[excerpt from Jerry Hall: My Life in Pictures] ------------------- I went to see a model agent in Dallas, and she got me work at a fashion show; it was my first catwalk experience, but she said I was too tall and exotic for modelling in Dallas and told me that I should go to New York or Europe, where she thought I would get more work.
...When I arrived in Paris I was overwhelmed by a combination of panic and exhilaration. I didn't know a thing about France, except what I'd learned from the films I had watched with my French class at school, amongst them those by the legendary filmmaker Luis Buñuel. I adored his films; they were so stylised and dark and interesting, and totally unlike the Hollywood fodder which was being put out by the American studios in the early seventies. I was sure that if it was anything like the films, then Paris must be wonderful.
It was a sunny May morning when I took my first taxi ride through the city. The streets were still wet from a light shower and I rolled down the window and breathed in the heady smell -- a mixture of rain, dust and chestnuts being roasted by the sidewalk vendors. As we drove up to the Arc de Triomphe, I took out my Kodak instamatic camera and started taking photos. The beauty of the impressive buildings, and the sensuous statues and fountains that we passed thrilled me.
I checked into a youth hostel, unsure what to do next. A few days later, with my backpack and my Euro rail pass, off I went to Saint-Tropez. I was excited about heading to the South of France as my mother had told me the Riviera was the place to go and I had spent way too much money buying a beautiful pink metallic crochet bikini and a pair of ridiculous, giant pink and silver platform shoes with cork wedges.
On my first morning on the beach, I must have stood out from the crowd; 16 years old, six foot tall, long blonde hair and in my shocking pink ensemble!
I lay on the beach and when mid morning came, I went off to the bathroom. On the way back, a man stopped me and asked, 'would you like to be a model in Paris?' I tried to play it cool, and took his card. I phoned him that night and he offered to pay my fare back to Paris where he said he would put me in an apartment with some other models. And that's how it all started. I couldn't believe I'd been asked to be a model on my very first day on the beach.
I went back to Paris and moved into a flat with a couple of other girls and the agency started sending me for modelling jobs. One night my flatmate Tom Cashin introduced me to the fashion illustrator Antonio Lopez. Originally from Puerto Rico, he had lived in the States and then come to live in Paris, where he was doing illustrations for magazines.
Antonio became a great friend. He taught me how to model and a lot about fashion and photography. His drawings intrigued me, and I developed an interest in the history of fashion and photography. I read up on the subject, studying the many fashion and photography books in Antonio's studio.
I was captivated by the models' poses and copied them for hours, using a full-length mirror. Oddly, my naivety increased my confidence for I imagined that I could be the best model in the world, if there was such a thing!
I led a hectic existence, going to see people about modelling jobs, posing for Antonio and studying my craft, as well as going out at night a lot.
Everywhere I went I seemed to meet famous and interesting people. I used to have tea with Salvador Dali and his wife Gaia. He asked me to do a film with him at his house in Spain. He wanted me to be nude with just a white veil over my head, running through his sculpture garden.
I said 'no' as I had promised my Mama I wouldn't pose nude.
I had dinner with King Vidor, the former movie director, and his daughter one night. I used to have lunch at La Coupole; it was the in place to eat. I once went there all dressed up in Mama's sexy glam clothes, borrowed my agent's Great Dane and put a rhinestone collar on it. I was having coffee and got talking to an older couple sitting next to me.
They turned out to be Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. I knew who they were, because I had watched their programme about existentialism on TV and I also loved his book Being and Nothingness, exploring our inner and outer selves.
Jean-Paul and Simone invited me to lunch, along with my twin sister Terry, who had come over to stay with me for a while. They loved hearing about our small town and the rodeo.
By that time we were living in a little hotel called The Hotel Crystal and Grace Jones moved in with us for a while. We shared a room; it had twin beds on one side and a single bed on the other and was divided by a curtain.
Grace had just arrived in Paris hoping to be a model and she didn't have much money or a place to live. We thought she was fun and told her to move in. We also used to hang out with Bellina Hall and Pat Cleveland. Bellina was singing and dancing in transvestite cabaret, and Pat was a model -- I thought she was the best there was.
We used to put on little cabaret shows for friends in our hotel room, singing songs like, Three little girls from Little Rock.
Terry and I kept telling Grace that she should be a singer; she had such a beautiful voice. Antonio introduced Grace to Jean-Paul Goude, the photographer. He took wonderful photographs of her, amazing iconic images that celebrated her African roots, and Grace eventually moved in with him.
Terry and I kept getting kicked out of hotels for making too much noise. ...
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{Jerry Hall: My life in pictures. Written by Jerry Hall. Curated by Jonathan Phang. 2010. Quadrille Publishing.}
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