No Lifeguard on Duty: The Accidental Life of the World's First Supermodel (8 page)

“I’m sorry, dear. You’ll have to go through proper channels. You’ll have to get an agent first.” No one was even vaguely impressed.

I was crushed. I tried to remind myself that it was just a business. That I shouldn’t take it personally. That they weren’t rejecting
me,
the real Janice. But I didn’t even know who the real Janice was. And it
was
personal. Still is.

Rejection hurts like hell. I began to think this was a pretty odd career choice for someone as deeply damaged as

myself.

Of course, there were plenty of people who pretended to be interested the minute I walked through their doors.
Too
interested. Some of them would ask for money up front, which was a dead giveaway. Even
I
knew that was seriously fucked up.

The so-called model conventions were another big

scam. Everyone had a convention coming up next week, out at a Holiday Inn in Long Island, say. There would be agents from all the name houses there, you were told, and plenty of famous photographers from all corners of the world. And
you
could be there, mingling with all those powerful people—for a mere two hundred and fifty dollars.

I was tempted, but I’d heard that only the lowest of the low ever showed up at these things, and that anyone with a real foothold in the business wouldn’t be caught dead within a mile.

I was getting pretty depressed. I was also hungry all the time. I ate the worst kind of junk. A lot of candy. Candy gave me energy. And yogurt for the protein.

N O L I F E G UA R D O N D U T Y 49

Wendy, meanwhile, took a job waiting tables at a Greek restaurant. It was owned by an old friend of the family. We were both nineteen, but all she wanted to do was meet a guy and get married and never work again. And there were plenty of handsome single guys to meet at the restaurant.

Edna approved. “I don’t understand girls nowadays,”

she said. “All this fuss about careers. It’s so much easier to find a rich man to take care of you.” Clearly, Wendy had had this idea drummed into her head since puberty. She was looking for a knight in shining armor. She wanted to be saved. Was that so wrong? I didn’t know anymore. I just knew I was getting tired of pounding the rock-hard pavements of Manhattan. I was beginning to lose confidence in myself—and I didn’t have that much to begin with. But was I ready to give up on the fantasy?

“Mom?” It was late one Sunday afternoon. I was

beyond depressed. I’d called collect.

“Oh, hi, honey. How are you?” She sounded far away.

She must have been trying some potent new drugs.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. And then the dam broke. I told her how frightened I was. How alone I felt. I told her about the miles and miles I’d logged on the crowded city streets, about feeling friendless and unimportant and completely anonymous. And I told her it was hard being broke all the time.

“Well, Janice,” she said in her Hare Krishna voice. “I have to get dinner ready for your father. Be a good girl and go to church.”

That’s a mother’s love for you.

But hey, terror is a great motivator. I was going to keep trying till I made it. I
had
to make it. And since I had nothing to lose, I decided to aim high.

Irving Penn’s studio was on lower Fifth Avenue, in the 50 J A N I C E D I C K I N S O N

same building as legendary photographers like Bob

Richardson and Bill King. One day I put on my sensible shoes, my less sensible
crepe de chine
top, and my red miniskirt, then hopped on the downtown bus. I walked right up to Penn’s studio, knocked on the door, and asked to see the man himself. Alas, I was told—a shade less than politely—to make myself scarce.

I went outside and watched the world go by for a few minutes. I wondered when I’d start becoming a joke. I didn’t think I could take much more of this. A person needs a reason to get out of bed in the morning, and marching from one end of Manhattan to another just to have doors slammed in your face is not a very good reason.

There was a big white limo parked at the curb. The

driver smiled at me. He looked cool and comfortable. I was sweating and my feet hurt. My top was so wet by this point you could see the lace on my push-up bra. Maybe that’s why the driver was smiling.

I was about to ask him if he minded giving me a ride—

it was only sixty blocks to my temporary home—when he leapt out of his seat and got the door. I turned around just as Lauren Hutton emerged from the building. I couldn’t believe it. She’d been upstairs with Penn, I figured, or one of the others, looking beautiful for the camera and making oodles of money. She smiled at me—that electric gap-toothed smile—and climbed into the limo. The driver jumped behind the wheel and pulled away.

I watched them till they were out of sight, kicking myself for missing an opportunity. I should have said something to Lauren Hutton. Then again, I probably would have stuck my foot in my mouth.
I’m glad you didn’t get
that gap fixed, Lauren. Smart move.

I was so hot I thought I was melting. Some day, I told myself, I’d have an air-conditioned limo of my own. So N O L I F E G UA R D O N D U T Y 51

I’m shallow. Fuck you. I was tired and my feet hurt and I was this close to admitting defeat.

I didn’t quit, though. My dogs were barking, but I kept walking. Uptown, to Richard Avedon’s place, back down to see Penn again, with stops at all the photographers in between: Art Kane. Patrick Demarchelier. Stan Schaefer.

John Stember. Bill Cunningham. Oliviero Toscani. Pierre Houles. Bob Richardson. Jean-Paul Goude. Scavullo. Jean Pagliuso (one of the few female photographers in the business).

But they were all out of reach. Their doors were

closed—to me, anyway. I finally cried. I sat on a bench in Central Park and the tears just poured out of me. They were the size of walnuts. I could have drowned in those tears.

I wondered if I was approaching it wrong. Maybe what I needed was to
lower
my sights. I’d heard about a half-decent photographer who had a studio downtown, His

name was Christopher Robinson, and he was listed in the white pages. I made my way over without so much as a phone call. It was a sixth-floor walk-up. I was winded by the time I got upstairs. I made a mental note to think about cutting back on cigarettes. The door was open. It was one of those heavy steel doors. I knocked and let myself in. It was a dump. No, it was
worse
than a dump. It was one of those places that intelligent people don’t poke around in because it looks like a Hollywood set for a grisly murder.

