You Only Get One Life

by Brigitte Nielsen

  My dad had always told me to keep my music down, particularly on Sunday mornings. I was always singing – everyone was driven crazy by it, but I could never stop. I sang in my room, in the toilet, while I was cycling and particularly in the kitchen – the acoustics were great there. Can you imagine how fucking annoying I must have been as a child, always singing? Because it was the ‘70s I’d be doing The Osmonds, a Danish artist called Sanne Salomonsen and more progressive Danish acts like Alrune Rod or Charlatan. My dad’s taste was classical but hidden in his stack of vinyl were the guilty pleasures which I fell upon in the shape of big ballads by Elvis, Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. Songs like ‘My Way’ and ‘You Ain’t Nothing But a Hound Dog’ still resonate deep inside me somewhere. As a teen, I’d have them on at ear-splitting volume. Belting out those songs was another way to forget the stresses of school life.

  Books were also very important to me and through my mum at the library I was introduced to great authors from a very early age. By nine I was already reading works meant for adults and everything I couldn’t experience because of all my physical problems, I consumed through books. They provided another welcome distraction from all that was wrong around me and the fear in the pit of my stomach.

  My new school encouraged those things which I’d kept for myself as my own private escape route. They not only tolerated my energetic musical recitals but they asked me to sing. And I wasn’t alone: many of the other pupils loved music and enjoyed performing. One of them was a boy named Christian.

  At the centre of musical activity at school was Thomas Blachman. He was arrogant, eccentric and he thought he had a God-given talent for music – which he did. Many of the school’s pupils went on to make names for themselves and Thomas is now the main judge on the Danish version of The X Factor. Back then Thomas and Christian were the archetypal ‘70s kids, smoking pot and being hippies while I was a preppie Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta-style kid with my ironed shirts. But I was attracted to their alternative lifestyle and it really freaked my parents out. I loved their music, though I remember that Thomas thought I was a complete idiot. He didn’t think I could sing – he was completely into jazz, jazz, jazz, while I was little more conservative. Even so we had a great time and I began to fall for Christian.

  He had dark hair, an open face and very defined cheekbones. His eyes were a beautiful green with strong eyebrows and his lips were full. Christian had the longest, prettiest hair I’ve ever seen on a boy: he was beautiful. Everyone thought he was the most fanciable boy in the school. I had fallen in love with him on the day I arrived, but I wasn’t getting any interest myself. While my feelings were as strong as those of any developing girl, I was a late developer with the body of a kid: I was still the giraffe without the slightest sign of any boobs. I hadn’t started my periods and I was basically just straight up and down. I’d never kissed a guy and I was longing to be experienced – I’d never got further than me and my showerhead.

  When at last the physical changes of puberty came it was quick. Over just three months of the summer everything happened. Suddenly I looked like a woman and Christian was interested.

  By then I had taken up smoking, having figured that if I didn’t have boobs the next best things were cigarettes. Even the girls who were developed smoked. Anyone who was popular did. Your first time is always horrible but I was actually physically ill when I lit up and that developed into a nasty case of bronchitis. It didn’t put me off and cigarettes helped my social life. I went on to hang out with the dope smokers, who would roll their joints in a secret hideout at school.

  It was the first time I was unconditionally accepted as part of a circle, not counting the four-legged and assorted furry and feathered friends called Magic, Bella or Prins who had always seemed pleased to see me before. Over the two years at that experimental school I began to feel that I might just be good enough. It was a place filled with positivity, happiness, an inquiring spirit and learning was fun. Do you know, I still remember deciding to study the highland Indians of Peru and finding it to be totally absorbing in a way that work had never been before.

  In the ninth grade I formed a band with Thomas and Christian and we performed Tina Turner’s version of ‘Proud Mary’. Later, I got to know Tina and we often laughed about my first effort and how it must have sounded coming from a tall, white teenager. She couldn’t believe I’d pulled that one off and I didn’t quite know what I was thinking either – I just loved her music. And it really worked. I felt like a rock star on that stage at school. I was in love with the bass player – Christian – while Thomas hated me (but what could he do?). My parents were there to see me perform, and I was so proud. They never came to the twice-yearly evenings to see how I was doing academically but that night they were finally in the audience.

  Seeing me perform made my mother realise that I was going to do something different in my life. She had always known that I was bright and interested in reading and she’d got me my position at the local library. For a while I was working at both the library and the bakery on the same day and I enjoyed the roles. My mother imagined that I would go on to university and be a regular person. We had talked about me taking over the library from her and she had no reason to imagine that it wasn’t what I wanted to go on to do: I loved books and I still do.

  After my performance I made straight for my parents but my mum was quiet and her eyes were bright with tears. ‘Gitte – you’re going to be up on the stage for the rest of your life! I’m sure of it,’ she said. ‘You’ll never be a librarian.’ I couldn’t have wished for a better appreciation, but she was shocked by how into it I was because I’d always been immersed in literature; I’d even made cassettes for people who couldn’t read themselves. As a young kid it had been me who would read to the other children of my age – I was a natural.

