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Elle Macpherson (born March 29, 1963
or 1964, in Killara, New South Wales, Australia) is an Australian
supermodel and actress. Nicknamed “ The Body, ” Elle is six feet(1,82 m)
tall.
Baptized in a Baptist church and christened Eleanor Lucy Gow, Macpherson
is the eldest of four children. Her parents divorced when she was
fourteen, and her mother later married Neil Macpherson. Macpherson then
changed her last name for her stepfather's. She studied law for one year
at the University of Sydney.
While vacationing in Tasmania, Macpherson was discovered and signed to
Chick Model Management. Macpherson became an international star through
her appearance in ELLE magazine — every issue, for six straight years. At
21, she married Gilles Bensimon, a French photographer and creative
manager of ELLE. Eventually she gained even more exposure through Sports
Illustrated magazine’s annual swimsuit issue. She appeared on the cover a
record four times, including three years in a row.
By 1986, her popularity had increased sufficiently for Time magazine to
run a cover entitled “The Big Elle”. The Australian government
simultaneously offered her a post on the tourist commission as an
unofficial ambassador.
Macpherson made her movie debut playing an artist's model in the 1994
Sirens, which starred Hugh Grant, Sam Neill, Tara Fitzgerald and
co-starred Portia de Rossi, as another model. Macpherson gained 9
kilograms (20 lb) and her breasts grew to a voluptuous 37D. 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 in the
film).
In 1999, Macpherson appeared in five episodes of the hit US sitcom Friends
as Joey's roommate — girlfriend, Janine Lecroix.
Macpherson went on to film Jane Eyre with William Hurt and has also
appeared alongside Ben Stiller and Sarah Jessica Parker in If Lucy Fell.
Macpherson is the most financially successful of all the world's
supermodels. A 1997 estimate placed her net assets at $40.3 million. Cindy
Crawford is a relatively close second with $41.2 million.
Understandably, Macpherson is extremely popular in her home country of
Australia. In 1999, she became the first living Australian entertainer to
be put on a postage stamp.
Elle was a partner in the Fashion Café restaurant, along with fellow
models Claudia Schiffer, Christy Turlington and Naomi Campbell, and is
currently the owner of a successful lingerie brand, Elle Macpherson
Intimates.
Macpherson has two sons, Arpad Flynn Alexander Busson and Aurelius Cy
Andrea Busson; they were baptized as Roman Catholics, in the faith of
their father, Arpad Busson, a wealthy self-made Swiss/French financier
worth roughly $100,000,000 (USD).
Macpherson and Busson were engaged in 2002 after a six-year relationship,
but according to Macpherson they could not marry because Arkie Busson is a
devout Roman Catholic, and she is a divorcee. Elle and Arpad were
allegedly awaiting an annulment. Their relationship ended in July 2005,
but tabloids recently reported that they were reaching out to each other
again (as of February 2006).
Macpherson is a breast cancer awareness advocate who launched the
inaugural campaign Fashion Targets Breast Cancer in Dublin in 2005.
Designer T-shirts were sold to raise money for Action Breast Cancer, a
project of the Irish Cancer Society, and Europa Donna Ireland. |
