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Elle Macpherson
Birth name	Eleanor Nancy Gow
Date of birth	March 29, 1964 (1964-03-29) (age 44)
Place of birth	Cronulla, New South Wales, Australia
Height	6' (183 cm)[1]
Hair color	light brown
Eye color	brown
Measurements	36C-25-35[2]
Spouse(s)	Gilles Bensimon (1985 - 1989) (divorced) Arpad Busson (2002 - 2005) (partner)
Official website

Elle Macpherson (pronounced /ˈɛl məkˈfɝːsən/; born March 29, 1964) is an Australian businesswoman, supermodel and actress. She is most famous worldwide for her six cover appearances on Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue in the 1980s, the 1990s and once in the 2000s. Nicknamed “The Body”, she is 6'0 (1.83 m) tall. According to Forbes, she is worth around £60 million.

Biography

Early life

Macpherson was born Eleanor Nancy Gow in Cronulla, New South Wales, the daughter of Peter Gow a former club president of Sydney rugby league club the Cronulla Sharks, but grew up in Killara, a suburb of Sydney and attended Killara High School.^[3] She is the eldest of four children; the Australian celebrity Mimi Macpherson is her sister. Her parents divorced when she was fourteen, and her mother later married Neil MacPherson. MacPherson then changed her last name to her stepfather's. She studied law for one year at the University of Sydney.

Rise to fame

While on holiday in Tasmania, Macpherson was discovered by Francis Grill and signed to Click Model Management. Macpherson became an international star through her appearance in Elle magazine. She appeared in every issue for six straight years. During this time she married (at age 21) Elle creative manager Gilles Bensimon. Eventually she gained even more exposure through Sports Illustrated magazine’s annual swimsuit issue. She appeared on the cover a record five times, (1986, 1987, 1988, 1994 and 2006). Rising in popularity, her exceptional body measurements (36-25-35) were the reasons for her nickname "The Body"—a tag that was to become her brand. She also released a series of successful calendars and modeled for lingerie giant Victoria's Secret.

By 1986, her popularity had increased sufficiently for Time magazine to run a cover entitled “The Big Elle”. The Australian government offered her a post on the tourist commission as an unofficial ambassador.

On 26 April 1999, the post office of Antigua and Barbuda issued a sheetlet of eight different $1.20 postage stamps with images of Elle Macpherson (Scott #2241) — the first time that any post office had issued stamps to honour a Super Model.^[4]

Modeling Career

After she was signed to Click Model Management, Macpherson appeared for the first time in australian TV ads. She soon gained popularity, but what definitely launched her career is her covers of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. During her modeling career, "The Body", as her nickname tells, became one of the most famous and successful supermodels of all time. She modeled for lingerie giant Victoria's Secret, graced covers for Time Magazine, magazine, magaine, Harper's Bazaar, Vogue and Playboy magazine just to name a few. She walked runways for infamous designers such as: Versace, Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Valentino, Prada and many others. She was one of the four owners of the Fashion Café, along with fellow '90s supermodels Christy Turlington, Naomi Campbell and Claudia Schiffer.

In 2008, Macpherson has signed up as a global brand spokesperson for cosmetics manufacturer Revlon and will feature in print and TV advertising campaigns.^[5]

She is now signed to New York Model Management.^[6]

Acting career

Macpherson made her movie debut playing an artist's model in the 1994 Sirens, which starred Hugh Grant, Sam Neill, Tara Fitzgerald, Kate Fischer and co-starred Portia de Rossi, as another model. Macpherson gained 9 kilograms (20 lbs.) and her breasts grew to 37D.^[7] She surprised fans and critics by appearing unabashedly in numerous nude scenes, earning her top billing for the film above more established actors (in fact, all the female characters in the movie appeared nude at least once).

Soon after Sirens, Macpherson appeared nude in Playboy magazine. She chose for the pictures to be published in all countries except Australia, as she didn't want her parents to see them. At the time she posed for Playboy, Australian magazines Women's Day and New Idea published shots from the shoot. They were also featured on current affairs programs A Current Affair and 60 Minutes. Macpherson also published two calendars in which she appeared in see-through tops.

