The intriguing American supermodel/actress Laurent Hutton made groundbreaking and history making accomplishments as one of the leading supermodels of the 1970’s. She is also an activist, cover girl and former talk show host.

Lauren Hutton was born as Mary Lawrence Hutton on November 17, 1944, in Charleston, South Carolina. She was of the 10th generation of Huttons to be born in Charleston. Her father was an airman during World War II, but died early in his mid thirties of a heart attack. Later her mother remarried. Lauren’s stepfather was very often abusive and referred to her as hi “Whipping Boy”. After he was gone, Lauren was left to grow up in rural Florida where she helped her mother to raise her three half-sisters.

After graduating from high school, she enrolled in the University of Southern Florida, and later Sophie Newcomb College (today, a division of Tulane University). After that, she decided to make a drastic change in her life.

Lauren knew that she wanted to travel, see the world and to have a destiny that was a bit more exceptional than that of what most women wanted. Surprisingly enough, she went to New York to get the start that she needed. She was young, beautiful and in need of money so she got employment as at Playboy Club as a bunny. At the time, she was still going by her first name, Mary. The Playboy Club already had several bunnies named Mary. So she chose to be called, Lauren after shortening her first name from “Laurence” in homage to the great Lauren Bacall.

In 1963, Lauren met Eileen Ford and signed with the prestigious agency. Others had advised Lauren to have the noticeable gap in her teach filled, but she refused as she found nothing wrong with it. This “flaw” or “imperfection” gave her an honest, down-to-earth look which was in stark contrast to her contemporaries of the day such as Twiggy, Veruschka, Peggy Moffit or Jean Shrimpton.

Lauren met Vogue editor-in-chief Dianna Vreeland in 1966. Vreeland took an immediate liking to her and put her to work. She was very different from the other American girls of the day.  She had a very extroverted allure, and of course her noticeable gap in between her teeth. She came at a time when the industry was open to other healthy alternatives to the California-blond look championed by other models like Cheryl Tiegs and Cybill Shepherd. Lauren was a great success and started posing for the top photographers like Richard Avedon and Irving Penn. Her face hit not only the fashion pages of all the top magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, Glamour, McCall’s, etc. but it also obtained their covers, including 25 at Vogue.

Lauren was also featured in campaigns. She starred in the unforgettable “Charlie” campaigns and television commercials. She was the first to model to represent this top selling fragrance of the 1970’s.

By 1974, Lauren’s face was well known all over America. She had a face with which women could readily identity, yet she still possessed a sense of glamour. It was in this year that Lauren made history when she signed a deal with Revlon Cosmetics. This deal was ground breaking in more than one way. It was the first exclusive deal for a model to represent Revlon. It was equally grounding breaking and history making as it marked the first time in history that a model was paid $1 million dollars for such a contract! Henceforth, Lauren’s face would be forever associated to the history of Revlon and to the Ultima II line that she represented.

Lauren was hot and everyone wanted her. In 1974, Larry Flynt offered her $1 million to pose nude in his Hustler magazine. She refused the offer, and Flynt later commented that she was one of only four women to whom he had ever made such an offer. However, he was not the only one to come her way with nice deals.

With the money coming in for her lucrative modelling career, she turned her eye to acting. In 1968, Lauren had already received wide attention for her screen debut in Paper Lions, causing numerous script offers to come in for her. In 1974, she starred opposite James Caan in the hit, The Gambler. She accepted other roles afterwards but her most noticeable one after that came in the 1980’s American Gigolo. Starring opposite of Richard Gere, Lauren’s film career seemed headed in the right direction. In 1983, she made her stage debut in Extremities. However, she suffered a slump in her acting career, acting in mediocre films. One of which was the vampire comedy Once Bitten in 1985 in which future superstar, Jim Carrey, had his first prominent role. Not long afterwards, Lauren decided to put an end to her film career.

In the late 1980’s the world found itself in supermodel craze. Women over 40 had tremendous buying power and needed a supermodel that looked like them and to whom they could relate. In other words, they needed their own champion. As Lauren was putting an end to her film career at the time, she was perfect to give a face to the women of her generous who had buying power and who wanted to feel beautiful again in the days where 40 began being considered “the new 30”.  Answering the call to represent them in fashion. Hutton was awarded contracts with Calvin Klein, Barney’s, J. Crew, Federated Department Stores and Regatta. In 1993, she signed on again to represent Revlon cosmetics.

In the later 1990’s she appeared in television campaigns for H&M and for Burdine’s Department Store.  Later in 1997, she starred in a print ad campaign for the luxury watch brandTAG Heuer, and then Kellogg’s Smart Start cereal brand, etc.

Lauren also made subsequent appearances on television. She starred with other seasoned actors and divas like Raquel Welch in the CBS short-lived primetime soap Central Park West. From 1996 to 1997, she then hosted her own syndicated talk show, Lauren Hutton and…,.

Lauren has always like to travel and seek out new adventure. That is why she actually got into modelling. It was a way to finance her travels and adventure. One adventure led her across the Artic in a dog sled. She has travelled to Africa and wrestled alligators. She is an avid lover of motorcycles. This latter passion once nearly brought her to the brink of death.

