Dorian Elizabeth Leigh Parker (April 23, 1917 – July 7, 2008), known professionally as Dorian Leigh, was an American model and one of the earliest modeling icons of the fashion industry. She is considered one of the first supermodels, and was well known in the United States and Europe.
Contents
Biography
Early life
Dorian Leigh Parker was born in San Antonio, Texas, to George and Elizabeth Parker. Her parents married when they were around 17 or 18 years old and Elizabeth promptly gave birth to three daughters in quick succession: Dorian, Florian "Cissie" (1918–2010), and Georgiabell (1921–1988). Thirteen years after the birth of her third daughter, Elizabeth believed she was going through menopause and was shocked to discover that she was pregnant. She gave birth to her fourth daughter, Cecilia (1932–2003), who became known as model and actress Suzy Parker. The family moved to Jackson Heights, Queens, soon after Dorian's birth and later to Metuchen, New Jersey. There, George Parker invented a new form of etching acid, the production of which gave him enough income to retire.
Dorian graduated from Newton High School in Queens, New York, in 1935 and enrolled at Randolph-Macon Women's College in Lynchburg, Virginia. In her autobiography, Dorian claimed that she was born in 1920, and graduated from high school early in 1935, at the age of 15. She claimed this was because she loved learning, and she took many classes at once since the school was supposedly overcrowded. But this later proved untrue. She also wrote that she was a 17-year-old college sophomore when she first married, when in fact, she was 20. Her first husband was Marshall Powell Hawkins, whom she married on a whim in North Carolina in 1937. They had two children: Thomas Lofton (T.L.) Hawkins (1939–2014) and Marsha Hawkins (born 1940). The couple separated in the 1940s.
After college, Dorian worked as a file clerk at a department store in Manhattan and as a tabulator, keeping track of radio program ratings. Dorian found that she had an aptitude for math, mechanical engineering, and drawing. She began to go to night school at Rutgers and said she learned about mechanical engineering at New York University. According to her autobiography, she enrolled at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, and received a B.S. in mechanical engineering. This was after an aptitude-testing laboratory (the Johnson O'Connor Foundation) informed her that she had a talent for engineering.
Dorian worked at Bell Laboratories, then during World War II, was a tool designer at Eastern Air Lines (with their Eastern Aircraft division). Dorian assisted in the design of airplane wings, beginning at 65 cents an hour and ending up with an hourly wage of $1.00. After failing to be promoted because she was a woman and because of a wartime freeze on positions, Dorian quit and took a job with Republic Pictures as an apprentice copywriter. While writing ad copy for the B movies Republic created and distributed to movie houses, she was encouraged by a Mrs. Wayburn to try modeling.
Modeling career
Taking Mrs. Wayburn's advice, in 1944 Dorian went to the Harry Conover modeling agency. At 27, Dorian was not only old by modeling standards, but at barely 5'5", she was shorter than the other models at the agency. Conover immediately sent her to see Diana Vreeland, the editor of Harper's Bazaar. Dorian met with Vreeland and fashion photographer Louise Dahl-Wolfe, who were intrigued by her zig-zagged eyebrows. Vreeland warned her, "Do not -- do not do anything to those eyebrows!" Vreeland asked Dorian to return the next day, to be photographed for the cover of the June 1944 issue of Harper's Bazaar, her very first modeling assignment. Conover told her to tell them she was 19 years old. Later they were shocked to discover her real age (27), and that she already had two children.
Dorian's parents thought modeling was not respectable, so Dorian used only her first and middle name during her career. When Dorian became an enormous success though, they thought it was acceptable that their youngest daughter Suzy use the Parker last name when she also became a famous model. Their second eldest daughter, Florian, also had modeling photos in Vogue and Harper's Bazaar, but quit when she married a man in the military, and was living in Oahu when Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1941.
Dorian quickly became busy with modeling assignments, landing on the covers of major magazines such as Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Paris Match, LIFE, and Elle. Because of her schedule, Dorian's two children were sent to live with her parents in Florida, while she was based in New York City and traveling to Europe.
