Paris was everything I wanted

 

----------------- [excerpt from Jerry Hall's book] ------------ Terry and I kept getting kicked out of hotels for making too much noise.  The Hotel Crystal was followed by Le Montana and then La Louisiana.  Whichever hotel we were in, we always had breakfast everyday at the Café de Flore, the place to be.  

Eventually Terry and I got our own apartment and for our first dinner party we invited all our friends, and served instant mash potatoes and frozen oven-baked French fries, with lots of red wine.  Our friends laughed so much at our awful first attempt at cooking.

        Our apartment was on a street with a large graveyard across the road.  Three Iranian students lived upstairs; nice guys who said 'hello' if we passed them on the stairs.  One night after a dinner out, we took the metro home.  That meant walking past the graveyard which always gave us the creeps.  

When we realized a man was walking behind us, Terry and I picked up our pace -- and so did the man.  We ran through our front door which had no lock, and up the winding metal stairs and the man followed us and grabbed at our ankles.  We screamed and I took off one of my high heels and hit him with it.  Our Iranian friends came out and chased the guy off, but we were so shaken we decided to move out.

        Terry didn't like modelling and only stayed a few months before she went back home to Texas.  But for me, Paris was everything I wanted.  By that time I had got a good agent and been introduced to Helmut Newton, who gave me my first big break.  

        I was appearing on the covers of magazines like Elle, 20 Ans, Stern, French Vogue and Italian Vogue, and getting a lot of pictures in the fashion news.  I was always amazed when I passed a news-stand and saw my face.

        I was also catwalk modelling and doing several of the big couture fashion shows -- for Yves Saint Laurent, Madame Grey and Valentino, amongst others.  I became a favourite of the catwalk photographers because I would often stop a few feet before the end of the runway and pose for them.  Bill Cunningham, who was a friend of Antonio's and a great reportage photographer, would shout, 'Go get 'em, Tex'.

        It was such an exciting time.

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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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