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At fifty-nine years old, I let my hair go silver. Two years later, I was pregnant on the cover of New York magazine. (Well, I wasn’t really pregnant, but it looked pretty convincing.) At sixty-seven, I walked in my first runway show at New York Fashion Week with women who were a third of my age. At sixty-nine, I became a CoverGirl.
Can you imagine? I never did. I would never have predicted that letting my hair go gray would be the secret to becoming a supermodel. I first walked a runway at fifteen, and they told me I’d be done at eighteen. As a model, I never expected to be carrying on this long—and certainly not in my prime at seventy-one. But here I am, fifty-six years later, and I’m still just getting started.
Women don’t have to slow down as they age. I’m running like a speeding bullet. Exploring everything, having fun, working more than ever, working on social media to make sure that I’m working more than ever, and having the most fun. Did I mention fun? If men don’t have to slow down, we shouldn’t have to either. Don’t let aging slow you down or stop you from moving ahead. Look after yourself as best you can by eating well, smiling, and being active, happy, and confident. I have never been afraid of aging. Funny enough, when I see the wrinkles on my face—and after sixty, wrinkles on my thighs and my arms—I find them amusing. I’m just so happy to be in good health.
• • •
I started modeling as a teenager in Pretoria, South Africa, because a friend of my parents’ ran a modeling school and agency. Her name was Lettie, and her husband had a plane, like my father. Every Sunday night, they would have dinner with our family. Lettie was very beautiful and graceful, and she had a quiet confidence that made you want to do what she asked you to.
When my twin sister, Kaye, and I were fifteen, Lettie invited us to do her modeling course for free, which we did without giving it much thought. For the final walk, the one that would get us our diplomas, I made myself a pink suit in the style of Chanel. I had my brown hair done, and I did my own makeup.
Lettie was the one who started hiring me to model, too. I would do runway shows on Saturday mornings in a department store when she asked, or print jobs. I didn’t feel special or privileged about being a model. It was just a job. It was better-paying than other jobs, which was nice, but when I found that out, it surprised me. You went somewhere, you put on a dress, you walked around the room, you went home. Why would that be well-paid? But it was, especially for a girl my age.
I had no idea back then that I would still be a model at seventy-one. You just had to look around the room at these things to understand that all the models were very young. I knew it was temporary, and it didn’t bother me at all. I was just happy to get paid. My goal wasn’t to model; it was to go to university.
I still modeled in university, to my surprise. As planned, I got my degree, and then I got married: another surprise. My goal wasn’t to have children so quickly either. I didn’t realize I could fall pregnant on a honeymoon and have three kids in three years. Elon, Kimbal, and Tosca were three more surprises. With each child, I added a few blond highlights to my hair. After Tosca, I was completely blond.
I started modeling again after I’d had my three kids, because Lettie asked me to. Her agency needed somebody to do mother-of-the-bride runway shows, and they couldn’t have an eighteen-year-old do it. All the other girls were too young. So she asked me, because I was a very grown-up twenty-eight. In this way, I became the oldest model in South Africa.
• • •
I moved to Durban as a single mother at thirty-one because I was running away from my husband. I couldn’t afford to have anybody else color my hair anymore, so I started doing it myself and it became various shades of blond and orange. Blorange, as they call it. It was pretty bad. Very frizzy, and I was cutting it myself to save money. They still let me model for some reason, so I didn’t worry about it. It didn’t affect my nutrition practice, which I had started at twenty-two in my apartment in Pretoria, in any case. As long as I could help my clients, they didn’t pay attention to what my hair looked like.
At forty-two, when I moved to Toronto, I went to school for my PhD while I modeled and taught, keeping current in both professions. I had a model portfolio that showed that I could get work, so a Toronto agency was willing to take me on because they thought they could make money with me. Most of the modeling jobs out there were for younger women, but sometimes they just needed an older model in order to make it look realistic. That was when I did my first grandmother ad, a front cover. I was only forty-two!
I was not the only model in Toronto in my forties, of course. While usually I’d be the only person at a modeling job who wasn’t in my teens or twenties, that was not always the case. Remember, this was not high fashion or haute couture. This was not New York Fashion Week or Milan.
