Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 25, 1995 TAG: 9506280039
SECTION: BOOK PAGE: F-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: REVIEWED BY MARIAN COURTNEY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Drugs, double-crosses, exploitation, infidelity and sexual promiscuity: all this unsavory behavior and more litters the pages of Michael Gross', "Model: The Ugly Business of Beautiful Women."
One would expect an accomplished journalist to conduct many interviews when researching a subject, and Gross does not disappoint on this score. He bombards readers with so many names and quotes in machine-gun succession that one feels like running for a bomb shelter for protection against the assault. Going back to the 1920s, Gross outlines modeling's history and follows the business to the present. He investigates not only models, but whom they had relationships with and tidbits about those individuals. He throws photographers and modeling agency people into the mix as well. The book lacks a clear focus and a smooth flow.
For example, from a discussion of Christie Brinkley's romances, Gross jumps to Janice Dickinson giving birth and then to Calvin Klein taking a planeload of models to Japan. This leaves the reader disoriented. It turns out that the models are linked by a sexual relationship with the same photographer, albeit at different times. Who cares? Reveling in the sordid, the book later airs a disagreement between two former lovers as to who got up on a table in a Paris restaurant and mooned somebody.
Once again, who cares and so what?
Unsubstantiated allegations are not omitted from the book, either. Gross quotes a magazine editor saying that a prominent model was heavy into coke, yet he neither names this source nor offers any proof of the allegation. The author's gossip-column approach to his subject reduces the book's impact. If his intent was to impart the impression that the modeling industry is a viscious, sordid business largely run by unsavory people, he has succeeded. If he wanted to pander to prurient curiosity, he has also succeeded.
On the other hand, "Model" might leave some readers thinking, "Who cares about these people, and how has this book enriched my life?"
It hasn't.
Marian Courtney is a Charlottesville writer.
by CNB