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Speaker 1: Campside Media.
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Speaker 2: Thanks for coming back. Everyone to Model Wars Episode nine, a production of iHeart Podcasts and Campside Media. I'm Vanessa Grigoriatis. So this episode we're talking to some of the women that we interviewed for this podcast, like Susie Sugarman. She was a model booker for a long time and she's got a terrific personality. You'll hear her talk about kamoral Lee Simmons, who is the model who is married to Russell Simmons. She'll also talk about Carla Brunei, the model who was later married to Nicholas Sarkozy, president of France. So Susie specialized in booking models for catalogs, which were big business back in the day, obviously back when catalogs still came in the mail and that's how we bought close instead of on the internet. So listen in to my interview with Susie. What were some of the catalogs you were working with and like how much were the models getting waited?
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Speaker 3: Just to give you an example of how I created this and this is why you know, Paul will tell you like that I was one of the best catalog bookers in the industry. I would go home to my doorman building, and every floor I think it had twenty something floors. I literally would go to the garbage of every single floor where they had like the recycling bin, and I collected every catalog that ever existed, and I would lug the catalogs to work every day, and I started pounding the phones to every single catalog and saying, like, who does your ca how can I you know? Where do I go?
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Speaker 2: And what were some of them, like Delia's or.
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Speaker 3: We're talking like so many department stores, like Macy's had stores in like the Midwest. They had it in the you know, San Francisco, they had it in Atlanta, they had it in Florida. You know, it wasn't just a New York market. And like nord Strums and mem and Marcus and J. C. Penny and then there was Riches, which was a big department store, and god, there was so many more stores back in those days. They paid very like a lot of them paid super well in the nineties. I mean, girls were like, on average, like a low rate would be you know, fifteen hundred to two thousand a day, and then certain girls you could get up to like maybe thirty five hundred, you know, or higher it depending on if they were like a star. Back in those days, there was no computers, right, and there was no like cell phones, so it was a very different time. But I'm telling I tell young people now, it worked so much better than it works now because nobody relied on like a text, No one relied on a you know, on an email. We didn't have that. So the models actually had to get rolls of quarters and go to every corner and call in every hour on the hour to the agency to make sure that they are not missing.
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Speaker 2: A casting and so like who in the time you were in with it, you know, who were the top ones.
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Speaker 3: Girls found out about Paul because he literally was known to have like polaroids of girls and submit them to magazines. Like he's literally had a girl in a polaroid and then put on the cover of a magazine.
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Speaker 2: And were you ever like intimidated by them? Like these beautiful tall you know, blah blah bla, Like you go to a nightclub to get all.
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Speaker 3: That because all like the club owners loved me, Like everybody, like you know, knew who I was and they knew I was coming with the girls.
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Speaker 2: Well, but what's the point of having the models at the party like this is? I think what people don't quite understand. It's basically just to make the room look.
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Speaker 3: Like what's the twofold answer. Back in the nineties, we needed to bond with our models, and the way you bonded with your models were like going to dinner, going out this way. They felt close to their booker and they weren't looking to like jump to another agency. For the promoters, of course, if you have models in a place like, you're going to get the spenders to come and you know, drop a lot of money buying bottles or I mean, it's the oldest you know story in the book, right. I don't remember sneaking anybody in myself, but I know that back then people didn't even look twice if like younger girls were coming in you know. Of course that stopped over the years, but yeah, I mean I've been to like clubs where I see one of my seventeen year olds, you know, like asking me if I wanted to like have champagne at her table.
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Speaker 4: I was like, what what made it kind of different than those other agencies like Click and for How would you describe it as different?
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Speaker 3: We were like a real boutique agency, and like Paul and Omar were magic, like they were these two young guys. Models actually came into the agency and that's what made it Models such a wonderful agency because we welcomed our models to come in because sometimes a lot of girls didn't have places to go in between castings. So like there were certain agencies that like didn't want their models to come in. There was certain agencies that are like, no, we don't bother us. But we were like a big family and we welcomed the girls and they would come in and they would bring us coffee and they would bring us cookies, and we really became like a family. And that was really due to Paul Fisher because he really encouraged like us to have the relationships with the girls and the girls to have the relationship with us. Paul had represented Naomi in La, We had Kimura, Carla Bruni. I'm trying to remember like some of the girls that were just you know, Oh, we had Jade who married Matt Lower. Her real name was Annette, but her model name is Jade. Everybody was concentrating on the stars quote unquote stars, but you have all these models that need to work every day, they need to pay their bills. I've never been intimidated. I love the girls. They were like my sisters. I'm still close with, like pretty much every girl I've ever represented in all these years, especially a lot of the girls from Models Days are still like my family. I consider them family. I mean, you know, you get what you give.
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Speaker 2: Right now, we're going to talk to someone you've met in earlier episodes. Kara Young. She's the model who was super hot in the nineties and she lived in this amazing loft in Soho with a guy named Sante Drazzio. He was a very well known fashion photographer. They were good friends with Paul and Caara was modeling for everyone. Here's Kara tell us where you grew up and when you started being a model.
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Speaker 4: I was born in San Francisco, California. My parents are from the South. My mom was from North Carolina and my father is from Texas and he was.
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Speaker 5: In the military and they met.
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Speaker 4: Her mother lived out there, so they moved up there. So I grew up in San Francisco until I was Before I was ten, I moved to the East Bay and I started There was a contest called Look of the Year that a lot of girls started modeling from. But I didn't place at all. I was just one of the random contestants. And this girl that I worked in the shoe store with her mother said, oh, you guys should enter this contest. You should be models, and da da da da, and she entered us in this contest. And then I actually started modeling from that. So, like four years ago, this girl contacted me on Instagram and she says, you're not the car young that worked in San Valley mall though, right, I go, yeah, I am, I said, I remember you. Your mom, you know, helped us start modelish so worked out a bit better for you than it did myself. But yeah, So I started in San Francisco, and then I moved to Los Angeles when I was a teenager with a boyfriend. And then I moved to New York. I went to Paris and Milan in New York, all of those places I decided to go to for six months. But I'm still in New York, you know, thirty years later.