I remember once doing a runway show where it was all older women and guys. Afterward, we all went out for a drink. One of the guys said to me, “You’re going to have to buy your own drink, because you’re the only person who hasn’t been in bed with me.”
I just looked at him.
He said, “Yeah, I’ve done mattress ads with all the other models.”
That was the kind of job available for older models. Advertisements for sales on beds, and that kind of thing.
I didn’t care, because I wasn’t there to be exciting. It was just work, and I needed to work. I kept modeling because it was fun, kept me looking good, and got me away from the office to explore different cities and to meet new people. In those years, they had to book me three weeks ahead of time to not disrupt my practice, and I wouldn’t model more than four days a month. It paid as much as my dietetics practice, which was my stable and basic income, and I wasn’t going to rock that boat—that would cover everyday expenses, rent, bus fare, school uniforms, gas, and car services. Modeling enabled me to buy a cheap flight to visit family, some clothes, or something we needed for the apartment. Sometimes I would get a dress. Modeling was the cherry on top.
I didn’t even tell my nutrition clients I modeled, and because there was no social media, nobody knew.
Sometimes someone would say, “Is that you in a magazine?”
And I’d say, “Yes. I’m the Sears housecoat queen.”
That was my job. If Sears had a housecoat, they called me in to make it look good.
• • •
By the time I was in my fifties, I was living in New York. I did a few great campaigns, then signed with a bigger agency, because I thought it would increase my exposure. It did the opposite. I went from sometimes modeling to barely modeling.
I’d email and say I didn’t join them to stop modeling. They would write back to say that there was no work for me.
I’d call. They’d say, “They just don’t want to see you. They prefer the other models who are better-known than you.”
I would think, “But they’re not that well-known either.”
I couldn’t understand why the clients never wanted to see me anymore. I’d been modeling for decades, but maybe it was time. I was told that nobody liked my look anymore.
By chance, I would run into some people who worked in the business. They would stop me in the street or in a restaurant and say, “We’ve been trying to book you, but you’re never available.”
I would go to the agency and say, “People have been trying to book me.”
“No, they haven’t. They’re getting you mixed up with somebody else.”
That was when I decided on my own to stop coloring my hair. I thought, “Well, I’m barely modeling. I might as well see what color I am underneath.”
My hair started to grow out, and it looked terrible. There was a white patch on top and blond hair at my shoulders. As a dietitian, it doesn’t matter what color hair you have, as long as you’re good. On the advice of my best friend, Julia Perry, I cut my hair very short. It was an edgy, exciting look, nothing like I’d ever done before.
• • •
After I went gray, the agency didn’t send me out for six months. It was a very painful period. It started to seem as though there would be no more opportunities for me there, that perhaps this was the end of my modeling career.
Then something interesting happened. A casting director called my agency to book me for the cover of Time magazine. This time my agency couldn’t say that I was not available, as the director’s office was a block away from my home and she saw me walking my dog every morning.
Then they had to book me for the job. That was how I wound up in Time magazine, on the front page of the Health section.
I realized that there was work out there for me. It wasn’t about my look. It was about my agency.
I needed a plan.
• • •
Everybody has their own agenda. I wanted to take advantage of whatever work opportunities existed for me. My agents should have been promoting my career, but for some reason, they weren’t. Once I understood this, I had to deal with it. I couldn’t just stand by and let someone else keep work from me.
I went down to the agency to speak my mind, because if you want something, you have to ask for it.
My agent was irate.
“How dare you think we’re not working hard for you!”
She was lying. We both knew it. It’s one thing to go to an audition and not get the job. That had happened to me many, many times. You go and you wait in line and so do twenty other women, and you don’t get the job. That is part of being a model. Not being sent to castings by your representation—that’s bad.
They refused to admit it. They kept insisting that there was no work. I was stuck, because I had a contract.
• • •
When you’re in a bad work situation that isn’t changing and you want to get out of it, you can’t be sure about what will happen next. It is scary. You will have a miserable time at work every day. If you are not experiencing any joy, your day will be gloomy. You need to look forward to your work and love it, because you spend most of your waking hours working. In my dietetics practice, I had many female lawyer clients who loved their work but didn’t like their bosses. I know that because their unhappiness and stress made them eat poorly. I would tell them to change their situation. They would make a change, go to a new law firm or start off on their own, and they would be happier and eat better. My clients always said I was cheaper than a psychologist.
