by Lisa Leslie
With that decided, my focus shifted to the task of getting my identity back. There was so much red tape in dealing with the bank, the stores, and the credit card company. I had to fill out numerous affidavits and sign every one of them. Then Dionne had to sign them all and acknowledge that she was responsible for creating my debts. Then I had to send out all the paperwork and wait. My driver’s license, bank account, and credit cards were all in limbo. If I wanted to buy something, I had to spend an hour on the phone ahead of time, explaining my situation to bank officials or some store manager. Even after all the paperwork and the hassles, my credit was still rocky.
Two years later, when I was looking into buying a house, Dionne’s misdeeds continued to follow me. I had to show all my affidavits and prove that I was not the one who had been running up debts, writing bad checks, and decimating my finances. My credit report was loaded with negatives, and that was so unlike me. I am way too organized to have that happen, and I am too conscious of things like that to have bad credit. I always pay.
I learned some tough lessons from that ordeal with Dionne. I had not been conscious of it before, but I knew now that she could not be around me. I had too many valuable possessions to let her get close again. There were times when my cousins would come over, and I would let them go through some of my things. They could take whatever they wanted, and if they needed money and I had it, eight times out of ten I would give some to them. I would explain to everybody, though, “Look, I’ve got bills to pay, too. I have to pay the IRS. I cannot give, give, give.” But they knew that if it was really important, I would almost always come through for them, at least until I got married and started a family of my own.
God has blessed me with a comfortable life, and I like to give. Besides, everything that I give I get back tenfold. That is the way that I function, and because people know that, sometimes they try to take advantage. But that does not work with me anymore. They know that if they go too far, the relationship is over. And when it is over, they are cut off completely. I learned from my very own sister not to let anyone use me.
I never told anyone about what Dionne did to me, but she started to feel bad vibes from the family soon after it happened. Maybe my extended family knew about the identity theft. I do not know, but life in Southern California got to be too much for my sister, so she moved to Fresno. Her story did not end there, however, and neither did the drama that seemed to follow Dionne.
One day she called Mom from a hospital. Dionne said she had been rammed by a hit-and-run driver while standing at a bus stop, and Mom immediately went to Fresno to see about her. I told Mom to bring Dionne to my house so that we could take care of her.
When she arrived at my house, Dionne looked sickly and skinny, and she could not walk very well. We put her in bed. Based on my past experiences with Dionne, I did not believe one word of her hit-and-run story. Maybe she had been in an accident and maybe not. She was awfully sore, but it seemed to me as if she was on drugs. I was jaded to the point where I had to think of worst-case scenarios when it came to my older sister. That was how things usually worked out with Dionne and me, but my weakness started to surface again. I loved her, regardless of all that had happened. When my family needs me, my family needs me. I knew I was taking a chance again, so I prayed about it a lot. I know that the Lord forgives me for my sins, and I know He wants us to be forgiving. So if I said that I forgave my sister, my actions had to show it. I wanted to show Dionne love and forgiveness, but I was not blind to her ways. Before she arrived at my place, I made sure to have a lock put on my bedroom door.
Mom and I fed Dionne and got her to the point where she could get out of bed and walk around. It took about two months for my sister to recover and improve. I could see that she was starting to feel better, and I was getting more comfortable having her around. But I was no fool. I looked at the calendar, and I told Dionne, “You need to find some other place to stay.”
She nodded and said, “I really need to get a car.”
“I do not know what you plan to do,” I replied, “but I am going to give you five thousand dollars. You can do whatever you want with it, but you have got to leave my house.”
Dionne was very smart. She got on the computer and started looking into apartments. She also found something else. “I can get low-income housing,” she told me. “I can do things with kids, like a foster home or something.”