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Speaker 2: I mean San Francisco, I assume was pretty small potatoes. But what was la modeling scene like then? When how old were you when you moved there.
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Speaker 4: So I was a teenager. I was just out of high school, and it was it was you know, you you worked pretty consistently in Los Angeles, Like I worked there and I became like myself and the Scroll, Paula Barbieri and a bunch of girls started becoming really regular you know, models and doing everything that they had to offer there. It was consisted of a lot of commercials, a lot of a lot of TV little little appearances, a lot of commercials, a lot of uh, you know, print like everyday Broadway, may Company, Macy's things like that. In the Nordstrums we did a lot of So it was just very catalog nothing. You know.
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Speaker 5: There was La Style.
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Speaker 4: If you got into La Style, you thought that you were like a supermodel, you know, if you got into that magazine. So that's how that's the level that it was there.
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Speaker 2: And was there a sense of like you got to get to New York or you got to get to Paris or what were people saying?
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Speaker 4: So if there, momling was always about people finding you. There was always scouts. Like even when I which Japan rum is really young, it was a scout came over and said, oh you should go to Japan, I think you'd work there. So when I was in Los Angeles, the same thing happened to me. A scout's like, what why are you here doing jello commercials and working for you know, the main company. Why would you? Why don't you come to New York where you could you know, be a big model. And they said, do you just want to do this until you're thirty years old? And I was like nineteen, and I said, oh my god, you think I'll work until I was thirty. I thought that was like such a compliment, because that's how we were, you know, back then, that's what you thought.
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Speaker 2: What about your heritage, descent, ethnicity, being black? Were you bookable from the time you were young, or were you hearing people say, you know, we don't we only have a slot for one girl like that or something like that.
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Speaker 4: It's you know, I mean, I was my father's white, my mother's black, So I always was identified, you know with I mean, I did it as black person. But I don't negate my father's role in my life or my upbringing from him or his heritage. In the slightest way. I'm very happy my parents got married before it was legal and it was a statement of racial unity. So I'll never negate what I am. I know that I looked different, but other people and everyone always said that. Everyone always said, even when I was a teenager, or you look different, what are you? Where are you from? What are you? What are you? And so I think that I came into play during a time that people started to be intrigued with girls who looked more unique. Was there issues of it? Of course there were. There was times that they tried to pay us less money. There was times that there was a time that I would do two pictures and other girls would do ten, and that's fine. But then there was a shift in our business where we started to do just as much my That's how it was my interpretation. I remember doing a job with just myself, the DJ, this really big model at the time, and yeah, asmin Gari and I was like, whoa is this is crazy? Remember when weed we like looked at each other. Remember we used to barely do anything that we're doing everything?
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Speaker 2: So yeah, what about uh sante? You guys had a loft that was called Plato's retreat? Is that true?
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Speaker 5: Yes, we did. We didn't know.
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Speaker 4: I mean, obviously, when people see things about your behind your back, which is I'm perfectly comfortable with. I don't talk amongst yourselves. I don't need to hear everything. But uh, Stephen Mazell called it Plato's retreat, and we heard I heard about that later on, you know that he was saying.
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Speaker 5: He would say, oh, did you.
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Speaker 4: Guys go to Plato's retreat this weekend? And it was just funny, you know, And it was.
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Speaker 2: Just a big loft that had, like you guys had lots of parties.
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Speaker 4: For me, he lived there with his other girlfriends. So he's never not had that loft, you know. He's had that loft since I was in high school. So it continues to be there. I don't know what goes on there now, but I changed it when I had a child.
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Speaker 5: I changed it and I cleared everybody out.
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Speaker 4: I was like the big party pooper.
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Speaker 2: And so for you, how did things change as your career went on where you said, like, I want to cover of this magazine, No, I want to be Victoria's secret.
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Speaker 4: I met this photographer, Wayne Maser, who's a great photographer, and he said, we were doing these pictures and I just come to New York and I didn't even think I lived there yet, but I did. And he said, did you ever think that you'd be doing beauty for American Vogue? And I said, yes, I did. That's why I came here. I didn't come here to do more catalogs. And so it was a very big deal for me, and I was very excited about my career. And when POLLI I could still go to California a lot, you know, and he knew that I liked that. He knew that I liked being in touch with my family and being working there, and so he really helped me.
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Speaker 2: I mean, there's obviously all sorts of horror stories, you know, or are you like, well, you have to know how to navigate.
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Speaker 4: I mean, it's a predatory world. It was, and it's not I think it come from Niava, Ta on people's parts. Like when I moved to Paris, you know, my parents did it. They didn't even fathom what it was going to be like for us, you know, they didn't even fathom.
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Speaker 5: And I had roommates that.
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Speaker 4: Were fourteen years old, thirteen years old, roommic thre were in eighth grade. They should not be there. When Christy Turlington moved to Paris, when she was fourteen years old. Her mother went with her. No, I've known Christy my whole life. We grew up together, and her mother went with her. It didn't she didn't leave her on her own. She was because there was a stewardess for pan Am. And so you think that that's not similar to.
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Speaker 5: She knew, she knew what it was going to be like, and.
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Speaker 4: It wasn't this kind of thing where everybody was awful. I mean, I was represented by Jean lu Brennell, and I had great times with him, and I had not great times with him. And it's just that's the way we navigate our lives. Of course, we're going to have things that are weird and awkward and uncomfortable. And then I had those when I worked at shoestore, I'd have a boss that was inappropriate. So is it exclusive to the modeling or acting world?
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Speaker 2: Do you remember the word modelizer being used?
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Speaker 4: No? I don't.
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Speaker 2: You don't have you ever heard that word?
