Word: eileen
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...pulchritude wars began in earnest three years ago, when the longtime dominance of Ford Models, Inc., was challenged by an interloper from Paris. The parvenu, John Casablancas, had owned the biggest model agency in Paris and for years enjoyed an uneasy working relationship with "Godmother" Eileen Ford, trading les girls between continents as occasion and opportunity demanded. Then, in 1977, despite an unwritten agreement that he would not set up shop in the U.S., Casablancas descended on Manhattan. He promptly aggravated the assault by raiding some of Ford's most toothsome stars-10s or near 10s all-as well...
Hell hath no fury like a woman broker scorned. Eileen sent Bibles to the defectors with passages about Judas marked in red. More significantly, Eileen, 58, and her partner-husband Jerry, 55, filed a $7.5 million suit against Casablancas' Elite Model Management Corp. and his four Parisian partners for "violation of fiduciary trust." The second largest agency in the U.S., Wilhelmina Models Inc., sued Casablancas for $4 million. While the suits have yet to come to trial-and quite possibly never will-the epithets and the raids and the counterraids have piled up with the intensity of Hawaiian breakers...
...personal charm, a fine eye for female sensuality, and marketing sagacity. Says he: "The girls were tired of the supermarket approach to modeling. They wanted more personalized service." Which he provides. He strokes their egos, breaks out champagne for newcomers and maintains a relaxed, easygoing manner that contrasts with Eileen Ford's housemotherly approach. Says blond Lisa Murrell, 24, a "bread-and-butter girl" who poses for many mail-order catalogues, and has twice quit and returned to Casablancas: "I feel comfortable and confident with John. He's got so much finesse. He may be full of bull...
...observation: "The agencies were always competitive but never this low. The Fords always evidenced an ethic and created many of the good practices that benefited the models." Says Casablancas, who speaks in often unprintable terms about the vendetta: "What gets me is the permanent, ever present nastiness of Eileen Ford. She is Machiavellian and Byzantine. She is like a snake with seven heads: cut off six and she still has one left to bite...
Zoltan Rendessy, Hungarian-born owner of the fourth-ranking Zoli agency, sees Fame as another outpost from which the Fords can shoot Elite down: "The Fords will John." do anything to take models away from There is little doubt that Eileen and Jerry Ford will maintain their sovereignty in the model wars. But Casablancas al ways has a fallback. He is married to his first model, Jeanette Christjansen, a for mer Miss Denmark, who at 32 can still match cheek and thigh with some of bodydom's finest...