Me? I went in. I’m a genius, but I’m not always real bright about basic, mundane things. And I was a kid, for God’s sake. A
desperate
kid.

Christopher Robinson was sitting on a couch, watching TV. He looked over at me and told me I was late. His assistant, Art, came out from the bowels of the apartment, scowling, then
he
told me I was late. And he was nasty about it.

52 J A N I C E D I C K I N S O N

My first impulse was to tell them both they were assholes, but I knew a lucky break when I saw one. So I apologized for being late and promised it wouldn’t happen again. See? I told you I was a genius.

The assistant went off to set up the lights and Christopher cranked up the volume on the stereo. It was fucking deafening. I went behind a curtain and changed into the little outfit I’d bought for the modeling contest—that wraparound number with the blotchy flowers, one of the few decent things I owned—and came out and stood there in front of the lights and tried to smile. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I didn’t even know how to fake it.

“Well?” Christopher said. He had to shout to make himself heard above the Rolling Stones. I was frozen. “Would you fucking do something!” he shouted.

I posed. I
fucking
jumped. I looked like a frightened idiot. He snapped away and I kept posing and jumping, trying hard not to look as terrified and lost as I felt. Then all of a sudden a succession of crazy images began flooding my brain, images from my days on the cold linoleum floor at Publix, images from the magazines that had been such a significant part of my life. Models, modeling. Looking beautiful and regal and confident. Lauren Hutton, floating.

Not
looking terrified. And I tried to jump the way she’d jumped, and smile the way she’d smiled, and float the way she’d floated. And it goddamn worked!

“What the fuck is that!?” Christopher shouted over the din.

Well, what can I say? I
thought
it was working.

With no bus fare to my name, I walked all the way back to Lexington and 63rd. Edna was out and Wendy was working at the club, and for a moment I thought about showering and hustling on down to meet her for a drink and some compan

N O L I F E G UA R D O N D U T Y 53

ionship. But I didn’t do it. I was bone tired; plus I was beginning to feel that I was wearing out my welcome at the Gralnicks. They hadn’t said anything, of course. But these days when I’d come home after another fruitless trek through the city they seemed to look at me funny, like they felt sorry for me or something. I didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for me.

I could do that on my own, thank you very much.

There was an open bottle of wine in the fridge. I poured myself a glass and sat down on the couch and picked up the phone and dialed home. The rat bastard answered.

“It’s me,” I said. “Is Debbie there?”

“Is that any way to say hello to your daddy?” His voice was full of venom. How’d he dredge it up so fast?

“Dad, please. I’m tired. Would you put Debbie on?”

“What’s wrong? Doesn’t my Nile Princess have a

minute for her loving father?”

Nile Princess.
It had been a decade since he’d called me that. When I was a little girl, it was a term of endearment—

a reference to my exotic looks and dark coloring. Now it was a nasty dig, another joke about this ridiculous attempt at modeling. He was laughing at me. He was asking,
Who
the hell are you to think you can compete with all those
gorgeous, blue-eyed blonds?

“I have nothing to say to you,” I told him. I was determined not to let him get to me. “Nothing nice, anyway.”

“How’s the big modeling career coming?”

“Great,” I said. “Richard Avedon thinks I’m the Next Big Thing.”

“I told you you’d never amount to anything,” he said, then put the phone down and hollered for Debbie. I cupped my hand over the receiver and took a few deep, bracing breaths—the rat bastard knew how to hurt me—and Debbie got on the line a moment later. We chatted about school and gymnastics, and she told me all about a cute guy in her

54 J A N I C E D I C K I N S O N

class. I listened for clues. I knew Debbie so well that I was confident I’d catch even the smallest hint of trouble in her voice. But she seemed to be doing fine. Then she had to go—there was something on TV—and she told me she

loved me and hung up.

I finished my wine and sat there in the growing darkness for the longest time, listening to the muted roar of the city.

When I’d left for New York six months earlier, my biggest concern was leaving Debbie in Florida with the rat bastard.

But I didn’t have a choice. Well, I
did,
I guess; life is all about choices. So I had to rationalize it. And this is what I came up with: Ray had
never
molested Debbie. She’d always been his favorite. Why would he start now, when she was a teenager?

It was dark already. I forgot about Debbie and my

thoughts turned once again to me. Ah, the miracle of self-absorption. All these weeks and months in New York, and what did they amount to? Sure, I’d been lucky that afternoon. A mediocre photographer had wasted a few rolls on me.
By accident.
But how good would they be? He wasn’t exactly Irving Penn. And what would happen when I went by his studio to pick up the prints?

I’m a loser. I’m not going to make it.

I had another glass of wine,

popped a ’lude, and crawled

into bed.

When I went back for the

pictures

two

days

later,

Christopher wasn’t happy.

Eventually he’d realized his

MY PARENTS,

RAY AND JENNIE DICKINSON.

ªªªªªªªªªªªªªªª

N O L I F E G UA R D O N D U T Y 55

mistake, of course, but he also knew it wouldn’t make much sense to keep the pictures from me. After all, if I ever happened to get lucky, it would help his career, too.

“You owe me,” he reminded me as I was leaving. Art

showed up as I reached the door. “You owe me, too,” he said.

What did they expect? Blow jobs?

So off I went with my new, improved portfolio—the all-important tool of the modeling trade—and tried the agencies yet again. First stop: Eileen Ford. I’d been there half a dozen times already, but I figured if I made a pest of myself someone would cave and give me a break. There was also a slim chance that someone might
recognize
me and mistake me for a ravishing creature they’d seen in a magazine. That is, a
real
model.