In 1946, Dorian appeared on the cover of six American Vogue magazines. She worked with famous fashion photographers Irving Penn, John Rawlings, Cecil Beaton, and Paul Radkai. She dated Irving Penn, who later married another model, Lisa Fonssagrives. On one assignment, she argued with Paul Radkai's wife Karen, who wanted to be a fashion photographer and to take many extra, and free, photos of Dorian for her portfolio. When Dorian balked at having to pose for Karen without being paid, Karen warned her she would "ruin her." Indeed, Vogue never used Dorian again, and Karen became a Vogue photographer for many years.
Dorian easily transitioned to working with Harper's Bazaar's new, young photographer, Richard Avedon. Avedon would become one of the most famous photographers in history. While living in her apartment in New York, a young author, Truman Capote, visited a friend in an apartment near hers. Capote was fascinated by Dorian's lifestyle of non-stop men, coming and goings, and having a store across the street handle her phone calls, since there were no answering machines back in the early 1950s. He struck up a friendship with Dorian and called her "Happy-go-lucky." Capote's character Holly Golightly in his famous 1958 novel Breakfast at Tiffany's is said to be largely based on Dorian's life, as well as socialite Gloria Vanderbilt's.
Life after modeling
Living in France with her baby son Kim, Dorian was nearing 40. Her career as a model was coming to a close, so she began the first legal modeling agency in France to support her son. She had also lent the financially irresponsible Portago about $15,000.
Portago, still married, was now also openly dating actress Linda Christian, the ex-wife of actor Tyrone Power, in early 1957. On April 23, 1957, Dorian's 40th birthday, Portago told Dorian that he was supposedly finally divorcing Carroll so they could be legally married. He told her that he was entering the famous Mille Miglia car race in Italy on May 8, 1957, and Carroll was supposed to sign their divorce papers on May 9. Instead, on May 8, Dorian received a phone call from his mother Olga, informing Dorian that Fon's tire on his Ferrari race car had blown up because he did not stop in time for a tire change. Fon and his co-driver Edmund Nelson were mutilated and killed in a horrifying crash. As well, when the tire exploded and he lost control of the car, nine spectators, including five children, were killed due to the accident. This catastrophe ended the Mille Miglia forever.
A few days after Portago was killed, Dorian's sister Suzy, while making a movie with Cary Grant, told famous gossip columnist Louella Parsons that Dorian had a son with Portago and she was estranged from her sister because of it. Dorian was shocked that Suzy leaked this secret, and Dorian's parents only learned about the child's existence from reading about it in the newspaper. They were furious and told Dorian that she would never have custody of her children. They also refused to accept Kim.
In 1957, Dorian returned to Florida and visited Young at her parents’ home. She then took her daughter, fled to Paris, and remained mostly in France for the following 21 years. Dorian's two older children had graduated high school by this time. She continued to run her modeling agency in Paris and became pregnant by yet another man in 1958. While in the hospital in Paris on June 6, 1958, she received news that Suzy and her father had been in a serious car accident. Suzy's father had apparently not seen or heard an oncoming train and drove onto the tracks where it slammed into his car. They were on their way to visit Suzy's mother, who was in the hospital with cancer. Their father was killed. Suzy's arms were broken and she remained hospitalized for three months. Dorian then had her gynecologist, Dr. Serge Bordat, abort her baby. Days later, she married Dr. Bordat.
Autobiography
In 1980, Dorian published an autobiography, The Girl Who Had Everything (Doubleday).
According to Dorian, she wrote her autobiography for her late son: "I really wrote it for Kim, who will never read it. But perhaps other Kims and their parents may learn from my unhappy experiences".
Death
Dorian died in a Falls Church, Virginia, nursing home from Alzheimer's disease at the age of 91 in 2008. In her obituary, her first son, Thomas Lofton (T.L.) Hawkins, reminisced about his mother's famous "Fire and Ice" photograph.
Dorian was survived by three of her five children: son T.L., who later married Kristie Miller, daughter of Ruth Elizabeth McCormick, and daughters Young Eve and Miranda Olga. Dorian's son Blaise (Kim) and daughter Marsha Lynn predeceased her. She was also survived by several grandchildren and one remaining Parker sister, Florian, who died at the age of 92 in 2010.