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Speaker 4: Though?
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Speaker 3: Yes?
00:16:45
Speaker 4: Okay, familiar.
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Speaker 2: We were like bringing up all these old words like promo, sexual, modelizer, all these like nineties words. Do you remember Skylight?
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Speaker 5: Yeah, so a friend.
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Speaker 2: Of mine ran Skylight. She was beautiful Jen Blueman. She unfortunately passed away, but I remember she used to say to me, pretty girl problems like pretty like you know, and there's actually through doing this project, I'm learning like models are actually quite fragile.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, a lot of them are.
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Speaker 2: But how do you think that through? Like because in some ways, like you have this great leg up in life, which is you're so beautiful, right, like everybody looks at you. Everybody wants to give you things, But it's a double edged sword, Like how do you think about that? Like to be a model that position and.
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Speaker 4: People also want to take things from you. You know, it's I don't I know very little, very few models who don't support their whole families. No, I don't it.
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Speaker 5: Yes, it is.
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Speaker 4: Beauty is a gift, There's no doubt about it. People can I get in trouble for things that I say, But there's certain things that look better on certain certain kinds of people, and people are drawn to that. I mean they used to you used to be able to go to Equinox. They would give us a free membership because they wanted us to go to their gym. That's how it was, you know, That's that's the people would compy things because they wanted you to show up in their restaurant. So sure that it's it's something in life, but it's not it. You know, it's not everything in life. And models are fragile, but it's not. I don't know not one person I know with a problem that problem didn't exist before their career, whether acting or modeling. It exacerbated the problem that was already there.
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Speaker 2: And what exascerbated it, like the long shoots and the sort of being on call all the time and the weirdom.
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Speaker 5: No, it's a lonely life.
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Speaker 4: It's it's a very and that's why Poly like making himself available to certain models when they were alone. Like a lot of models end up with guys that are losers, and that's because those guys are available to constant be with them. So they they want that or they or they need that. So I don't need to be with somebody all the time. I've never I've never needed that. But other a lot of girls, it is there. But there's times in my life that I was extremely lonely. You know, I come from a big family and living in Paris and not speaking French very well. Uh, it affected me because I would be alone constantly and constantly, you know, in Milan alone, in Japan alone. It's and then you meet people and they become little family for a while, but at first you are. It is a very strange experience, you know, to be on your own.
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Speaker 5: So that's why I think it happens.
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Speaker 4: It doesn't make someone necessarily druggy, but you might drink more because you're on your own. You might do something because you're lonely.
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Speaker 5: Sure, but I.
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Speaker 4: Don't know if you tested the population, if it's there's more models that have, you know, isolation depression than other people. I don't know about that. It's possible, but it seems. I mean the way that I grew up. Half of my friends are healthy half of them. Some of them are mess and some of them are fragile. And I don't I grew up with Christy, but she's an extremely strong person, always has been since she was a child. That's just her nature. Not a druggy person, not a party girl. So that it just happens to some people that's going to be their stake in life, and sometimes what they do is going to make it worse. I mean, people, we're a sexual world, we're a sexual society, society, you're going to want to be with people. That's normal, you know. When I first went to Paris, I was prepared for things that my fourteen year old roommates were not prepared for. And my fourteen year old roommates hated me because I wouldn't let them go.
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Speaker 5: To Central Pay on a boat with some guy. You know, I wouldn't let them take gifts from people.
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Speaker 4: And they were like, I don't want to be roommates with her anymore because she won't let us have fun. I'm an older sister, so I'm protective in my nature, but I also know when people are being gross.
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Speaker 5: Can smell it, you know. But I'm not saying things didn't happen.
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Speaker 4: Of course I had.
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Speaker 5: That's the way I became.
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Speaker 4: The way I became is because things happened to me. So it's normal. Yeah, that doesn't mean it's right, but it's normal.
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Speaker 2: What were the pictures you did with Dennis Hopper?
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Speaker 4: So they were of Italian Vogue and we're uh on the beach and we're like on a like on a like a day bed, and they're all outdoors. There's one that I look like I'm pushing up on him. They're like really sexy pictures. They're beautiful pictures, and he wasn't a plan for him to be in the picture at all. We were walking doing these pictures for a Talian vogue at the Venice Film Festival during the Venice Film Festival, and I walked up to him and said, do you want to be in some pictures with me? And he's like, oh, yeah, of course I will.
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Speaker 5: So that so like he's in a suit on the beach.
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Speaker 2: So he's uh, he's fully. I mean, it's uh, I don't know. I mean, how do you feel about having lost a lot of these people like they've done us Hoppers and all these people from your past who you know, like I guess they live on within the photos that you have, you.
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Speaker 5: Know, they absolutely do.
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Speaker 4: There's a lot of people there's like the Tatiana petits is that it crushes me, you know, like it's it doesn't seem right that Gail O'Neill is gone. That it just seems crazy to me that these people that are young are gone. You know, Yeah, a lot of people that we did jobs with the pictures with her are gone. It happened in our industry with makeup that her Brits is gone. Who's like the sweetest person in the world. Nobody's more deserving of the career he had than him, So it is shocking, you know. I mean, my mom just died two months ago, so okay, that's okay. I can accept like death. But when some many young guys, it always breaks my heart, you know, when they're too young, when there should still be in this world. It's heartbreaking.
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Speaker 2: You eventually retired from modeling. Why did you do that? Did you want to do it for a while and then do it or how did it all happen?
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Speaker 4: So I met someone and it just became like when you're when you have your pick of the crop, it's great, you know, it's life's easier when you are doing Victoria's Secrets or you're doing jobs in locations that you want to and then when it becomes harder. I really really stopped working when I got married, which was twenty years ago. You know, I will do things, but it's more like an appearance thing. It's more like a special booking thing. It's I won't just I'm not trying to. I did something really recently with Michelle Heady at the Chelsea hotel, and you know, someone asked me and it's you know, Michelle Heady. Now all of a sudden, it's trying to get me to work all the time. Like I'm good. I like, if you have something cool for us to do, then I'll be there. But I'm not just I'm not trying to sit on the streets of Miami or Wisconsin and do catalog anymore. That's I've did that for a long time, and I don't you know, I'm not interested in that anymore. But things were good and I got a sick ass con. I would love that. I would love that.