In 1999, Macpherson appeared in five episodes of the United States sitcom Friends as Joey's roommate and girlfriend, Janine Lecroix. (The actress had been named in an earlier season as someone Chandler would picture during sex.) Macpherson went on to film Batman & Robin with George Clooney, Jane Eyre with William Hurt and has also appeared alongside Ben Stiller and Sarah Jessica Parker in If Lucy Fell. Her most controversial acting to date is the Showtime Cable Network miniseries A Girl Thing. In it she plays a woman experimenting with bi-sexuality. Macpherson appears in several nude love scenes with co-star Kate Capshaw.

Business endeavours

Macpherson launched her own lingerie line called "Intimates" in 1990. Since then, it became very successful in the United Kingdom and in her native Australia. The lingerie was also modelled by the top twelve in America's Next Top Model Cycle 10. The lingerie is sold across the world and in Australia in department stores such as Myer and David Jones, internet retailers such as Zodee, and specialist retailers such as Mary Holland. In 2002, Macpherson launched her own fragrance "The Body, Body Lotion".

The surfwear company Hot Tuna appointed Macpherson in 2006 as Executive Director to their board.^[8]

Extortion attempt

On July 12 and 23 of 1997, William Ryan Holt and Michael Mischler burgled Macpherson's Los Angeles home while she was away on business in Chicago. The pair stole an estimated $100,000 worth of jewelery, $6,000 in cash and 15 nude photographs.

Shortly after the burglaries, Macpherson was contacted by telephone and by mail from someone who threatened to release the photos on the Internet if she did not give them $60,000. Macpherson called the police, who set up a sting operation. After the pair realized that law enforcement had been called, they increased their demand by an additional $20,000. The duo was arrested on August 4, 1997.

Mischler, 29, was charged with two counts of burglary and six counts of extortion. He eventually pled guilty to one count of attempted extortion and one count of burglary. He received a six year, eight month sentence.

Holt, 26, a former Air Force service member and a military inmate on parole, was charged with two counts of extortion. He eventually pled guilty to one count of extortion and was sentenced to one year in jail. After completing his sentence in the Macpherson case, he was returned to military custody where he served out the remainder of his military sentence at the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Personal life

Macpherson married Gilles Bensimon in 1985, but the couple divorced as Macpherson's career escalated in 1989. She was then rumoured to be dating comedian Norm Macdonald, around the time he was promoting the movie Dirty Work.

Macpherson has two sons with former long-term boyfriend and Swiss/French financier Arpad Busson: Arpad Flynn Alexander Busson (born 14 February 1994) and Aurelius Cy Andrea Busson (born 9 February 1997); known as Flynn and Cy respectively. The couple got engaged on the announcement of Macpherson's second pregnancy in August 2002. But Aurelius Cy's birth in February 2003 led to tensions, with Macpherson booking herself into Arizona's exclusive Meadows Institute ^[9], where she was treated for exhaustion and post natal depression^[10][11]. The couple parted in July 2005.

Love reportedly struck again for the Australian supermodel in November, 2006, when she started dating British actor Ray Fearon. But their love story was short-lived, with the couple splitting in April, 2007. Macpherson and Fearon always maintained they were "just friends".

The Hollywood rumour mill went into overdrive again in February 2008, with reports that Macpherson, 44, had begun seeing art curator Vito Schnabel – the 21-year-old son of Oscar-nominated director and artist Julian Schnabel ^[12]. Macpherson and Schnabel first hit the celebrity radar a month earlier, when London paparazzi caught the unlikely couple at 1am as they sat chatting together inside her luxury car.

The London-based fashion entrepreneur is also rumoured to have dated the late Michael Hutchence, Australian restaurateur David Evans^[13] and real-estate developer John Hitchcox ^[14].

Filmography

Further reading

• Celebrity1000.com -- profile for Elle MacPherson^sic
• SouthCoast Today, 24 July 1997, "Elle Macpherson says she was the victim of burglary..."
• SouthCoast Today, 6 Dec. 1997, "Two men pleaded guilty..."
• The Smoking Gun
• Elle is also a Patron for NACOA, the National Association for Children of Alcoholics.

References

External links

• Elle Macpherson at the Internet Movie Database
• Elle MacPherson^sic in the Fashion Model Directory
• Elle Macpherson interview by Harper's BAZAAR Australia (Oct 07)
• Elle Macpherson on AskMen.com
• Elle Macpherson interviewed by Ginny Dougary (2005)
• Elle MacPherson^sic at TV.com
• Elle MacPherson