Leigh, Dorian

▪ 2009

Dorian Elizabeth Leigh Parker 

      American fashion model

born April 23, 1917, San Antonio, Texas

died July 7, 2008, Falls Church, Va.

dominated the 1940s and '50s fashion scene, with appearances on more than 50 magazine covers (including 7 for Vogue in 1946 alone) and in a 1952 advertising campaign for Revlon cosmetics; she was widely considered the first supermodel, though the publicity surrounding her stormy personal life sometimes rivaled that of her career. Leigh majored in English at Randolph-Macon Woman's College, Lynchburg, Va., and then studied mathematics and engineering at New York University before doing mechanical drafting for the U.S. Navy and for the Eastern Aircraft Corp., designing aircraft wings. At the age of 27, while working as an advertising copywriter in New York City, she applied to be a model at Harry Conover Agency, which referred her to Diana Vreeland at Harper's Bazaar. Vreeland featured her on the magazine's cover in June 1944. Leigh later joined Eileen Ford's esteemed modeling agency on the condition that her much younger sister—the future supermodel Suzy Parker—be hired as well, sight unseen. At age 40, Leigh, with Ford, opened Paris's first modeling agency. Leigh later trained as a chef, opened a restaurant, and wrote two cookbooks as well as an autobiography, The Girl Who Had Everything (1980).

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