00:25:03
Speaker 2: And how many kids do you have?
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Speaker 4: Two kids?
00:25:06
Speaker 2: Two kids?
00:25:07
Speaker 3: Wow?
00:25:08
Speaker 2: How old are they now?
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Speaker 4: I have a boy that's twenty nine and a boy that's seventeen.
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Speaker 2: Okay, two men, two men, Oh my god.
00:25:17
Speaker 4: And my son's a photographer. My my oldest son's a photographer. Nick Derossi. He was really really good, cool, you know, working all the time and doing really well. You just did show week. He went to Italy to assist for Julia Roberts. He went to Julia Roberts wedding and was the assistant. So he's been doing it since he was ten years old.
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Speaker 5: Assistant, and he had a bunch of jobs. He had some Wall Street things, he worked restaurants, He had a bunch of different things that he did.
00:25:42
Speaker 4: And then he started taking pictures. Really liked it, and I was like, I don't want him.
00:25:46
Speaker 1: To do that.
00:25:46
Speaker 4: I don't want to do it.
00:25:47
Speaker 5: And Christy Trillington's like, just let him.
00:25:49
Speaker 4: You know, he's excited about it. Just let him do it.
00:25:52
Speaker 5: It's not like I, it's letting doesn't exist though.
00:25:54
Speaker 4: People do what they want to do.
00:25:57
Speaker 2: And so, like, what was it like having kids on the shoot with you? Was it like it's easy, They're just in the corner and you get a babysitter to come, or was it like crazy?
00:26:08
Speaker 6: I didn't take him his dad did. I didn't take him because because my my thing is an illusion, you know, like even even in the year two thousand when I did Playboy and I was a mother already in La the photographer, you know, he got mixed messages from the way I was looking at him.
00:26:26
Speaker 4: It's like, no, I'm this is my job. I know you think I'm in love with you and always have been, but that's not that's not the case. No, So I never took him because of the illusion. I mean I maybe took him like twice if he was there for the job something.
00:26:41
Speaker 5: But then people get distracted and they.
00:26:43
Speaker 4: Think, you know, you're something that you're not like I. I didn't want to get into the way of that illusion of you know, being you know, like he teases me now because he goes, you were so young when you had me, and you were the young mom, and now you're an old mom like everybody else.
00:26:59
Speaker 2: So what like would you would you have if you had a daughter? Would you have a model? And what if so we would you tell me?
00:27:07
Speaker 4: It's so funny that you say that, because Gracie Burns, Christy's daughters modeling a little bit now and I just saw City the other night and we're talking about Kaya. But I'm Kaya was born to do that. You know, even if Cindy wasn't her mother, she would still be a supermodel. I mean, look she it's crazy how how she It's crazy how she looks.
00:27:27
Speaker 5: I think that.
00:27:28
Speaker 4: The industry is more protective now than it used to be.
00:27:31
Speaker 2: How do you think it's changed.
00:27:33
Speaker 5: I think that.
00:27:33
Speaker 4: People are more aware of what happened. There's a lot of exposure of what happened. You know, in our generation, there's a lot of exposure of you know, the predatory behavior and the people taking advantage you know a lot of people. I'm surprised that there's certain people that haven't been vested. I'm like, whoa, they got away with that. So and then some that I think probably shouldn't have gotten trouble. But I just think that people know more, Like Grace Christy's daughter is like, there's no way this generation of women, those girls that are like twenties, you know, like ronic Web's daughter, and there's no way that they're going to let someone do something. There's no way they're going to be shocked and go let someone expose themselves. Or they would just be like what the fuck are you doing? You know what's going on here? They would be like the way I got when I was like twenty seven, you know, after I'd already experienced it and it's like, Okay, now you finally woke up and say things to people.
00:28:30
Speaker 5: But their moms probably prepared them more for it.
00:28:38
Speaker 7: Model Wars was a production of iHeart Podcasts and Campside Media. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Model Wars was executive produced and hosted by Vanessa Gregoriotis. Our senior writer was Michael knyon Meyer.
00:28:55
Speaker 2: Julia K.
00:28:56
Speaker 7: S Lavine was our producer and reporter. Our senior producer was Lily Houston Smith, and our assistant editor was Emma Simonoff. We had story and production help from Shoshi Schmulowitz, Ali Haney, and Blake Rook. Our production manager was Ashley Warren and our studio recordist was Ewan Li Tremuen. Sound designed by Mark McCadam. This episode was mixed and engineered by Amber Devereaux. iHeart Podcasts. Executive producers were Jennifer Bassett and Katrina Norbel. The show was also executive produced by Rachel winter In, Campside Media's Josh Deen, Adam Hoff and not Share. If you'd like to access behind the scenes content from Model Wars and Campside Media, please go to join campside dot com. That's j O I, M C A, M P s I d E dot com. If you enjoyed Model Wars, please rate and review the show wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks so much for listening.
00:29:58
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for listening to my Wars. We'll be back next week with the last of our ten episodes
Speaker 1: Campside Media.
00:00:24
Speaker 2: Thanks for coming back. Everyone to Model Wars Episode nine, a production of iHeart Podcasts and Campside Media. I'm Vanessa Grigoriatis. So this episode we're talking to some of the women that we interviewed for this podcast, like Susie Sugarman. She was a model booker for a long time and she's got a terrific personality. You'll hear her talk about kamoral Lee Simmons, who is the model who is married to Russell Simmons. She'll also talk about Carla Brunei, the model who was later married to Nicholas Sarkozy, president of France. So Susie specialized in booking models for catalogs, which were big business back in the day, obviously back when catalogs still came in the mail and that's how we bought close instead of on the internet. So listen in to my interview with Susie. What were some of the catalogs you were working with and like how much were the models getting waited?
