tim Walker shooting, right?
01:03:24.159 --> 01:03:25.039
Tim Walker.
01:03:25.599 --> 01:03:26.400
Can you imagine?
01:03:26.800 --> 01:03:27.840
Tim Walker.
01:03:27.920 --> 01:03:30.719
I mean, he's just the most beautiful I love working with him.
01:03:31.039 --> 01:03:36.079
Uh we did LaVon last time, and we did uh and he's so creative.
01:03:36.159 --> 01:03:51.440
He worked a lot doing very um haronymous Bosch photos with Anna and quite expressive um artistic things, Tim Walker with Anna and with me the few times I got to work with him.
01:03:51.840 --> 01:03:53.440
I hope to work with him again.
01:03:54.000 --> 01:03:54.559
Let's do it.
01:03:54.880 --> 01:04:08.639
Yeah, I want to do more creative things with him because I feel I feel like he feels you know, when we work with people who have a feeling for what art is, and you know, it's good.
01:04:09.039 --> 01:04:12.960
It's good to be inspired by the person who's taking the picture.
01:04:13.840 --> 01:04:17.199
I mean, you've worked with all the great photographers.
01:04:18.320 --> 01:04:26.719
Who is someone who stands out that you worked with where you just felt like as a model it was the true fulfillment of your potential?
01:04:27.199 --> 01:04:30.480
Oh my god, I worked with everybody from A to C.
01:04:30.960 --> 01:04:38.000
But I must say, you know, when you're first starting, Charles Tracy was this photographer who could make anything out of anything.
01:04:38.159 --> 01:04:42.159
And we used to travel to Puerto Rico and do pictures under waterfalls.
01:04:42.320 --> 01:04:50.079
And any photographer who takes me on a journey like Barry McKinley or Parkinson, I went to Africa with Barry McKinley.
01:04:50.159 --> 01:05:00.239
We went on the Queen Mary across and we did shuffleboard pictures for Harper's Queen, and then we went to Africa and that safari where we almost got eaten by everything.
01:05:00.400 --> 01:05:01.760
But it was wonderful.
01:05:01.920 --> 01:05:03.840
I love going on location.
01:05:04.079 --> 01:05:07.599
And I worked with Horst, and it was so funny.
01:05:07.760 --> 01:05:10.719
I was up at the Olympic Towers with Halston.
01:05:11.039 --> 01:05:12.239
This is funny.
01:05:12.480 --> 01:05:16.800
And Horst was taking photographs in color, and he showed me the picture.
01:05:16.960 --> 01:05:19.519
He said, Horst, my teeth look black.
01:05:19.679 --> 01:05:21.280
He said, Oh, I'm so sorry.
01:05:21.360 --> 01:05:23.440
I'm only good with black and white.
01:05:24.079 --> 01:05:26.000
My idol is only good.
01:05:26.400 --> 01:05:26.880
Horst.
01:05:26.960 --> 01:05:27.280
Come on.
01:05:27.679 --> 01:05:28.480
He knew what he was good at.
01:05:28.639 --> 01:05:29.519
Yeah, he knew what it was good.
01:05:30.000 --> 01:05:30.559
I worked with him.
01:05:30.639 --> 01:05:36.239
I worked with Avedon, and Avedon used to take me in the dark room to help develop the pictures.
01:05:36.320 --> 01:05:39.840
I was so interested because I did study photography in art school.
01:05:39.920 --> 01:05:40.880
I went to art and design.
01:05:40.960 --> 01:05:42.960
We had photography, design, illustration.
01:05:43.119 --> 01:05:44.079
Oh, you can come in.
01:05:44.239 --> 01:05:47.760
I've been in the dark room with Hero Avidon.
01:05:48.159 --> 01:05:54.400
Um, I have I worked for Oliviero Toscani on location in the Red Sea in a banana boat.
01:05:54.480 --> 01:05:59.360
For I've been all over the world working with photographers on location.
01:05:59.679 --> 01:06:04.960
Uh Helmut Newton took me to Mexico and um, oh, we used to fight all the time.
01:06:05.119 --> 01:06:07.280
He'd say, you're a little bit bow-legged.
01:06:07.440 --> 01:06:12.960
If it wasn't for those ankles you and Jerry Hall have, I said, don't be mean, take the picture.
01:06:13.679 --> 01:06:18.079
And Terry Moogler would put me on the top of the Chrysler building with the wind blowing.
01:06:18.320 --> 01:06:19.920
Terry, I don't want to die.
01:06:20.880 --> 01:06:26.480
Everybody was challenging me to stand on rocks, and you know, things were not AI in those days.
01:06:26.559 --> 01:06:28.239
You actually had to be an athlete.
01:06:28.400 --> 01:06:30.480
Gib Bourdin had me in the North Sea.
01:06:30.559 --> 01:06:31.760
I caught pneumonia.
01:06:31.920 --> 01:06:32.880
Oh my god.
01:06:33.199 --> 01:06:39.519
Nude on the North Sea, painted blue like a oh God, I can't tell you how much I suffered.
01:06:40.000 --> 01:06:42.320
Well, that was also the time of location sheets, right?
01:06:42.400 --> 01:06:46.320
And budgets where magazines could travel anywhere they wanted, and you did.
01:06:46.719 --> 01:06:47.119
I did.
01:06:47.280 --> 01:06:48.400
I was so lucky.
01:06:48.639 --> 01:06:55.920
That was the whole idea when I told you I had to cut out those photographs of those girls standing in those beautiful locations.
01:06:56.320 --> 01:06:57.760
I get to do it.
01:06:58.000 --> 01:07:04.239
But I didn't do the um the photograph that I love the most of Daniel Luna standing on a piano in the water.
01:07:04.400 --> 01:07:05.519
I didn't get to do that one yet.
01:07:05.679 --> 01:07:06.159
Well, not yet.
01:07:06.480 --> 01:07:07.679
Maybe we can do that one.
01:07:08.159 --> 01:07:09.519
Okay, that will be our goal.
01:07:09.760 --> 01:07:15.679
Well, I want to thank you so much for your time today and all your wisdom and for sharing it with us.
01:07:15.840 --> 01:07:16.400
We're lucky.
01:07:16.719 --> 01:07:18.800
Don't forget, love is free.
01:07:19.360 --> 01:07:24.239
I'm going out to do um pride this summer in San Francisco.
01:07:24.559 --> 01:07:27.199
Yeah, and I'm gonna sing, so I'm glad.
01:07:27.519 --> 01:07:28.719
I can't wait to see that.
01:07:29.039 --> 01:07:32.000
Thank you very much, and we all can't wait to see what's next.
01:07:32.239 --> 01:07:34.559
Okay, what's next at a muse?
01:07:34.719 --> 01:07:35.360
Yes.
01:07:36.239 --> 01:07:37.039
Okay, we're good.
01:07:37.199 --> 01:07:39.519
Let me just ask him is there's there's a noise in here?
01:07:39.599 --> 01:07:40.400
Is that okay?