  But now I was lost to the adrenalin kick that came with performing live. I pictured myself on stage singing my own songs to thousands of fans all screaming my name. I’d travel by limousine and be a huge star. I was to get some of that fame, but just not with my music in the way I imagined back then.

  I’ve tried a couple of times to make it in that world, but I didn’t have the energy or the drive necessary to make it work. As a kid, music was everything. You wouldn’t know my favourite song at the time outside Denmark. It was ‘Lidt Til Og Meget Mer’ from the film Mig og Charly and the lyrics just seemed to be about my life. And in a very real way, they were. Even now I can’t read them without getting goose bumps. The song was written by Kasper Winding, a musician who came from an incredibly talented family who were very famous in Denmark. Kasper worked with everyone from Bryan Ferry to Frank Zappa, but what I couldn’t know as that eager young singer taking her first steps was that within five years, he would be my husband.

  CHAPTER 6

  OUT IN THE WORLD

  I lasted two days at university. The grades that got me there had been excellent but I might as well still have been at school. Education was what my parents wanted for me but I was being stared at openly again and I knew it wasn’t going to work out. I couldn’t take all the bullshit and start from scratch as the awkward giraffe trying to do her best to be accepted; I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to study.

  I was still only 16, very young to be at university, and modelling looked as if it could be my way out. If I left Denmark for a couple of years, I thought, worked abroad and picked up some other languages, I would actually get points to add to my degree when I returned. My decision didn’t exactly delight my parents, but we agreed that it could be beneficial to do a couple of years out in the real world to find out what I really wanted to study. I had their blessing.

  My father’s practical attitude was something I would be forever grateful for. His regular existence gave him no idea as to what I might be heading into and yet he didn’t try to stop me. Even though I was only a teenager he was prepared to let me be grown-up enough to leave home and explore the world. It was everything I’d dreamed of. Final
ly, I was going to be one of those birds I’d watched for so many hours.

  I didn’t think about the loneliness of the life I was choosing: I didn’t imagine what it might mean when my mother and father weren’t there or when handsome Italian playboys tried to pass me cocaine and told me, ‘It’s great, nothing to worry about – you’ll feel wonderful!’ My family wouldn’t be able to give me a big hug when I’d gone to my hundredth audition and got yet another curt rejection. There would be no home-cooked backup to save me from going hungry because once more I hadn’t made enough money to eat.

  My head was filled only with the months I’d spent doing Danish catalogues and fashion shoots with friendly photographers who all told me how great I was, how beautiful I looked and how fabulous I seemed. I’d taught myself how to work the light and how to pose and look effortless: you have to be able to work at positioning yourself and be in harmony with the camera. Though I couldn’t explain it, I found that I naturally picked up techniques that could take others years to perfect – I just seemed to be born with whatever skill was required and I hardly needed to learn anything at all. You see the same thing with footballers who have a certain innate rhythm and approach to their game which works. They instinctively know how to position themselves on the field in just the right place – and either you can do that or you can’t.

  I still remember the first cheque I received the week after I made my debut as a model. The library and the bakery had paid a little bit of money – and I mean tiny – and half of that I gave to my dad. But there was something different about my first proper pay and I really felt I was very cool: I had made money out of something that I had always thought I didn’t have in me. It was just a couple of hundred kroner (Danish crowns), which back then was probably worth something in the region of £100–120. I’d earned in a day what would have taken me months in the bakery. But the amount wasn’t important: it was the envelope with the modelling agency’s stamp – the official stamp! I ran through the house to find my mum and show her the cheque.

  ‘Okay,’ she smiled, ‘but you’d better put that in the bank – or at least save half and you can use the rest for something important.’ Something important! Of course, I immediately called Susanne and we took the bus to Gråbrødre Torv, where we each had a whole beer to ourselves. This time we weren’t going to have to share. I saw a short-sleeved shirt that I’d wanted and I bought that too. My family had never been well-off and sometimes my grandmother made jumpers for me – with an uncanny instinct for using the most revolting colours possible – and this was the first time I hadn’t had to settle for buying clothes in the sales. Back in the ‘70s there’d been a brief period when these square-flared trousers had been popular. I finally got a pair two years after they peaked and I looked like a joke. Now I not only had some money but the fashion industry was becoming my world and I knew exactly what to buy.

  I savoured the whole experience. No longer a window-shopper, I walked into one of Copenhagen’s top stores, ignored the sale rack and took my time over the latest range of blouses. Quite a few of those first cheques went on clothes and shoes. I bought more than I needed: buying was proof that I was successful. None of those bitches who had made my life a misery at school would have ever thought I would get so far. It was like saying, ‘See! You made fun of me, but look who’s wearing the clothes now! Look who’s walking the walk.’ I felt slightly drunk with it all. They’d teased me mercilessly and now I was making more money than their parents. Revenge was a dish best served with a designer label.

  I was walking at my full height when I went out with my mother in the centre of Rødovre, where I’d been used to being laughed at. I was, to be honest, probably a total pain in the ass – I must have been impossible. I’d got it and now I was flaunting it everywhere. But looking back, I forgive myself because it was a feeling that had been a long time coming and was well-deserved, though I do feel sorry for everyone who had to put up with me.