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Speaker 3: Just to give you an example of how I created this and this is why you know, Paul will tell you like that I was one of the best catalog bookers in the industry. I would go home to my doorman building, and every floor I think it had twenty something floors. I literally would go to the garbage of every single floor where they had like the recycling bin, and I collected every catalog that ever existed, and I would lug the catalogs to work every day, and I started pounding the phones to every single catalog and saying, like, who does your ca how can I you know? Where do I go?
00:02:02
Speaker 2: And what were some of them, like Delia's or.
00:02:06
Speaker 3: We're talking like so many department stores, like Macy's had stores in like the Midwest. They had it in the you know, San Francisco, they had it in Atlanta, they had it in Florida. You know, it wasn't just a New York market. And like nord Strums and mem and Marcus and J. C. Penny and then there was Riches, which was a big department store, and god, there was so many more stores back in those days. They paid very like a lot of them paid super well in the nineties. I mean, girls were like, on average, like a low rate would be you know, fifteen hundred to two thousand a day, and then certain girls you could get up to like maybe thirty five hundred, you know, or higher it depending on if they were like a star. Back in those days, there was no computers, right, and there was no like cell phones, so it was a very different time. But I'm telling I tell young people now, it worked so much better than it works now because nobody relied on like a text, No one relied on a you know, on an email. We didn't have that. So the models actually had to get rolls of quarters and go to every corner and call in every hour on the hour to the agency to make sure that they are not missing.
00:03:33
Speaker 2: A casting and so like who in the time you were in with it, you know, who were the top ones.
00:03:38
Speaker 3: Girls found out about Paul because he literally was known to have like polaroids of girls and submit them to magazines. Like he's literally had a girl in a polaroid and then put on the cover of a magazine.
00:03:55
Speaker 2: And were you ever like intimidated by them? Like these beautiful tall you know, blah blah bla, Like you go to a nightclub to get all.
00:04:01
Speaker 3: That because all like the club owners loved me, Like everybody, like you know, knew who I was and they knew I was coming with the girls.
00:04:10
Speaker 2: Well, but what's the point of having the models at the party like this is? I think what people don't quite understand. It's basically just to make the room look.
00:04:18
Speaker 3: Like what's the twofold answer. Back in the nineties, we needed to bond with our models, and the way you bonded with your models were like going to dinner, going out this way. They felt close to their booker and they weren't looking to like jump to another agency. For the promoters, of course, if you have models in a place like, you're going to get the spenders to come and you know, drop a lot of money buying bottles or I mean, it's the oldest you know story in the book, right. I don't remember sneaking anybody in myself, but I know that back then people didn't even look twice if like younger girls were coming in you know. Of course that stopped over the years, but yeah, I mean I've been to like clubs where I see one of my seventeen year olds, you know, like asking me if I wanted to like have champagne at her table.
00:05:15
Speaker 4: I was like, what what made it kind of different than those other agencies like Click and for How would you describe it as different?
00:05:23
Speaker 3: We were like a real boutique agency, and like Paul and Omar were magic, like they were these two young guys. Models actually came into the agency and that's what made it Models such a wonderful agency because we welcomed our models to come in because sometimes a lot of girls didn't have places to go in between castings. So like there were certain agencies that like didn't want their models to come in. There was certain agencies that are like, no, we don't bother us. But we were like a big family and we welcomed the girls and they would come in and they would bring us coffee and they would bring us cookies, and we really became like a family. And that was really due to Paul Fisher because he really encouraged like us to have the relationships with the girls and the girls to have the relationship with us. Paul had represented Naomi in La, We had Kimura, Carla Bruni. I'm trying to remember like some of the girls that were just you know, Oh, we had Jade who married Matt Lower. Her real name was Annette, but her model name is Jade. Everybody was concentrating on the stars quote unquote stars, but you have all these models that need to work every day, they need to pay their bills. I've never been intimidated. I love the girls. They were like my sisters. I'm still close with, like pretty much every girl I've ever represented in all these years, especially a lot of the girls from Models Days are still like my family. I consider them family. I mean, you know, you get what you give.
00:07:06
Speaker 2: Right now, we're going to talk to someone you've met in earlier episodes. Kara Young. She's the model who was super hot in the nineties and she lived in this amazing loft in Soho with a guy named Sante Drazzio. He was a very well known fashion photographer. They were good friends with Paul and Caara was modeling for everyone. Here's Kara tell us where you grew up and when you started being a model.
00:07:57
Speaker 4: I was born in San Francisco, California. My parents are from the South. My mom was from North Carolina and my father is from Texas and he was.
00:08:08
Speaker 5: In the military and they met.
00:08:12
Speaker 4: Her mother lived out there, so they moved up there. So I grew up in San Francisco until I was Before I was ten, I moved to the East Bay and I started There was a contest called Look of the Year that a lot of girls started modeling from. But I didn't place at all. I was just one of the random contestants. And this girl that I worked in the shoe store with her mother said, oh, you guys should enter this contest. You should be models, and da da da da, and she entered us in this contest. And then I actually started modeling from that. So, like four years ago, this girl contacted me on Instagram and she says, you're not the car young that worked in San Valley mall though, right, I go, yeah, I am, I said, I remember you. Your mom, you know, helped us start modelish so worked out a bit better for you than it did myself. But yeah, So I started in San Francisco, and then I moved to Los Angeles when I was a teenager with a boyfriend. And then I moved to New York. I went to Paris and Milan in New York, all of those places I decided to go to for six months. But I'm still in New York, you know, thirty years later.
