Wilhelmina Cooper

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Wilhelmina Cooper

Wilhelmina Cooper (born May 1, 1939 in Culemborg , Netherlands as Wilhelmina Behmenburg ; † March 1, 1980 in Greenwich , Connecticut , United States ) was a model and later founder of the Wilhelmina Models modeling agency .

Life

Wilhelmina Behmenburg was born in 1939 in Culemborg , the Netherlands , and grew up in Oldenburg , Germany. Her family moved to the United States in 1954 and settled in Chicago , where her father worked as a butcher.

Her modeling career began after she accompanied a friend to a modeling school, the director of which her friend rejected but encouraged her to model. After six months of training, she had her first shoots. Larger orders followed in Chicago and later in Paris and New York. She quickly rose to become one of the most important models of the 1950s and 1960s. In her long career, she appeared on 255 front pages, including 27 titles in the American Vogue edition.

In 1965 she married Bruce Cooper, who previously produced The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson . The marriage later had two children.

Together with her husband, she founded the model agency Wilhelmina Models in 1967 , which, alongside Ford Models , was one of the most important model agencies in the United States until the 1980s, when Elite Model Management became increasingly important. Her agency supported the first African American model Naomi Sims .

Cooper has served on beauty pageants such as Miss Universe and Miss USA as a panel member.

Cooper also ran the agency after she was diagnosed with lung cancer in the late 1970s . She died on March 1, 1980, at the age of 40 in Greenwich Hospital, Connecticut.

reception

In the film Gia - Preis der Schönheit (1998), which tells the life story of the supermodel Gia Carangi , who was discovered by Cooper and later died of AIDS , Cooper was portrayed by Faye Dunaway .

Web links

Commons : Wilhelmina Cooper  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e How Tough Is It to Become A Top Model in Tri City Herald from February 27, 1972
  2. ↑ A lovely life taken by smoking in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 4, 2006
  3. ↑ Naomi Sims obituary in the London Telegraph, August 5, 2009
  4. ^ Wilhelmina, High-Fashion Model And Agency Owner, Is Dead at 40 in New York Times, March 3, 1980
personal data
SURNAME Cooper, Wilhelmina
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American model and businesswoman
DATE OF BIRTH May 1, 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH Culemborg , the Netherlands
DATE OF DEATH March 1, 1980
Place of death Greenwich , Connecticut United States