Agency waiting rooms were packed with groups of girls sobbing together uncontrollably. Aspiring models of 14 to 15 shook nervously as they listened out for the call that would lead to the big breakthrough or the next slap in the ego. My years of being laughed at and bullied at school turned out to have been, in some ways, useful. It was so much more difficult for the girls who had always been thought of as the most beautiful to find out that they were just one face of many.
The agency was as happy as I was that my diary was being filled, but for them it was pragmatic: I represented an investment in terms of the expenses they covered for me in Germany. They were paying for my accommodation and were keen to see some dividends. If their patience ran out before my luck changed, I would be packed off back home to Denmark. That was another reason to feel great relief as things began to pick up, though I have to say that I did like the hectic lifestyle and even got a sort of thrill from the uncertainty that came with the life. I didn’t mind working hard and even getting as far as Hamburg was further than I had managed before. Twice as big as Copenhagen, the town was very beautiful and as I got to know it, I felt myself to be very far away from where I’d grown up. I wasn’t much of a clubber at that point, but for me it was enough to experience living in a different country. It didn’t make things any easier, but I knew it was worth what I was having to do to be there.
Denmark wasn’t that far away anyway, at least physically. It was only 160 kilometres to the border and at first I regularly took the train to see my family, though these visits did fall away as I adjusted to my adult existence. I had an instinctive feeling that I wasn’t going to go home: I had found something that was more what I had become, something bigger. There would be more than just Hamburg, I felt sure, somewhere where there was more to learn about different ways of living life. There was more space in my life now, space in which the precious, intimate love I had felt for Christian was hopelessly diluted. That meant there was even less reason for me to want to head back north again. Now I was ready for the world – Paris.
I knew what it was like to work with major photographers: I was used to speaking in English and I knew John Casablanca still had plans for me. The agency told me I had that 10 per cent extra – whatever it was that marked out the superstar from every other hard-working model.
New York and Paris were the centres of the fashion business and I knew that if I could break there, I could make a name for myself anywhere, but I had never been to France. Paris represented the ultimate in romance, beauty, sophistication and culture. French was the language of seduction and sounded like it too. The worst insult sounds sexy delivered in French and I had always wanted to master it.
Today I speak fluent Italian, English and German but I never did well in French, even at school. Me and France, it would turn out, were just never meant to be and maybe that’s why I always struggled with the language. Despite my best hopes and the best plans of the agency, Paris was going to be a complete disaster: I never liked the French and the feeling was mutual. If I thought that Hamburg was hard, I was about to find out that the Paris I’d always hoped to see was only in my dreams.
CHAPTER 7
ALONE IN THE CITY OF LOVE
My new life in the capital of France filled me with huge expectation. Ever since I was a little girl the very name ‘Paris’ had come loaded with magic. I was jittery with anticipation when I arrived. The Danish agency were certain that Paris would fall before me and I felt sure that something wonderful was about to happen.
I wanted to see all the famous sights and looked forward to the buzz of seeing the town as a local. I’d be working and living there when I went up the Eiffel Tower rather than just being a tourist. I was filled with the romance of it all and couldn’t wait to join the thousands who have scribbled their messages on Montmartre’s love wall in languages from all over the world. In my mind I was already tripping through the sunny streets and watching life go by through an art-deco window in a bohemian cafe like I’d seen them do in a thousand films – the food, the shopping, visiting Versailles outside the city.
The spring was warm and it was great to be out on the streets when I got to see my first Sony Walkman. At 17, I felt young, beautiful and ready to conquer the city and I was incredibly impressed by the American model rollerblading through Parc Monceau with a big pair of headphones connected to this clunky, battery-powered tape player. I did a double-take and grinned, not quite believing he could listen to music while he was out. He looked so cool and this was exactly the sort of sophisticated display I had been expecting to see in fashion-conscious Paris. When I later found out the enormous price of those Walkman players I almost passed out. The future had arrived, I decided, though even that wasn’t as expensive as the car phone I got to try around the same time. To this day my mother has never quite accepted that the excited call she got from me in Paris was really made on the move: the phones weren’t even on the market.
I lived in an apartment with two other models in Montmartre. We were at the foot of the hill that leads up to the Moulin Rouge. Elite’s headquarters were in the heart of the city in an old building. Inside you could expect to find top models such as Janice Dickinson, Jerry Hall and Gia – Gia Marie Carangi. Later portrayed in a movie about her life by Angelina Jolie, Gia’s tragic life ended at the age of just 26. I remember her as a friend and someone who made a unique impression with her completely exclusive way of living. Constantly on the covers of Vogue, Cosmopolitan and many other fashion magazines, she was like a goddess in her photoshoots, but I was shocked when I saw her early one morning before the make-up artist had got to her. There was a young, lost soul screaming in pain which could only be anaesthetised through a shot of heroin. Her eyes were sunken and black and she was shaking. I’d seen nothing in my limited experience like it, no film depiction of addiction had ever looked as bad as that; it was very scary.