00:09:29
Speaker 2: I mean San Francisco, I assume was pretty small potatoes. But what was la modeling scene like then? When how old were you when you moved there.
00:09:36
Speaker 4: So I was a teenager. I was just out of high school, and it was it was you know, you you worked pretty consistently in Los Angeles, Like I worked there and I became like myself and the Scroll, Paula Barbieri and a bunch of girls started becoming really regular you know, models and doing everything that they had to offer there. It was consisted of a lot of commercials, a lot of a lot of TV little little appearances, a lot of commercials, a lot of uh, you know, print like everyday Broadway, may Company, Macy's things like that. In the Nordstrums we did a lot of So it was just very catalog nothing. You know.
00:10:25
Speaker 5: There was La Style.
00:10:27
Speaker 4: If you got into La Style, you thought that you were like a supermodel, you know, if you got into that magazine. So that's how that's the level that it was there.
00:10:36
Speaker 2: And was there a sense of like you got to get to New York or you got to get to Paris or what were people saying?
00:10:43
Speaker 4: So if there, momling was always about people finding you. There was always scouts. Like even when I which Japan rum is really young, it was a scout came over and said, oh you should go to Japan, I think you'd work there. So when I was in Los Angeles, the same thing happened to me. A scout's like, what why are you here doing jello commercials and working for you know, the main company. Why would you? Why don't you come to New York where you could you know, be a big model. And they said, do you just want to do this until you're thirty years old? And I was like nineteen, and I said, oh my god, you think I'll work until I was thirty. I thought that was like such a compliment, because that's how we were, you know, back then, that's what you thought.
00:11:31
Speaker 2: What about your heritage, descent, ethnicity, being black? Were you bookable from the time you were young, or were you hearing people say, you know, we don't we only have a slot for one girl like that or something like that.
00:11:49
Speaker 4: It's you know, I mean, I was my father's white, my mother's black, So I always was identified, you know with I mean, I did it as black person. But I don't negate my father's role in my life or my upbringing from him or his heritage. In the slightest way. I'm very happy my parents got married before it was legal and it was a statement of racial unity. So I'll never negate what I am. I know that I looked different, but other people and everyone always said that. Everyone always said, even when I was a teenager, or you look different, what are you? Where are you from? What are you? What are you? And so I think that I came into play during a time that people started to be intrigued with girls who looked more unique. Was there issues of it? Of course there were. There was times that they tried to pay us less money. There was times that there was a time that I would do two pictures and other girls would do ten, and that's fine. But then there was a shift in our business where we started to do just as much my That's how it was my interpretation. I remember doing a job with just myself, the DJ, this really big model at the time, and yeah, asmin Gari and I was like, whoa is this is crazy? Remember when weed we like looked at each other. Remember we used to barely do anything that we're doing everything?
00:13:20
Speaker 2: So yeah, what about uh sante? You guys had a loft that was called Plato's retreat? Is that true?
00:13:28
Speaker 5: Yes, we did. We didn't know.
00:13:30
Speaker 4: I mean, obviously, when people see things about your behind your back, which is I'm perfectly comfortable with. I don't talk amongst yourselves. I don't need to hear everything. But uh, Stephen Mazell called it Plato's retreat, and we heard I heard about that later on, you know that he was saying.
00:13:50
Speaker 5: He would say, oh, did you.
00:13:51
Speaker 4: Guys go to Plato's retreat this weekend? And it was just funny, you know, And it was.
00:13:55
Speaker 2: Just a big loft that had, like you guys had lots of parties.
00:14:00
Speaker 4: For me, he lived there with his other girlfriends. So he's never not had that loft, you know. He's had that loft since I was in high school. So it continues to be there. I don't know what goes on there now, but I changed it when I had a child.
00:14:15
Speaker 5: I changed it and I cleared everybody out.
00:14:17
Speaker 4: I was like the big party pooper.
00:14:20
Speaker 2: And so for you, how did things change as your career went on where you said, like, I want to cover of this magazine, No, I want to be Victoria's secret.
00:14:30
Speaker 4: I met this photographer, Wayne Maser, who's a great photographer, and he said, we were doing these pictures and I just come to New York and I didn't even think I lived there yet, but I did. And he said, did you ever think that you'd be doing beauty for American Vogue? And I said, yes, I did. That's why I came here. I didn't come here to do more catalogs. And so it was a very big deal for me, and I was very excited about my career. And when POLLI I could still go to California a lot, you know, and he knew that I liked that. He knew that I liked being in touch with my family and being working there, and so he really helped me.
00:15:12
Speaker 2: I mean, there's obviously all sorts of horror stories, you know, or are you like, well, you have to know how to navigate.
00:15:18
Speaker 4: I mean, it's a predatory world. It was, and it's not I think it come from Niava, Ta on people's parts. Like when I moved to Paris, you know, my parents did it. They didn't even fathom what it was going to be like for us, you know, they didn't even fathom.
00:15:37
Speaker 5: And I had roommates that.
00:15:38
Speaker 4: Were fourteen years old, thirteen years old, roommic thre were in eighth grade. They should not be there. When Christy Turlington moved to Paris, when she was fourteen years old. Her mother went with her. No, I've known Christy my whole life. We grew up together, and her mother went with her. It didn't she didn't leave her on her own. She was because there was a stewardess for pan Am. And so you think that that's not similar to.
00:16:06
Speaker 5: She knew, she knew what it was going to be like, and.
00:16:10
Speaker 4: It wasn't this kind of thing where everybody was awful. I mean, I was represented by Jean lu Brennell, and I had great times with him, and I had not great times with him. And it's just that's the way we navigate our lives. Of course, we're going to have things that are weird and awkward and uncomfortable. And then I had those when I worked at shoestore, I'd have a boss that was inappropriate. So is it exclusive to the modeling or acting world?
00:16:36
Speaker 2: Do you remember the word modelizer being used?
00:16:40
Speaker 4: No? I don't.