I thought, Foster home? You cannot even take care of your own kids. Dionne had four children, but only one, Artavius, was living with her at the time. She gave away her daughter, Jacquise, to a friend to keep for a few years, and the lady never gave the child back. Jacquise thinks that Dionne is her aunt. How could my sister dare to think about trying to make money as a foster parent to anybody? How could she possibly think about caring for other kids when she did not even care for her own?
All I knew was that she had to get out of my home, so I gave her the money, and Dionne moved in with our cousin Craigie, who was living in Long Beach. Before long, she had gone through the money and did not have a place to stay, or a car to show for it. So, that was that. I washed my hands of the situation. I talk to my sister every now and then. She will call and sometimes drop by or catch one of my games.
The whole situation with her is amusing in a very sad sort of way. I do love Dionne, but if she were not my sister, there would be no way that she would be in my life. My relationship with her now is that of an associate or an acquaintance. We are cordial, and I will give her a hug when I see her because Dionne is family, but I will never put anything of value into her again. There will never be any closeness or substance to our relationship.
I guess my sister thought she could cash in on the success that I had enjoyed in Italy and at the 1996 Olympics. She also knew that I had signed a professional modeling contract before the games in Atlanta. In 1995 Dawn Staley’s friend Londell McMillan took me to New York City to see if any modeling agencies would be interested in me. One stop was at Wilhelmina Models Inc. where I met with Kevin Jones. He was six foot six, and when Kevin saw me, he said, “Oh my god. You are so tall. You are beautiful. This is great.”
I did not have a professional portfolio, but he looked at the few pictures I had brought with me. There were a couple of shots from the Olympics, when my hair was in two French braids, and one photo of me with an ex-boyfriend. That was all I had to show, but Kevin saw something that he liked. “You could be used as a model in special situations,” he told me. “You could open and close shows. You could do a variety of still shots. You have a nice face and a nice body. I could use you on athletic shoots or when we have a need for body-part models.”
He thought that my unique look and height could bring something special and extraordinary to edgy designers. Usually, they want all their models to be about the same size, with the same look, so this gave me a chance to bring something different to the runway. Since I am much taller than the average model, he thought that he could also use me to model in shows where designers preferred to have celebrities wear their new line of clothing. That was his pitch. I thought it was cool. That would be fun. I was in New York City, and I was going to be a model!
When I was a youngster, the first career goal that I remember having was to be a weathercaster on television. The second was to be a model. Believe me, no one would have ever guessed that the shy, lanky young girl from Compton would one day get into modeling. I was still not the girl that people would pick out of a bunch of photos and say, “Oh, she is beautiful,” but there was something about me.
I guess I caught the modeling bug when I was a young girl performing in Mom’s mock runway shows at home. Each summer Dionne and I got four pairs of pants, two skirts, four tops, a sweater, a jacket, two pairs of shoes, socks, and underwear for the upcoming school year. We got most of it from the Compton swap meet or from Zody’s (Compton’s answer to Kmart), but we loved getting new clothes and could not wait to get home to model them. It did not matter if the pants cost five dollars or
twenty dollars. The fact that they were brand new was exciting.
Dionne and I would come home from shopping, go to our rooms, lay our new clothes across our beds, and then try to decide what to model first. When I was all dressed and ready to show off my new clothes, I would call from my bedroom, “Okay, Mom. Here I come! Here I come!”
Dionne would sit with Mom while I strolled down the long hallway that led to her bedroom. That was the “runway.” Mom would use her announcer voice and say, “And next on stage is Lisa. Look at her butterfly collar and jeans. And how about those new Jordache jeans!”
Dionne would go next, and I would sit next to Mom to watch. We would take turns going until all of our clothes had been modeled. Then, when our fashion show was over, we would hang up the new clothes in our closets. We were thrilled, proud, and so looking forward to wearing our new outfits when the school year began.
