Read Online No Lifeguard on Duty: The Accidental Life of the World's First Supermodel by Janice Dickinson - Free Book Online
Authors: Janice Dickinson
Tags: United States, General, Personal Memoirs, Biography & Autobiography, Entertainment & Performing Arts, Biography, Women, Models (Persons), Models (Persons) - United States, Artists; Architects; Photographers, Television Personalities - United States, Dickinson; Janice
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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 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.
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