Campbell, Naomi 1970—

Naomi Campbell 1970—

Model

At a Glance…

Sources

Deemed “the reigning megamodel of them all” in Interview magazine, London-born Naomi Campbell is one of the world’s most in-demand and highly paid models. Campbell earns over $1 million annually; for a single day’s work she can bring in upwards of $10,000. With looks that some have described as exotic—her grandmother was a Chinese native of Jamaica— Campbell is a familiar figure on the covers of leading American and European fashion publications. She has appeared in Cosmopolitan, Vogue, and Elle, and holds the distinction of being the first ethnic woman ever to appear on the cover of the French edition of Vogue.

One reason Campbell is so highly sought after is what many in the fashion industry have praised as her natural modeling ability. “She’s one of the most delightful girls I’ve ever worked with, one of my favorite models,” exalted renown fashion photographer Francesco Scavullo in Harpers Bazaar. “No one else has such an amazing body. She makes clothes come alive.” Fashion coordinator Audrey Smaltz also commented in Harper’s Bazaar on Campbell’s magnetism on style show runways: “She’s doesn’t realize how wonderful she is…. She has terrific body language—most models don’t—and can translate this into whatever she’s wearing.” Designer Azzedine Alaia, one of Campbell’s personal favorites, calls her “a little marvel.”

The daughter of a modern ballet dancer, the brown-eyed brunette Campbell entered modeling when she was fifteen and a student at London’s Academy of Performing Arts. An agent discovered her in a shopping arcade of Covent Gardens, which Campbell frequented after school. Campbell described the encounter to George Wayne in Interview: “I was just hanging out, and this woman comes up to me and says, I’m a modeling agent.’ I didn’t believe her, but I took her card home and gave it to my mother. And then I saw an interview of her in Tatler, so I knew she was legitimate. After that I started pleading with my mother to let me go see her. At the end of the school year, I did. She took a picture of me in my school uniform … then she sent me to a photographer who was working on an assignment for British Elle in New Orleans, and he booked me.” Superstar model Christy Turlington, a close friend of Campbell’s, first met the teenage hopeful at the agency where Turlington was working. “She was wearing her school uniform,” Turlington related to Elizabeth

At a Glance…

Born May 22, 1970, in London, England; mother was a ballet dancer. Education: Attended London Academy of Performing Arts c. 1985.

Model, 1986—. Appeared on London stage in The King and /, in films Quest for Fire and The Wall, both 1982, and on television series The Cosby Show.

Sporkin in People. ’The next time I saw her, a few months later, she was on her own in Paris, dancing until 4 a.m.”

Campbell has worked with some of the biggest names in the fashion industry. She described in Interview some of her favorite fashion photographers: “I like working with Herb Ritts, and I do very much like working with [Francesco] Scavullo. He makes me feel like a woman. Herb makes you feel very innocent. Steven [Meisel] makes you feel like a character. When you work with him he’ll give you postcards and books to look at and study.

He makes me look different in every picture.” Campbell’s assignments have taken her to many locations around the world. For one of her most exciting—and harrowing—photo shoots, she found herself, standing atop a volcano in Lanzarote, Spain—in heels.

Campbell’s future may hold more than modeling. She has an ambition to act; prior to her modeling career, Campbell appeared on the London stage in a production of The King and I and in two 1982 movies, Quest for Fire and Pink Floyd’s The Wall. More recently she played the character of Julia on NBC-TV’s The Cosby Show. Campbell hopes to expand her acting career and appears confident that the jet-set life of an international model is ample preparation. She remarked to Wayne: “You can’t learn it all. As they tell you, acting is reacting. So it’s all about going through life, having experiences.”

Sources

Harper’s Bazaar, March 1990.

Interview, May 1990.

People, June 11, 1990.

—Michael E. Mueller