  My new world was in complete contrast to everything that had gone before. It was almost comical. Now I couldn’t be tall enough – the magazines even had me in high heels to make me look that bit higher. My skinny body wasn’t a source of amusement, but something to be admired and desired. Had I not been so thin, the agency told me, they would never have signed me up. I’d never seen it as an asset at all and I had never done anything to make sure I was thin – I’d actually been trying to put on some weight because I felt so embarrassed about being under-developed. In my last school I wore three pairs of trousers in an attempt to make myself look like the other girls of my age. Pulling them all on was always time-consuming and uncomfortable but I was desperate to make up for the lack of shape I was now being told was my best feature.

  Other girls suffered with horrendous diets to keep their weight down and I came across eating disorders everywhere I went. What I naturally had and hated for so long they were desperate to emulate. I did have some symptoms of anorexia at times in my career as a result of being naturally thin but some of my girlfriends in the modelling world have never overcome their disorders and a few have died as a result of anorexia.

  All of us were on the borderline of what the World Health Organisation (WHO) defined as malnourishment. They applied this definition to anyone with a BMI (Body Mass Index) of under 18.5 in the developed world or under 15 in Africa. A model of 175cm weighing 56 kilos would have a BMI of 18.2. In the fashion world that was normal and considered quite sane. Most of the models in my time were closer to having a BMI of 15 – and that’s when you start risking your life. But I never thought about it at the time and I maintained my weight without the endless miserable diets and strange lives of regular girls in modelling. I felt good, I looked good and the agency told me they had big plans.

  Marianne Diers had signed me in Gråbrødre Torv to Copenhagen Models, but they had global connections. They worked very closely with Elite Models in New York owned by John Casablanca. ‘We have a fantastic new girl in Denmark,’ Marianne told him. ‘Her name is Gitte and she is ready to go all the way to the top.’ She sent pictures of me to New York and John gave me the thumbs-up.

  Their idea was to give me a flavour of how modelling worked internationally by getting me to make a name for myself in Hamburg for a couple of months. A new set of photographers and their clients would prepare me for fashion week in Paris which would, so everyone hoped, be my big debut on the world stage of modelling. The agency were confident that I would be a star and the way they explained it, nothing could go wrong.

  My mum kissed me goodbye and I boarded the night train to Germany on a bitterly cold winter evening in 1980. The agency had paid my fare and apart from the address of a shared apartment in Hamburg, I had very little in my purse. But that didn’t matter – I was going to be a fantastic success and I firmly believed it would happen just as it had been described. My dreams were fuelled by the romantic evening I’d spent the night before when Christian and I said goodbye. In my mind I was certain that the two of us would spend the rest of our lives together. I felt an all-consuming love and I could see it was the same for him. I wasn’t going to be away that long and it wouldn’t mean anything. We were sure that what we had could certainly survive all that.

  Put to the test, it wouldn’t be long before I discovered that I wasn’t actually that good at making long-distance relationships work. My love needed so much fuel that it would quickly flicker out without constant attention, but on the train that night all I knew was the world was waiting for me and so was the perfect boy.

  The train pulled into Hamburg in the early hours and things immediately began to look different. It was snowing and I had to make my own way to the apartment. Nobody answered the door, so the first few hours of my promising new life were spent slumped on the stairs outside with my suitcase. My confidence and excitement were frozen out of me and I felt lost, stupid and too young to be away from everyone I knew. I cried through sheer cold and exhaustion. It wasn’t until after 8 o’clock that someone finally woke up a
nd let me in.

  There were another five girls who lived in the agency-owned apartment and all of us aspiring models had to bust our asses from first thing to get assignments. My Danish success meant little here. We would be called up for endless ‘go-sees’, the model equivalent of an audition. When my limited portfolio of Denmark pictures was picked for a job I would be called in so they could check me out. They barely looked up before saying, ‘No.’ Again and again it happened: Hamburg was my first taste of rejection. I’d never struggled as a model before. It was cold, that curt, bored, ‘No – next’, ‘No good – next!’, ‘Wrong smile… too thin… too fat…’ You could be in and out in less than 60 seconds. Dogs at Crufts are treated with more dignity. The humiliation was rolled into days trying to find my way around the city by bus, sweating to make sure I wasn’t a second late for an agency who would immediately throw me out and on to the next disappointment.

  When I began to get work it was mostly in catalogues. Hardly glamorous, 14-hour assignments, but the money was very good and it began to restore my self-esteem. I’d been thinking that I was back at school again, the giraffe starting to raise her long neck uncertainly inside me and I had been losing the battle with every successive ‘No’ to push her back down into her place.

  The reality of modelling is that it’s tough and degrading. There is nothing emotional in it, no heart. I couldn’t feel sorry for myself for being looked at as if I was no more than the clothes I was wearing. The choice was between giving up or developing an attitude which told the world I didn’t need anyone but myself. That’s what I did in the end: stand up straight, walk tall, smile, thank them as they’re saying get lost, dash to the next gig. Inside I crumbled and when I did manage to get a job there was the constant terror that it might be the last.