• • •
I looked at my model contract, and I saw that it covered New York City only. So I contacted agents in Philadelphia. The Hamptons. Connecticut. New Jersey. LA, Hamburg, Munich, Paris, London. I signed with those agencies, and I started getting some work. I began to go to Europe to shoot catalogs, to do some editorial work, or for hair and pharmaceutical ads. It paid well, for me, and I always flew economy and traveled on a budget.
Closer to home, I was doing catalogs, commercials, and showroom work. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was work. The job was to show clothes to clients of inexpensive department stores. I would have a little tiny cardboard cubicle to change in, and then I’d come out. There would be thirty people sitting there, watching me wear the clothes. In between outfits I’d go back to that little cubicle, where I had a bagel with cream cheese, and every time I got changed, I would just take a small bite, because I didn’t have time to eat a whole bagel.
Most of the jobs were in New York, and I was still being held back from those opportunities. I knew that I could do better. I knew that it was not my age or my looks standing in my way. It was them, not me!
I had to find a way around it. I went and sat in their waiting room, and I sat there, and I sat there, and I sat until they sent me in to see the senior person.
I said to her, “I haven’t had a casting for six months. You’ve got to let me go.”
I was determined not to leave until I had gotten what I wanted, and eventually they agreed. I should’ve done that sooner. Please learn quicker than I did, and you will suffer less. If it’s not going to change, get out of it as soon as you can, even if you end up having nothing afterward or thinking you’ll have nothing afterward. Or be financially strapped afterward.
• • •
That was when I joined a boutique agency that had worked with me before. They were excited to work with me, and they loved my new look. They sent me to do an editorial in Toronto, which was remarkable, because as you got older, nobody wanted you for editorials. Editorial work was cool. I wasn’t cool. I had no idea how to pose for an editorial!
For catalogs, you’re relaxed, and you’re a happy person, and you don’t crease the garment. You don’t pull it in a funny angle. In an editorial, suddenly there’s license to leap and dance and stretch out and do crazy stuff. I had to learn, so I started looking in magazines.
The only editorial experience I had was when I was forty-five, and in that shoot I was the awkward background for the supermodel they were featuring.
I flew to Toronto. I was the only model at the shoot.
I said, “Where are all the other models?”
They said, “No, you’re the only one.”
Then I was in this creative world of designer, couture, beautiful clothes. They shot a white story, eight pages in white outfits. It was so beautiful. A different hairstyle every time, even with the short hair.
When I saw it, all I could say was, “Wow.”
Then the bookings started coming in. When I had first moved to New York, Kimbal and I were in Times Square, looking up at all the giant ads, and I told him, “One day I’ll be in one of those.” We both chuckled. And now there I was: on a fifteen-foot-tall billboard in Times Square for the first time.
I had gone to a casting with three hundred women for a Virgin America advertisement, and they booked me. At the shoot, there was a young girl and a young man there as well, very young models, too fabulous to talk to me. Yet on the final billboards, I was the face you saw. At sixty-seven, I was everywhere: in Times Square, on the subways, and in every airport in America. You couldn’t get off a train or on a plane without seeing my face.
Who knew things would take off when I went silver?! At fifteen, I had been told I’d be done by eighteen, and at seventy-one, I’m the biggest I’ve ever been. What I’ve learned is that you can always find a way. You can always make another plan. Of course, it took time for me to learn, and I’m still learning!
Something else happened that was a huge surprise. Social media! Through my postings, people would absolutely love my white hair, and modeling jobs would be booked because of the color of my hair. Now I’m very happy to walk into a room knowing I’m the only person in it with white hair. If there is another woman with white hair, I always smile and say, “Matchy-matchy.”
One thing I am sure of is that it just gets better. Every Monday, I’m more excited than ever, because I’m expecting some fun work to happen. Even if nothing happens, I’m still excited to post on my social media and website to make that happen. That’s why I say that it’s great to be seventy-one. That’s why I don’t worry about age.
I’m too busy having fun.