00:16:42
Speaker 2: You don't have you ever heard that word?
00:16:44
Speaker 4: Though?
00:16:44
Speaker 3: Yes?
00:16:45
Speaker 4: Okay, familiar.
00:16:48
Speaker 2: We were like bringing up all these old words like promo, sexual, modelizer, all these like nineties words. Do you remember Skylight?
00:16:56
Speaker 5: Yeah, so a friend.
00:16:57
Speaker 2: Of mine ran Skylight. She was beautiful Jen Blueman. She unfortunately passed away, but I remember she used to say to me, pretty girl problems like pretty like you know, and there's actually through doing this project, I'm learning like models are actually quite fragile.
00:17:15
Speaker 4: Yeah, a lot of them are.
00:17:16
Speaker 2: But how do you think that through? Like because in some ways, like you have this great leg up in life, which is you're so beautiful, right, like everybody looks at you. Everybody wants to give you things, But it's a double edged sword, Like how do you think about that? Like to be a model that position and.
00:17:34
Speaker 4: People also want to take things from you. You know, it's I don't I know very little, very few models who don't support their whole families. No, I don't it.
00:17:46
Speaker 5: Yes, it is.
00:17:48
Speaker 4: Beauty is a gift, There's no doubt about it. People can I get in trouble for things that I say, But there's certain things that look better on certain certain kinds of people, and people are drawn to that. I mean they used to you used to be able to go to Equinox. They would give us a free membership because they wanted us to go to their gym. That's how it was, you know, That's that's the people would compy things because they wanted you to show up in their restaurant. So sure that it's it's something in life, but it's not it. You know, it's not everything in life. And models are fragile, but it's not. I don't know not one person I know with a problem that problem didn't exist before their career, whether acting or modeling. It exacerbated the problem that was already there.
00:18:37
Speaker 2: And what exascerbated it, like the long shoots and the sort of being on call all the time and the weirdom.
00:18:47
Speaker 5: No, it's a lonely life.
00:18:48
Speaker 4: It's it's a very and that's why Poly like making himself available to certain models when they were alone. Like a lot of models end up with guys that are losers, and that's because those guys are available to constant be with them. So they they want that or they or they need that. So I don't need to be with somebody all the time. I've never I've never needed that. But other a lot of girls, it is there. But there's times in my life that I was extremely lonely. You know, I come from a big family and living in Paris and not speaking French very well. Uh, it affected me because I would be alone constantly and constantly, you know, in Milan alone, in Japan alone. It's and then you meet people and they become little family for a while, but at first you are. It is a very strange experience, you know, to be on your own.
00:19:41
Speaker 5: So that's why I think it happens.
00:19:43
Speaker 4: It doesn't make someone necessarily druggy, but you might drink more because you're on your own. You might do something because you're lonely.
00:19:52
Speaker 5: Sure, but I.
00:19:53
Speaker 4: Don't know if you tested the population, if it's there's more models that have, you know, isolation depression than other people. I don't know about that. It's possible, but it seems. I mean the way that I grew up. Half of my friends are healthy half of them. Some of them are mess and some of them are fragile. And I don't I grew up with Christy, but she's an extremely strong person, always has been since she was a child. That's just her nature. Not a druggy person, not a party girl. So that it just happens to some people that's going to be their stake in life, and sometimes what they do is going to make it worse. I mean, people, we're a sexual world, we're a sexual society, society, you're going to want to be with people. That's normal, you know. When I first went to Paris, I was prepared for things that my fourteen year old roommates were not prepared for. And my fourteen year old roommates hated me because I wouldn't let them go.
00:20:59
Speaker 5: To Central Pay on a boat with some guy. You know, I wouldn't let them take gifts from people.
00:21:05
Speaker 4: And they were like, I don't want to be roommates with her anymore because she won't let us have fun. I'm an older sister, so I'm protective in my nature, but I also know when people are being gross.
00:21:16
Speaker 5: Can smell it, you know. But I'm not saying things didn't happen.
00:21:19
Speaker 4: Of course I had.
00:21:20
Speaker 5: That's the way I became.
00:21:21
Speaker 4: The way I became is because things happened to me. So it's normal. Yeah, that doesn't mean it's right, but it's normal.
00:21:44
Speaker 2: What were the pictures you did with Dennis Hopper?
00:21:47
Speaker 4: So they were of Italian Vogue and we're uh on the beach and we're like on a like on a like a day bed, and they're all outdoors. There's one that I look like I'm pushing up on him. They're like really sexy pictures. They're beautiful pictures, and he wasn't a plan for him to be in the picture at all. We were walking doing these pictures for a Talian vogue at the Venice Film Festival during the Venice Film Festival, and I walked up to him and said, do you want to be in some pictures with me? And he's like, oh, yeah, of course I will.
00:22:25
Speaker 5: So that so like he's in a suit on the beach.
00:22:28
Speaker 2: So he's uh, he's fully. I mean, it's uh, I don't know. I mean, how do you feel about having lost a lot of these people like they've done us Hoppers and all these people from your past who you know, like I guess they live on within the photos that you have, you.
00:22:49
Speaker 5: Know, they absolutely do.
00:22:50
Speaker 4: There's a lot of people there's like the Tatiana petits is that it crushes me, you know, like it's it doesn't seem right that Gail O'Neill is gone. That it just seems crazy to me that these people that are young are gone. You know, Yeah, a lot of people that we did jobs with the pictures with her are gone. It happened in our industry with makeup that her Brits is gone. Who's like the sweetest person in the world. Nobody's more deserving of the career he had than him, So it is shocking, you know. I mean, my mom just died two months ago, so okay, that's okay. I can accept like death. But when some many young guys, it always breaks my heart, you know, when they're too young, when there should still be in this world. It's heartbreaking.
00:23:40
Speaker 2: You eventually retired from modeling. Why did you do that? Did you want to do it for a while and then do it or how did it all happen?
