and, best of all, the rapist didn’t follow me. I hadn’t realized until we moved to Laguna Beach that I’d been carrying this oppressive weight around, as if that guy in the back of the van was still on top of me. Now that weight began to evaporate.
The boys there walked around in surf shorts, the girls were naturally beautiful, and no one wore makeup or heels, so I had to change again to fit in.
My new school had a strong arts program; our most distinguished alumnus was Richard Chamberlain, and our football team was even called the Artists. I got onto the junior varsity cheerleading team, and we had little painting palettes on our cheerleading sweaters. We had had to come up with cheers to fit the theme: “Paint them into a corner! Pour turpentine on them!” It was all good fun and I felt my self-confidence returning.
Soon after we moved I was approached by a contemporary artist who wanted to photograph me for his exhibition in the Laguna Beach Festival of the Arts. He wanted to take a series of images of me in a bathing suit, posing up against a wall. I was nervous, but my parents looked into it and heard that he was a legitimate artist, and it seemed like a good opportunity to get some professional photos for a portfolio as well as some public exposure to help my acting career get going. Before the festival I got my own set of prints—I was over the moon with the result. The photos were beautiful, and to this day I count them as some of the best ever taken of me.
I proudly met my family and friends outside the exhibition on the opening day. The photos were to be printed in large format and hung in a series along a wall. I struggled to see the pictures through the crowd of people that had gathered around them. It seemed as though I was a hit. I nudged my way forward and then stood, frozen in stunned silence. My excitement vanished, and black clouds of humiliation rolled in. The series was titled “Beauty Deconstructed,” and the artist had splattered the life-size photographs of me with his own blood and feces.
Some of the people in the crowd looked at me and then back at the pictures and then back at me. I turned and ran. My parents followed me back to their car and I cried all the way home.
It was a horribly disappointing experience, but despite the embarrassment those photos led to a strange and interesting series of events.
A few days after the exhibition I was approached by a photographer named Pam Bouchard. She loved the images and sent them on to Eileen Ford in New York, who agreed to see me.
The Ford Agency has represented some of the world’s top models, including Cheryl Tiegs, Christy Turlington, Christie Brinkley, and Jerry Hall. Some have even gone on to be successful actresses, like Elle MacPherson, Sharon Stone, and Courteney Cox. I figured that if I were lucky I could start out as a model and bridge into acting. I was already skinny, but I wanted to give it my best shot, so I stepped up my diet regime to political-prisoner-on-hunger- strike level.
Pam was openly gay and despite my parents being fairly straight-laced, she somehow convinced them that she would be a suitable chaperone, and off we went to the Big Apple. The hotel was cheap and nasty, but Pam had lined up a bunch of meetings, and once we started doing the rounds I found myself getting invited out to the coolest parties. And Pam was great. She really believed in me and helped me to believe in myself, and best of all she let me go wherever I wanted. I met Scott Webster, who was one of the first male supermodels and was, unsurprisingly, fucking gorgeous, and I found my way to Studio 54, where I saw things that fifteen-year-old girls are not supposed to see. With an intake of only 1,000 calories per day, I was lightheaded and literally dazzled by the bright lights and activity of New York City.
At one of the agency meetings I met a young model from Kentucky who was my age. We got along great, and she asked me if I’d go out with her, because she needed a partner for a double date that night.
“Sure, who are we going out with?”
“Matt Dillon and Billy Idol.”
Billy had just come out with his single “White Wedding,” which was all over MTV, and Matt was working his way through the film adaptations of the S. E. Hinton novels Tex, The Outsiders, and Rumble Fish.
Was that how it was every night in New York? You agree to a date and next thing you know you’re hanging out with famous actors and rock stars? I was dazzled.
We met them at Billy’s apartment, which was a total mess. Everything was on the floor, and it looked like the aftermath of a burglary. The only things in the fridge were water and champagne.
On a glass coffee table were some really tacky earrings, and Billy wanted me to wear them.
“Put those on, darlin’. Put ’em on, put ’em on. They suit you.”
No, they fucking don’t. Imagine earrings with three fluffy snowballs hanging on a gold chain. I wore them all night and only found out later that they belonged to Billy’s insanely jealous live-in girlfriend and that if she’d seen me wearing them my odds of surviving the night would have been slim at best. I think Billy was hoping that she’d run into us and he’d get to watch a catfight.
But thankfully that didn’t happen, and instead Matt and Billy decided that they’d show us their favorite New York haunts. We ended up at the Limelight, which was this huge Gothic Revival church that had been a rehab center before it was converted into a nightclub. That night Jimmy Page and Robert Plant surprised the audience by playing an impromptu set. I was a huge Led Zeppelin fan, and there I was in the front row just a few feet from my idols. Matt Dillon and Billy Idol faded into the background; I forgot they were even there until Billy tapped me on the shoulder. Matt was taking my girlfriend from Kentucky off to the bathroom for some recreational activities, and he thought that we should follow suit. And from memory he didn’t put it that delicately.
By then my girlfriend had told me the story about the earrings, and to be honest, as much of an Anglophile as I am, I just didn’t find Billy very attractive or interesting. Add that to the fact that Led Zeppelin were playing, and without giving it a second thought I brushed off my first celebrity paramour. He should have known he had no chance when stacked up against Jimmy Page working the fret boards of his double-necked Gibson.
The next day I was back at the modeling agency.
“Claudia, darling, you’re the perfect height and you’ve got a nice face but please, we have to weigh you before we can go any further. Do you mind stepping on the scales? Thank you, darling.”
I climbed onto the scales. I was 5'9" and 120 pounds. Zero body fat.
“Look, darling, we like you. You’ve got an interesting look but if you want to be a model you’ve got to commit to losing another five to ten pounds.”
“Ten more pounds?”
It was ridiculous. How much more could I starve myself? I wasn’t carrying any weight. We left the meeting, and I told Pam that I didn’t know how to become the person they were looking for. I was upset, anxious, worried that I might be passing up my one big shot. And then Pam stepped up to the plate.
“You know what? You’re fine as you are, I’m not gonna let you do this. Let’s go home.”
Thank God she said that; it was just what I needed to hear. I was a thin, pretty teenager and they wanted me to be anorexic. I went out and bought a bagel with cream cheese and felt a huge sense of relief. My friends at school couldn’t believe that I’d turned down the chance to be a model, and I’ll admit that the lifestyle had certainly been dazzling, but at fifteen I wasn’t ready psychologically,
