the Sunday Times about the pitfalls for young models in Italy.
All the girls were accommodated in apartments in Milan and had to pay their own expenses, so they often ended up deeply in debt and willing to do almost anything for money. Joan said that the South African consul general in Milan had told her personally how a desperate young girl had approached him for help.
During the interview with Charlize, Joan asked her directly: “Bad things are sometimes whispered about the modelling world. Do you think you’re mature enough to handle it?”
Charlize’s confident reply as it appeared in the magazine was not that of a typical fifteen-year-old: “I believe I’ll be able to handle the pressure. Otherwise I would not have entered. I believe in myself. I am positive. The negative things I’ll simply have to deal with. I have a capacity for being happy. My feet are firmly on the ground.”
And Gerda remarked: “After all, Benoni and Milan are just a flight apart.”
Joan remarked that those who knew about the great sadness she was hiding underneath that beautiful smile could only look at her with even greater respect. Gerda’s only comment on the tragedy was a shrug of the shoulders and a laconic: “It happened. We’re both still shaken by it, but we have to look at the future. It’s a baptism of fire for Charlize, but I have faith in my child.”
In August 2008, almost exactly seventeen years after that conversation with the two Theron women, Joan recalled their meeting. She described how she had experienced Charlize as a fifteen-year-old, barely seven weeks after her father’s death, and said that at the time she had had no inkling of how famous the child would one day become. She admitted that she had been worried about Charlize. Awful things had been said about what could await young models in Italy. And more vulnerable than she had been, you could hardly find.
Or so she had thought.
Joan had asked about her father. Charlize and Gerda had looked at each other for a split second, after which Charlize simply replied that her father had died in an accident.
(Their eyes were shiny and mother and daughter looked at each other in perfect understanding, Joan had stated in Rooi Rose at the time.)
Joan said that she had not understood the full significance of that meaningful glance then. Only later did she realise that, far from being defenceless, there was ice in Gerda and Charlize’s veins. After all, everyone at school had believed that she had been a princess in a previous life. Perhaps they had all just been too blind, or too stupid, said Joan, or they had seen only the fifteen-year-old and not the steel inside her.
Charlize had enormous self-discipline and determination, but not one of them had dreamed that she would go so far . . . perhaps as a model, yes, but never as a famous film star.
Even when Charlize went on to win the New Model Today competition in Italy, Joan’s fears were not appeased, though Charlize now had a modelling contract and was out of their hands. She said she later heard that Charlize had acted in an Italian film. But when she saw a portfolio with photos of Charlize in underwear, she was deeply concerned. As a mother herself, it was the last thing she wanted to see. Nowadays models of fourteen or fifteen are a common sight, Joan said, but not in those days. And especially not in a foreign country. She said she often spoke to Charlize’s mother about it, but Gerda said that Charlize was well taken care of. Perhaps she was . . .
Joan said she had agreed at the time to keep the secret of Charles Theron’s shooting and denied that there had been any likelihood of Charlize withdrawing from the competition. She was just too strong, her life carried on.
Later Rooi Rose severed its ties with the Italian modelling sponsor. (An Italian talent scout claimed that he had “discovered” Charlize in 1991.) In 2008, Gianfranco Iobbi was still coming to South Africa in search of young talent, but as far back as 1990, before Charlize was discovered, he had been surrounded by controversy for selecting an eleven-year-old girl from Cape Town to do a modelling course in Italy.
In 1990, Dawn Gardiner, whose daughter Margaret became a successful model and wore the Miss Universe crown, said that Margaret had only left at sixteen. They had been worried, though she was very mature for her age.
According to Lynette Fourie, mother of the successful South African and international top model, Tanya Fourie, such an opportunity is wonderful if a child’s mother can accompany her, but it is not as easy as it may sound. No work is guaranteed and even though a modelling agency might hire her, she still needs to be exposed to clients. She said that in Italy, Tanya had gone from door to door with her portfolio. A young girl must be strong to cope with the realities of modelling, the daily exposure to rejection. The child must have had a stable upbringing and she must have a very special personality.
On 31 August 1993 Iobbi was interviewed by the Johannesburg daily newspaper Beeld and gave guidelines to which young models had to conform if they were to succeed. Being tall or short, having blonde or dark hair, a short or a long nose, were unimportant, he said. What was important is what the industry was looking for at that moment, the right appearance in the right place at the right time.
But what made a model a winner in his opinion?
A successful model was almost like a successful athlete, he maintained. She had to decide whether she wanted to qualify for sprints or long-distance running. She had to have the right physical qualities, and then she had to have the determination to achieve her ideals. And the younger she was, the better her chances.
On 17 May 1994, thirteen-year-old Celesté Fourie of Bloemfontein was chosen as the winner of the New Model Today competition in Johannesburg, and Iobbi commented: “Fresh and innocent young faces with freckles are in. That’s why the current trend is to use younger and younger girls as models. They also have to be tall and slender, with an unspoilt appearance. When I saw Celesté for the first time, I immediately knew: Here is the winner.”
A month later this trend to recruit girls as young as eleven and thirteen as models was discussed by the TV presenter Felicia Mabuza-Suttle on the South African TV programme Top Level. One of the participants was a young girl of Johannesburg, simply known as Tracey, who maintained that she had been raped while modelling in Italy.
Retha Snyman, organiser of the Rooi Rose modelling competition, was also struck by the close bond between Charlize and her mother. But, Retha said, Gerda allowed Charlize to make her own decisions. Charlize had been keen to go, and her mother had given her the freedom to decide for herself. Retha thought that it had been extremely brave of Gerda to allow her daughter to go abroad at such a young age.
Retha also encountered the quality in Charlize that would later be so characteristic of her success: tenacity, a will to succeed in everything she tackled that almost bordered on obstinacy. Retha does not think that every young girl could follow the road Charlize chose to take. She was hardworking and punctual, a perfectionist. If there was a photo shoot, she would arrive ten minutes ahead of time, dressed and ready to work. And Retha remembers how worried she was about the pets she would have to leave behind when she went to Italy.
In the middle of August, Charlize left for Milan. Her first stop, however, was Casablanca in Morocco, where the first round of the New Model Today competition would be taking place. As assistant producer of the South African TV programme Top Billing, Aletta Alberts filmed an insert about Char-lize among 64 other aspiring models from all over the world. She remembers that Charlize was like a little girl, unaffected and very pretty. Her ballet training had made her very graceful. Her mother predicted that she would win.
In Morocco a video insert was filmed for the gala evening at which the New Model Today competition winner would be announced,
