Page 17 - PROTAGONIST 109

Her mole?” A peal of laughter erupts from Mar-
co Glaviano, the Italian photographer who
brought fame to just about the whole gener-
ation of the historic supermodels of the ‘80s
and ‘90s, when the conversation turned to that
which became, for the world, the iconic element of the explosive

charm of Cindy Crawford, the beauty who turns 50 this February

(of course, there are other elements that made her the erotic leg-

end of at least two generations, as the photos in this article testify,

but her mole is her mole...). “Today I can say with a certain satisfac-

tion that if that mole has become her trademark, it is partly due to

me. I spent hours convincing Cindy to keep it, to stand up to the

persistent craziness of her agency, where they urged her to have it

surgically removed. Some even told her she would never make it

as a model unless she got rid of it...” How many tears flowed onto

that mole from the eyes of the shy teenager from DeKalb, Illinois,

a small town 60 miles from Chicago, with two sisters and a brother

from a blue collar family (mechanic father and housewife moth-

er). “In high school the boys on the football team made fun of However, I have to say that the moment I set eyes on her, I knew

me,” reveals Cindy in her biography, Becoming, issued by Rizzoli she was going to be a bomb. She was fantastic: she had an incred-

to coincide with her landmark birthday. “I was crazy about them, ible body and a face like nobody else. So, I insisted, I accepted a

like all the girls in my class, and they used to say: ‘Hey, little Craw- healthy dose of responsibility, and I can only say that I was right.”

ford, there’s a chocolate stain on your face.’ In general, revenge The first ‘swimsuit calendar’, which laid the foundations for
is a dish best served cold, but rather warm revenge, bordering on the collaboration between the photographer and the mod-
hot, is what Cindy exacted on those testosterone-fuelled jocks be- el, was shot in Mexico, in Cabo San Lucas, and it freed her
fore the whole world a few months later, when Roger Legel, an

amateur photographer who worked with a local from the closed loop of fashion and catapulted

newspaper, the DeKalb Nite Weekly, asked her to } It was a time her onto the stage of the male desires of the en-
pose for the cover of its special insert, the Univer- when ideal beauty tire world. “That edition was supposed to feature
sity Issue. She had never thought of being a mod- Paulina Porizkova, the most beautiful model of

el (although her fourth-grade teacher in elemen- was “blonde hair the day; but she had just signed a contract with
tary school had obviously had a crystal ball: “you and blue eyes”, but Estée Lauder which put her under severe restric-
are a future Miss America,” she told her one day), she broke through tions.” Paulina backed out, and the production
and she had enrolled in the Chemical Engineer- turned to Stephanie Seymour, who was a perfect

ing faculty, but the request intrigued her. Back match for the afore-mentioned canons; however

home she spoke to her parents, who forbade her. Tears flowed and Marco insisted on Cindy, whom he had already worked with. Gla-

in the end a compromise was reached: on the set, the local swim- viano’s stubbornness won through, the calendar sold millions of

ming pool, Cindy arrived with her parents and boyfriend in tow, copies, and Cindy’s mole became the stuff of legend. And behind

but once the photographer turned his lens on her, she was a reve- her mole? “She was fiercely determined, she had very precise ideas

lation. Mole or not, her picture started to circulate, her determina- about what she wanted to do on the set, and she wouldn’t budge

tion to become a Nobel-winning chemist began to wane, and Cin- an inch,” recalls Glaviano. “Neither would I, so we argued a lot.”

dy began to make her way up as a model, in the afternoons dur- So much for becoming a model by chance. “She always knew her

ing her time at university, and in summer, on photoshoots in Eu- potential, what she could become. And she worked hard to fulfil

rope and around the world. When Cindy appeared on the scene it,” confirms the photographer. Make up? “Nothing, just her nat-

in the mid-’80s, “it was the golden age of blonde-haired blue-eyed ural beauty. Those were the days before Photoshop, so if there was

models. That was the standard of erotic beauty that was splashed a flaw, you saw it. The fact is, she didn’t have any flaws...” And that

on the covers of Vogue America and Sports Illustrated,” says Gla- beauty still shines through today, and even more so, according to

viano, who formed a solid working relationship with Cindy that Glaviano: “the best gift that Cindy has given herself for her 50th

lasted over a decade, as well as a personal friendship that contin- birthday is to have cultivated a sweeter character: she is a happy

ues today. “Compared to those canons, she was definitely a girl and serene person with two wonderful children and a fantastic

who broke the mould, and it took some courage to bank on her. husband.” And her mole is still there on her left cheek, of course.

Cynthia Ann Crawford was born in DeKalb, Illinois, United States. At the top of her career, Cindy celebrated a dream wedding with the actor
Richard Gere, which lasted until 1995. Today Ms Crawford is married to businessman Rande Gerber and has two children,
Presley Walker and Kaia Jordan. Her autobiography in words and pictures is titled “Becoming” by Cindy Crawford with Katherine O’Leary.

17N. 109 / PROTAGONIST