When you have Pattie Boyd, Dustin Hoffman, Joanna Lumley, Stella McCartney, Brooke Shields and photographer Rankin waxing lyrical about you then you’ve done something right. And here it’s about Lesley Hornby aka Twiggy arguably the UK’s first supermodel before the term was even coined. Discovered in 1966 as a sixteen year old schoolgirl (and a boyfriend who was queasily 10 years older) she wasn’t the conventionally received perception of a model having been told she was too short, too thin and had no bust and yet given a then ground breaking pixie haircut combined and wearing eye make-up inspired by of all things her raggy doll her slightly androgynous look was an immediate hit. Twiggy the documentary follows that ascent retiring at just 22years of age and yet that was not the end of her.
Director Sadie Frost’s documentary, her latest in her fascination with the 1960’s after her Mary Quant doco, takes in the model’s career. Now aged 76 and still with a trim figure when many of us have a body like a dropped trifle she recounts her rise and varied career that took in a successful if brief singing career dueting with David Bowie, Brian Ferry and Bing Crosby and winning two Golden Globes for her role in maverick director Ken Russell’s 1971 film, ‘The Boyfriend’. Since then she has appeared in films as varied as Heartbeat and The Blues Brothers often to much acclaim and later life saw her return to a hugely successful modelling campaign that resuscitates the ailing Marks & Spencer brand.
As a documentary It is a by the books look at her life but what it captures best is just how arguably sexist was the era that she began and the archive footage of news reels and interviews is quite an eye opener. From a journalist asking daft question, ‘Are you beautiful?’ to an interview where, the interviewer clearly wanting to humiliate her asks the 18 year old about her favourite philosopher again and again and again. And yet she quite brilliantly turns it around and asks the interviewer who is his favourite philosopher who stammers and obfuscates as she repeatedly asks him. But the bombshell moment is when that interviewer turns to camera. It is Woody Allen.
Becoming something of a phenomenon when she went to New York and terrified at the hordes of fans wanting to see the cockney model ( even though she was raised in Neasden) but it’s a testament to her character that Twiggy comes across as wholly grounded, agreeable and likeable never really losing that cheery charm and a reminder to certain modern day supermodels that this is how you should behave.
related feature : Martine Beswick’s secret! / At the House of the Gorgon premiere / Hammer & Bond secrets spilled
related feature : Michael Hutchence documentary, ‘Mystify’ reviewed
Here’s the Twiggy trailer……
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