After the fashion extravaganza at our house, we would go over to visit Craigie and Braquel at Aunt J.C.’s house. Their closets were filled with new corduroy pants in brown, blue, and gray on one hanger, three pairs of jeans on another, four skirts on the third hanger, and lots more. But surprisingly, I did not feel any worse off than they were. I knew they had more of everything, but I was okay with that. They had their new school clothes, and I had mine. I knew Mom was doing the best she could, and I was really thankful and happy to have clothes to model every school year.
The summer before I started high school was the first time I got to do some real modeling. I had been playing basketball with the Miraleste team, and the coach’s girlfriend got me to do a fashion show at Carson City Hall. I was really excited, and as the show got closer, I realized that I was not nervous. Instead, I was filled with confidence. I guess I figured, after all those years of modeling for my mom, how difficult could a real fashion show be?
In the Carson show, I was supposed to model with the kids, but I was so tall and I did so well in rehearsal that they wanted me to model with the adults. Some of the women were professional models. When the show began, I walked out, gave “the look,” and then did the “fashion show turn.” I modeled a blue dress with white trimming, and I had on white earrings. I also modeled some Capri pants with a white cotton shirt, and I draped a sweater around my shoulders. It was all very stylish, and I was really enjoying myself. I did everything that I thought real models might do, but I was way too serious. I so wanted to do well. I was trying to look professional, and I was working the “model attitude.” When I walked off, people were clapping. I was in heaven. I loved modeling! It was better than basketball. I had such a great time, but I kept hearing people ask, “What was wrong with Lisa? Was she mad or upset? She looked beautiful, but the girl never smiled once.”
The next time I modeled, I was attending USC. But I learned another hard lesson about trust. In the modeling world especially, you have to be very careful. Everybody tells you, “Oh, you are so beautiful. You should be a model. I can help you.” I fell for that line from a woman who ran a modeling agency on Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles. She promised to get my modeling career off to a great start and told me that photos would be taken and the best shots sent out to potential clients. Etiquette classes were also a part of the deal. I would be learning how to walk correctly and maintain proper posture, but none of these wonderful things could happen until I paid five hundred dollars up front.
What did I know? I scraped together what little money I had from my college stipend and made the payment. Now, do not get ahead of me here. The lady did not take the money and run. She really did set up a photo session. But it was horrible! They had me in this terrible hairdo. I looked like I had a Chiquita banana stack on my head. The make-up was hideous, and the outfits were sleazy. There were so-called “professionals” there to help me get dressed and ready for the shoot, but they had me too dolled up. I looked ridiculous, and my pictures were ugly. This lady had thrown me a line of garbage, and I had bought it, literally, for five hundred dollars. Her business was bogus, and she had robbed me of my money.
Young girls ask me all the time, “How do I get started in modeling?”
I tell them that it all begins with doing research into the agencies that they might be considering. My main advice is: do not pay any up-front money. That is absurd! There are some good, legitimate companies out there, like Willie West in Los Angeles and Elite Models Management, but there are a lot of small-time agencies that are nothing but trouble. The best way to start is by looking at their people. If you have not heard of any of their agents or clients, you might want to find another place to start your modeling career.
The truth is, when you get involved with a top-notch modeling agency, they will not ask you for money. You will go for an interview, and they will take a look at you. They might send you out to a photographer to get some shots taken. Then, the agency will make up a five-by-seven card for you. It will have some of your poses on one side and your contact information on the other. It is your instant mini-portfolio and business card. A lot of this is done electronically now, but that is the way it happened when I got to New York in 1996. Wilhelmina Models Inc. was the real deal, and I never had to pay them any money to get my modeling career off the ground.
Shortly after I signed with Wilhelmina in New York, they scheduled a photo shoot so I could get some high-quality pictures for my portfolio. Everything was first class. The photographer took shots of me in a linen dress and heels. I had my hair slicked back in a bun. He captured me posing in jeans and a T-shirt and then snapped some shots of me with a basketball so we would have the athletic angle covered. He finished with some stills of me with Leon, an actor who had been in The Five Heartbeats and Waiting to Exhale. By the time we were done, there were more than enough great shots from which to choose.