On October 21, 2001, Lauren was admitted to the hospital after a serious motorcycle accident. It occurred when she was out riding with stars Dennis Hopper and Jeremy Irons to celebrate the opening of the Guggenheim Museum motorcycle exhibition. She suffered multiple fractures and multiple breaks in her right leg, compound fractures in her right arm, broken ribs, a broken sternum, a punctured lung, cuts and bruises when her motorcycle flipped upon running some gravel. Lauren was thrown some 200 feet away.  The accident could have been worse but luckily minutes before, Irons gave her a full face riding helmet and Hopper convinced her to put on full motorcycle leather gear.  She survived the accident and healed her wounds after being in stable condition.

In 2002, she launched her Lauren Hutton’s Good Stuff cosmetics line aimed at older women. In 2003, she launched her eyewear collection with Sears Optical.

In 2005, Lauren broke another taboo. At nearly age 62, she posed nude for the first time in a magazine. The photo spread began as a retrospective over her career for Big magazine. Then when the magazine’s artistic director and editors asked her to pose nude, she agreed (but only after having consulting with her friends, family and godchildren).  During an interview on the subject with Good Morning America, Lauren said, “I want them (women) not to be ashamed of who they are when they’re in bed…Society has told us to be ashamed…”My generation of ’60’s women are not going to stop wanting to be attractive. I said, ‘You’ve got to show us in the magazine’ ”.

“So they showed me… It was so shocking, why would you ask a 62-year-old to pose nude? ‘Where would you start?’ “I don’t care. The really important is that women understand not to listen to a 2,000-year-old patriarchal society.”

Lauren is the first vice-president of the Guggenheim Museum Motorcycle Club., the Spokesperson for the National Cancer Coalition. She is the involved in the New York Harbour Festival Foundation, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Woman’s Campaign Fund. She is also involved with the World Wildlife the National Museum of Women in the Arts Foundation and once sat on its board. In 1999, she became the first television advocate for Hormone Replacement Therapy, the post-menopausal preventive against osteoporosis, heart disease, colon cancer, and Alzheimer’s.

Lauren Hutton placed 13th on Channel 5’s countdown of the “World’s Greatest Supermodels”. Over her career, she captured 25 Vogue covers, with the last one coming in 1995 when she and Christie Turlington were featured wearing Calvin Klein.

Actress

  1. Just a Little Harmless Sex (1999)
  2. Loser Love (1999)
  3. Caracara (1999) (TV)
  4. 54 (1998)
  5. Story von Monty Spinnerratz, Die (1997)
  6. We the Jury (1996) (TV)
  7. “Central Park West”  (1996)
  8. My Father the Hero (1994)
  9. Guilty as Charged (1991)
  10. Missing Pieces (1991)
  11. Miliardi (1991)
  12. “The Hitchhiker” (1990) TV
  13. Fear (1990) (TV)
  14. “Blaues Blut” (1990) TV
  15. Forbidden Sun (1989)
  16. Blue Blood (1988) (TV)
  17. Perfect People (1988) (TV)
  18. Run for Your Life (1988)
  19. “Falcon Crest” (1987)
  20. Malone (1987)
  21. Timestalkers (1987) (TV)
  22. Monte Carlo (1986) (TV)
  23. Flagrant désir (1986)
  24. The Return of Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer (1986) (TV)
  25. “Sins” (1986) (mini) TV
  26. Once Bitten (1985)
  27. “Faerie Tale Theatre” (1985) TV
  28. Scandal Sheet (1985) (TV)
  29. From Here to Maternity (1985) (TV)
  30. “Paper Dolls” (1984) TV Series
  31. Lassiter (1984)
  32. The Cradle Will Fall (1983) (TV)
  33. Starflight: The Plane That Couldn’t Land (1983) (TV)
  34. Cocaine: One Man’s Seduction (1983) (TV)
  35. Hécate (1982)
  36. Tout feu, tout flamme (1982)
  37. “Saturday Night Live”
  38. Paternity (1981)
  39. Zorro, the Gay Blade (1981)
  40. American Gigolo (1980)
  41. Marathon (1980) (TV)
  42. Institute for Revenge (1979) (TV)
  43. Someone’s Watching Me! (1978) (TV) .
  44. A Wedding (1978) ..
  45. Viva Knievel! (1977) “The Rhinemann Exchange” (1977) (mini) TV
  46. Welcome to L.A. (1976)
  47. Gator (1976)
  48. The Gambler (1974)
  49. A Time for Love (1973) (TV)
  50. Permette? Rocco Papaleo (1971)
  51. Little Fauss and Big Halsy (1970)
  52. Pieces of Dreams (1970)
  53. Paper Lion (1968)

Herself – filmography

  1. “The Tony Danza Show”  (2004) TV
  2. “Biography” (2004) TV
  3. “The E! True Hollywood Story” (2000) TV
  4. The Venice Project (1999)
  5. Dare to Compete: The Struggle of Women in Sports (1999) (TV)
  6. The Bunny Years (1999) (TV)
  7. Junket Whore (1998)
  8. Beautopia (1998)
  9. Intimate Portrait: Lauren Hutton (1998) (TV)
  10. “Lauren Hutton and…” (1995) TV
  11. Gap-Toothed Women (1987)
  12. Perfect (1985)
  13. Joan Rivers and Friends Salute Heidi Abromowitz (1985) (TV)
  14. “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” (1984), (1974)
  15.  Steve Martin’s Best Show Ever (1981) (TV)
  16. The 52nd Annual Academy Awards (1980) (TV)
  17. The 47th Annual Academy Awards (1975) (TV)
  18. “To Tell the Truth” (1963) TV

Archive Footage

  1. “Retrosexual: The 80’s” (2004) (mini)
  2. 101 Biggest Celebrity Oops (2004) (TV)
  3. Burroughs (1984)