00:23:50
Speaker 4: So I met someone and it just became like when you're when you have your pick of the crop, it's great, you know, it's life's easier when you are doing Victoria's Secrets or you're doing jobs in locations that you want to and then when it becomes harder. I really really stopped working when I got married, which was twenty years ago. You know, I will do things, but it's more like an appearance thing. It's more like a special booking thing. It's I won't just I'm not trying to. I did something really recently with Michelle Heady at the Chelsea hotel, and you know, someone asked me and it's you know, Michelle Heady. Now all of a sudden, it's trying to get me to work all the time. Like I'm good. I like, if you have something cool for us to do, then I'll be there. But I'm not just I'm not trying to sit on the streets of Miami or Wisconsin and do catalog anymore. That's I've did that for a long time, and I don't you know, I'm not interested in that anymore. But things were good and I got a sick ass con. I would love that. I would love that.
00:25:03
Speaker 2: And how many kids do you have?
00:25:05
Speaker 4: Two kids?
00:25:06
Speaker 2: Two kids?
00:25:07
Speaker 3: Wow?
00:25:08
Speaker 2: How old are they now?
00:25:09
Speaker 4: I have a boy that's twenty nine and a boy that's seventeen.
00:25:12
Speaker 2: Okay, two men, two men, Oh my god.
00:25:17
Speaker 4: And my son's a photographer. My my oldest son's a photographer. Nick Derossi. He was really really good, cool, you know, working all the time and doing really well. You just did show week. He went to Italy to assist for Julia Roberts. He went to Julia Roberts wedding and was the assistant. So he's been doing it since he was ten years old.
00:25:36
Speaker 5: Assistant, and he had a bunch of jobs. He had some Wall Street things, he worked restaurants, He had a bunch of different things that he did.
00:25:42
Speaker 4: And then he started taking pictures. Really liked it, and I was like, I don't want him.
00:25:46
Speaker 1: To do that.
00:25:46
Speaker 4: I don't want to do it.
00:25:47
Speaker 5: And Christy Trillington's like, just let him.
00:25:49
Speaker 4: You know, he's excited about it. Just let him do it.
00:25:52
Speaker 5: It's not like I, it's letting doesn't exist though.
00:25:54
Speaker 4: People do what they want to do.
00:25:57
Speaker 2: And so, like, what was it like having kids on the shoot with you? Was it like it's easy, They're just in the corner and you get a babysitter to come, or was it like crazy?
00:26:08
Speaker 6: I didn't take him his dad did. I didn't take him because because my my thing is an illusion, you know, like even even in the year two thousand when I did Playboy and I was a mother already in La the photographer, you know, he got mixed messages from the way I was looking at him.
00:26:26
Speaker 4: It's like, no, I'm this is my job. I know you think I'm in love with you and always have been, but that's not that's not the case. No, So I never took him because of the illusion. I mean I maybe took him like twice if he was there for the job something.
00:26:41
Speaker 5: But then people get distracted and they.
00:26:43
Speaker 4: Think, you know, you're something that you're not like I. I didn't want to get into the way of that illusion of you know, being you know, like he teases me now because he goes, you were so young when you had me, and you were the young mom, and now you're an old mom like everybody else.
00:26:59
Speaker 2: So what like would you would you have if you had a daughter? Would you have a model? And what if so we would you tell me?
00:27:07
Speaker 4: It's so funny that you say that, because Gracie Burns, Christy's daughters modeling a little bit now and I just saw City the other night and we're talking about Kaya. But I'm Kaya was born to do that. You know, even if Cindy wasn't her mother, she would still be a supermodel. I mean, look she it's crazy how how she It's crazy how she looks.
00:27:27
Speaker 5: I think that.
00:27:28
Speaker 4: The industry is more protective now than it used to be.
00:27:31
Speaker 2: How do you think it's changed.
00:27:33
Speaker 5: I think that.
00:27:33
Speaker 4: People are more aware of what happened. There's a lot of exposure of what happened. You know, in our generation, there's a lot of exposure of you know, the predatory behavior and the people taking advantage you know a lot of people. I'm surprised that there's certain people that haven't been vested. I'm like, whoa, they got away with that. So and then some that I think probably shouldn't have gotten trouble. But I just think that people know more, Like Grace Christy's daughter is like, there's no way this generation of women, those girls that are like twenties, you know, like ronic Web's daughter, and there's no way that they're going to let someone do something. There's no way they're going to be shocked and go let someone expose themselves. Or they would just be like what the fuck are you doing? You know what's going on here? They would be like the way I got when I was like twenty seven, you know, after I'd already experienced it and it's like, Okay, now you finally woke up and say things to people.
00:28:30
Speaker 5: But their moms probably prepared them more for it.
00:28:38
Speaker 7: Model Wars was a production of iHeart Podcasts and Campside Media. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Model Wars was executive produced and hosted by Vanessa Gregoriotis. Our senior writer was Michael knyon Meyer.
00:28:55
Speaker 2: Julia K.
00:28:56
Speaker 7: S Lavine was our producer and reporter. Our senior producer was Lily Houston Smith, and our assistant editor was Emma Simonoff. We had story and production help from Shoshi Schmulowitz, Ali Haney, and Blake Rook. Our production manager was Ashley Warren and our studio recordist was Ewan Li Tremuen. Sound designed by Mark McCadam. This episode was mixed and engineered by Amber Devereaux. iHeart Podcasts. Executive producers were Jennifer Bassett and Katrina Norbel. The show was also executive produced by Rachel winter In, Campside Media's Josh Deen, Adam Hoff and not Share. If you'd like to access behind the scenes content from Model Wars and Campside Media, please go to join campside dot com. That's j O I, M C A, M P s I d E dot com. If you enjoyed Model Wars, please rate and review the show wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks so much for listening.
00:29:58
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for listening to my Wars. We'll be back next week with the last of our ten episodes
