Where do you work?
Van Cleef & Arpels. But I was a model in the sixties and seventies.
How’d you get into that?
I took a train in from Holyoke, Massachusetts, bought a copy of the New York Times, saw an ad that said “model needed,” and went to the address listed.
Modeling must have been very glamorous then.
It was like I’d died and gone to heaven. Once in Paris, when I was working for Balmain, Jack Benny invited me to a party at Maxim’s. Sammy Davis Jr. was there. Oh, and Irving Penn photographed me once. But he didn’t like my face; he only shot my legs.
Interview by Alexis Swerdloff