Gia had the world’s photographers around her from the day she started in New York. The little bisexual boy/girl from Philadelphia never had the tough skin that modelling needed and she paid for it with her life. On 18 November 1986, she died of AIDS – and hardly anyone noticed. Her story made her famous but by the time she was acknowledged for being the world’s first supermodel it was too late. I would think of her again when I started to poison myself with my own addiction.
While I was in Paris I would get yearning letters from Gia. She poured out her love for me, which just made me really embarrassed. There was no problem for me with being gay and it was quite accepted in Denmark but it just felt strange that she was attracted to me. My letters in return were guarded, as friendly as I could make them knowing that I couldn’t give her the response her vulnerability needed. I had a sense of self-preservation that helped me to toughen up enough to survive the world in which we were both trying to find our way.
Paris and I had a far less harmonious relationship. We were speedily heading from honeymoon to irreconcilable differences after just a few months. My working life had become a living hell, far worse than anything I’d encountered in Germany. I felt every inch the giraffe again and I began to suffer panic attacks. ‘Who do you think you are?’ the bookers said. Here it was again. ‘You’re too skinny…’ ‘What do you look like?’ ‘Your hair is terrible!’ ‘How dare you come here with three pictures in your portfolio!’ ‘Just get out!’ I was pushed around verbally and physically. It wasn’t like they were just dismissive, they seemed actively angry at the way I looked when I turned up. I kept asking myself what was wrong with me: I secured not a single job, not one.
Catalogues had been reliable standby jobs before but now even their bookers were looking at me as if I had marched in through the wrong door. Within weeks I was back to crying myself to sleep. I still dreamed that my handsome prince would ride up and save me – but these days he no longer spoke French. The exhaustion and depression manifested themselves as physical symptoms. My hair started to fall out, my lips were raw with cold-sores. In turn, this look did little to improve
my chances at the few casting sessions I was still getting.
Paris made me feel as if I were a waste of everyone’s time. I was as total a flop as I had been promised I would be a superstar. Each day that passed ran up more bills for the modelling agency. What a fiasco, what a failure!
‘But you’ve just started here in Paris, Gitte. There’s no model who would get work the day they arrive. Keep your head – it’ll be okay.’ This was Monique, the director of Elite in Paris. She tried to get my spirits up. Monique had played the mother hen role for some of the most beautiful models in the world, but they were out there making piles of money and after two months of absolutely nothing I was all ready to pack up and go home. I was spent. My interest in the work had gone with my energy. I was feeling homesick. It just wasn’t meant to be for me in the fashion world: I was what I had grown up as – a skinny creature who didn’t fit in. The agency was supportive – they also didn’t want to see their investment disappear to Denmark.
Monique called John Casablanca in New York. ‘You just wait and see – she’s going to be a superstar. I’ve seen her pictures,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we just need to set her up somewhere else.’ He was just about to fly over to Paris anyway and he promised that he would come up with a new plan.
The very next day I was called in to a meeting with John himself. He thought I would have better luck in Italy, where the designers were more progressive. ‘Why don’t you pack your bags?’ he said. ‘We can fly out this evening.’ He continued with a few casually-delivered hints as to how I might improve my chances, which coming from him sounded very much like orders.
‘Do something about your look. You have a fabulous face, but we need to do something different… Cut your hair short, buy some new clothes, change your shoes…’ He handed me $2,000. And that was that. In that moment, everything changed – about me and about my career. I got my hair cut boyishly short and had it bleached, and that became my iconic look.
We flew from Paris that day and John presented me to his Milan agency with the implied expectation that I would be respected by them and they would work hard for me. He called all his contacts in Italy and told them the new girl in town was one to watch. That night we spent together in the hotel. I remember thinking John was so old – I mean, for me at 17, he just seemed impossibly ancient. I wasn’t even fluent in English, and I had a boyfriend back in Denmark. But it was also the point at which my career began to take off.
Suddenly everyone was crazy about my Scandinavian look and my short hair; I was the new trend everywhere. Milanese designer Luciano Soprani was huge in the ‘80s. He’s since passed away but back then he worked with Max Mara, Heliette, Basile, Nazareno and Gabrielli, all key figures in Italian fashion. Luciano hired me when he was head designer for Gucci and he was crazy about me. And because he was crazy about me, everybody else wanted me. The assistants at the modelling agency hardly had time to keep up – Giorgio Armani, Gianni Versace… everyone was calling for me. I travelled to exotic locations for photoshoots in private jets and might be having brunch with Mick Jagger one morning and tea with Prince Albert of Monaco the same day. This was the genuine big-time. And I was still only 17.
When you go fast in modelling, you go really fast. Everything was bigger, better… it was an effort to remember it all but I tried because here was my dream becoming reality and it was all happening at once. Mostly it was all good, it was really fun. I met some incredible people and I quickly got used to the VIP lifestyle. However, when things went wrong, I thought I was going to die.
That was 1981. Ever since then I have had problems with loud sounds. Even the noise of something so innocuous as the boiler going on can be terrifying and I can’t stand fireworks on New Year’s Eve. The cause was what had seemed to be nothing more threatening than a prestigious campaign to promote Fila bikinis in the beautiful Seychelles islands in the Indian Ocean, off the east coast of Africa. I was really excited to have been chosen.