My modeling career was officially under way, and my portfolio was taking shape. I added some terrific pictures that had been taken for Vogue magazine by world-famous photographer Herb Ritts prior to the 1996 Olympics. He worked with a pretty impressive clientele, such as Calvin Klein, the Rolling Stones, Madonna, Tyra Banks, Naomi Campbell, and numerous other celebrities. Herb was known for his unique black-and-white photos, and on this shoot for Vogue, he was spotlighting some of the top Olympians leading up to the Games in Atlanta.
We did the photo shoot at a beach in Malibu. Herb and I got off to a great start. He told me that I reminded him of Naomi Campbell, and that flattered me. I have always been a big fan of hers. For the shoot, my hair was put in a ponytail and pulled all the way to the side so that I looked kind of like Pippi Longstocking. Herb started snapping pictures. He wanted me to laugh and show my teeth while I posed. It seemed unnatural to me, but it was so Herb! He loved the open-mouth look for his models, and it really worked. The Vogue spread was fantastic. From then on, when anyone looked at my portfolio, they saw the shots that Herb had taken—the ones that showed off my face and my body and my open mouth. Those photos were attention getters. Those are the kinds of photos that make potential clients take notice.
I also did an interesting photo shoot for Newsweek where I was in the sand. They put crimps all over my hair and blew it out with a fan. I wore a funky top and some Capri pants and heels. Sure, I was tall, but I wore a size 6, and I could fit into all the clothes that they had for me. If things were too long, we just rolled them up or scrunched them a bit. The shoot went very well, and I got lots of amazing pictures out of it. Wilhelmina took the best of my shots and added them to my portfolio.
I had been having so much fun in New York, but the time had come to put myself out there like a real model. That was not easy for the woman that kids had called Olive Oyl back in Compton, but it was a real measuring stick for how far I had progressed in the confidence and self-esteem departments. I stayed at a hotel in SoHo to be close to all of my “go-sees.” That is what models call it when they “go see” fashion designers in hopes of getting work in upcoming shows. Go-sees were really hard. I had eight go-sees scheduled in one day. It was not glamorous. At all
! This was the working part of being a model, not the fun part everybody hears about. The physical and mental grind that went on behind the scenes was relentless.
I did not know my way around New York, so when Wilhelmina gave me an address to visit, I took cabs and spent way too much money just getting from place to place. When I did arrive at my destination, I would take my place in a line of about twenty to fifty girls of all colors, shapes, and sizes. There were many occasions when I would walk into a room of designers, and they would immediately say, “Oh no! You are too tall. Thank you. Next.” That would be it. The cab ride took longer than the time I spent inside.
On the day I had eight go-sees, my first three said, “Go away.” They were very direct.
“No, you are not right.”
“No, you are too tall.”
“No, not what we are looking for.”
I had never experienced blatant rejection like that. It was different from missing the cut for a USA Basketball squad. At least with basketball, I got to show what I could do. I could battle against my competition and then leave it to the coaches to make their decision based on my performance and the needs of the team. In modeling, it was instant success or failure. You were either in or you were left out, and you never got to square off against your competition. You were competing against the concept of “the look” that the designers had in mind. It was totally subjective and potentially very damaging to my ego. I always thought I could talk my way into anything, and I knew I could schmooze with people if I got a chance, but in modeling, it did not matter how articulate I was. Success was all based on how I looked.
The clients were not bashful about detailing exactly what they did not like. “Too skinny! Too much hips! Crooked nose! Your ears are too big. No thanks.” As a model, all you could do was stand there and try not to break down. That was not easy for me. I knew I was not supposed to take it personally, but the rejections hurt just the same. I found a phone booth and called my mom in California. I was crying when I told her, “Mom, I went on these go-sees, and the fashion people do not like me. They keep telling me that I am too tall and not what they need. They do not like me.”