Along with four other models I flew from Milan direct to the island of Mahe. We were driven to an amazing resort on the far side. A delegation from Fila greeted us and the five of us bikini models were treated like rock stars. We had two days to relax, have cocktails and we were under instruction to be sure to sunbathe so that we had some colour on us. It was promising to be a very good gig.
One of the other models warned me and Nickie, an American girl who was, like me, very fair-skinned, to make sure that we didn’t get too much sun on us. Of course, what did I do? Cocktails… sunshine… gossiping about boys… having fun. I was a wide-eyed Danish girl with a great body in a five-star resort and I was soaking it all up. After the two days I was covered in sunburn. The photographer freaked out.
‘We’re supposed to be shooting, just go and get that seen to! Get some cream or something,’ he said. ‘We start tomorrow morning.’ I was too young to have got a Danish driving licence and Nickie said she’d drive me. The photographer told us to use the hotel jeep as the Seychelles didn’t have much infrastructure at that time. There were just three main resorts on the whole island and the nearest decent shops were on the other coast.
For me at that age even being driven in a jeep was an exciting adventure in itself. We weren’t likely to get lost as there was only one proper tarmac road and that took us past the airport again. As we got near it, we passed a truck full of locals. They were all screaming in French – the Seychelles having once been controlled by France. I’d picked up very little French during my unhappy sojourn in Paris and had absolutely no idea what they were telling us, but it was clear they were not happy. To me as an ignorant young thing in paradise their attitude struck me as unnecessary. ‘Imagine being so angry in such a beautiful place,’ I told Nickie. She was distracted by the petrol station inside the airport perimeter and decided to take what might be her only opportunity to fill up before we went on with our shopping.
As Nickie paid for the fuel two men approached us. They were both white, which was unusual enough on the island. More ominously, they were sweaty, clearly irritated and each carried a machine gun. A big machine gun each. Nickie and I looked at each other before trying a smile and a ‘Hi, how are you?’ while failing to disguise our terror. These guys weren’t even wearing uniforms and were clearly not police, much less regular army. We managed to get something out of them in English. There had been a coup. I later found out that the President of the Seychelles, France-Albert René, had instigated a Socialist government in a move that triggered the takeover.
‘You’ve got very little time,’ they said. ‘See that doorway?’ They pointed over to the tiny airport. We saw a small group of people about a hundred metres away, all running towards the entrance the men were pointing out. ‘Go,’ they said.
I don’t know if we left our bags, I can’t really remember much about the order of events. We started running towards the fence that separated the station from the check-in entrance. You normally had to make your way around it to get into the departure area but gunfire from somewhere behind us raked the ground and if we still had anything, we dropped it and screaming, fought our way over the fence and towards the door. The facilities at the airport were as basic as the resorts and the door we found looked like it might have belonged to a shabby office. As we pulled it shut behind us, the sound of bullets ceased.
We were definitely in some kind of administration area. It was quite a small room, certainly not big enough to comfortably contain the 40 or so people we were sharing it with and who right then were looking at us in terror. The furniture was old-fashioned and cheap. We were the only two white people in the room and given that the coup was being staged by whites, it seemed the others thought we were part of the attacking force. Although we tried to explain that we had nothing to do with what was going on, that we were just as much in trouble as they were, they didn’t look as if they believed us.
There was an old English guy there who had taken shelter with his daughter. When we got talking to him he said that the attempt to take over the isl
and could get very serious; the gunmen hadn’t followed us but it felt like we had been thrown in a prison cell as surely as if the door had been locked. The heat would have been unbearable even if so many weren’t jammed in together. It was 37 degrees and 80 per cent humidity with the only light coming from narrow windows running around the top of the walls of the room. There was no ventilation, no air conditioning and even though we couldn’t see out of the room because the windows were set so high up, we could hear constant noise. Gunfire, explosions. The room glowed dull red with each blast and our nerves were increasingly shredded as time inched by.
At last the door was kicked open without warning by two men, one a redhead – originally from Holland, as I found out later. They were part of the mercenary force and both had machine guns. The redhead seemed particularly jumpy, sort of pumped up and angry. It seemed as if he was on something, like he was only just hanging on to his self-control. He was clearly ready to kill anyone who so much as looked at him the wrong way. For no reason I could make out – he hardly needed to scare us more – he shot out all the glass in the little windows above us. The noise of the machine gun in such a confined space was deafening. The room shook with the sustained burst of fire and you could feel the vibrations from the weapon judder through you. Some of the other hostages put their hands over their ears, everyone ducked, some screamed. It was chaos. Shattered glass rained down on us and when at last it was over, not a single window was left. The two men disappeared, leaving the group dazed, sobbing, crouched by the walls and sitting in broken glass.
We were abandoned without anything to eat and, more tellingly in the stifling heat, without any water. Hours passed and we lapsed into a kind of trance. One of the other women just cried continuously, another kept getting cramps, another was rocking and humming to herself.
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