| Christy Turlington | |
|---|---|
| Born | Christy Nicole Turlington January 2, 1969 Walnut Creek, California, U.S |
| Height | 5 ft 10 in (1.78 m)[1] |
| Hair color | Brown[1] |
| Eye color | Green[1] |
| Measurements | 34-23-36[1] |
| Dress size | 4 (US); 34 (EU)[1] |
| Spouse | Edward Burns (2003–present) |
Christy Turlington Burns[2] (born January 2, 1969) is an American model best known for representing Calvin Klein from 1987 to 2007. She has worked on dozens of modeling contracts with companies including Maybelline Cosmetics and Versace. Turlington starred in her fashion documentary Catwalk and Isaac Mizrahi's Unzipped. She was added on as the fourth model investor, after Elle Macpherson, Naomi Campbell and Claudia Schiffer of the now defunct Fashion Cafes.
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Turlington was born in Walnut Creek, California, the middle of three daughters born to Dwain Turlington, a pilot for Pan American World Airways and a flight attendant from El Salvador, María Elizabeth (née Parker).[3][4]
She was discovered by local photographer Dennie Cody while riding horses in Miami, Florida, where her father was working as a training captain for Pan Am.[5] Turlington began modeling after school from age 14 to 16 and during summers while she attended Monte Vista High School.[1][6] After turning 18, she moved to New York City to model full-time, and later graduated from high school.[6]
During the 1990s, she appeared in Unzipped, a documentary about fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi, and the fashion mockumentary film Prêt-à-Porter by director Robert Altman. Additionally, she was featured in Catwalk, a documentary about her life on the fashion runways by director Robert Leacock. She was presented on the November 1999 Millennium cover of American Vogue as one of the "Modern Muses".[7]
Turlington also appeared in two music videos. Fellow model Yasmin Le Bon got her husband Simon Le Bon of Duran Duran to feature Turlington in their "Notorious" video in 1986, at the age of 17. In 1990, singer George Michael drew inspiration from Peter Lindbergh's January 1990 British Vogue cover (which features Turlington, Campbell, Evangelista, Crawford and Patitz) for his "Freedom" video. The video featured all top 5 female models along with their top 5 male counterparts, lip-syncing the song. The video was shown during George Michael's 2008 concert tour while he sang.
She has appeared on over 500 magazine covers and has been featured in several professional photobooks, including Peter Lindbergh's '10 Women', the cover of Arthur Elgort's 'Model Manual', Herb Ritts 'Man/Woman' and Karl Lagerfeld's 'Off the Record'. In 1993, she posed nude for PETA's anti-fur campaign.
In honor of Turlington's fortieth birthday, W magazine put together a collection of iconic images from her career, from runway shots from the late eighties to today.[8] In 2008, casting agent James Scully said in regards to Turlington:
| “ | The greatest model of all time! You could combine every model to this day into one person, and they wouldn't come close (sorry, girls). Probably the biggest crush I've ever had on a girl. It would be a dream to have the opportunity of working with her on a show again before I retire, but that seems about as likely as winning the lottery.[9] | ” |
Turlington was one of the faces to land in one of the fourteen covers of V magazine September 2008 issue. Each cover boasts a head shot of a famous model, either from the new crop of leading models or the supermodel era, it was lensed by duo Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin.[10] As of 2008, Turlington has been making brief visits to Africa on behalf of Product Red and to Latin America on behalf of CARE (relief agency). Her involvement with CARE was influenced by her mother Elizabeth, who has been a longtime CARE supporter through her former flight attendants’ organization, World Wings. The FEMME project, a coming together of CARE, Columbia University, and local government, brings health-care practitioners together to find better methods of serving the large number of women needing assistance who are too intimidated to seek help in a clinic or traditional hospital.[11]
She stars in the Bally spring/summer 2009 campaign alongside Oriol Elcacho.[12]
In the 2000s, she has become a partner in a variety of business ventures: an ayurvedic skincare line[13] and two clothing lines produced by Puma,[14] an active women's clothing line; and a women's yoga-wear line.[15]
Christy founded two lifestyle brands; SUNDÃRI, an Ayurvedic skincare line and nuala, a yoga inspired apparel and accessories line. She has contributed writings to Marie Claire Magazine, Yoga Journal and Teen Vogue along with contributions to the Huffington Post, Canada’s Globe and Mail and the UK’s Evening Standard. She has also contributed to NBC’s Today Show as a guest correspondent, which included reporting on the status of girl’s education in Afghanistan in early 2002 and an interview with H.H. The Dalai Lama at his home in Dharamsala, India.
In late 2000, she met actor/director/writer Edward Burns at a Hamptons party and within weeks, they were engaged. After postponing their October 2001 Italian wedding due to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, just blocks from where they lived in New York City, they broke up. The couple re-united and married on June 7, 2003. It was also the fifth anniversary of her father's death from lung cancer. Despite numerous erroneous media reports, Turlington was not given away by good friend Bono. Bono attended the San Francisco wedding but Christy said, "He (Bono) was there, of course, but I gave myself away. I mean, I was 25 weeks pregnant at the time. Eddie met me halfway down the aisle."[16] Burns and Turlington have two children: a daughter Grace born October 25, 2003, and a son Finn born February 11, 2006. Christy's sister Kelly is married to Edward's brother Brian Burns, and together they have a son born in early 2008.[16] The family resides in New York City, near Ed Burns' old loft that was formerly owned by John F. Kennedy Jr.
Turlington is involved in yoga and practices a style known as Jivamukti Yoga.[17] She is the author of Living Yoga: Creating A Life Practice (ISBN 0-7868-6806-6). She went back to school in 1994 and graduated cum laude in 1999 from the Gallatin School of Individualized Study of New York University where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with a concentration in Comparative Religion and Eastern Philosophy. Despite this interest, she has remained a practicing Roman Catholic since childhood.[18][19] Previously a vegetarian, she has gone back to being a meat-eater.[20] An ex-smoker whose father died of lung cancer, Turlington is also an anti-smoking activist and an ambassador for CARE.[21][22]
In 2005, she began working with the international humanitarian organization CARE and has since become their Advocate for Maternal Health. She has also been an Ambassador for (RED) since their launch in 2006. Her work on behalf of CARE and (RED) inspired her to pursue a Masters in Public Health at Columbia University’s Mailman School where as of 2009, she is a student.[23]
In 2008, Turlington began working on a documentary film, No Woman, No Cry, profiling the status of maternal health worldwide. The film, Turlington's directorial debut, tells the stories of at-risk pregnant women in four parts of the world, including a remote Maasai tribe in Tanzania, a slum of Bangladesh, a post-abortion care ward in Guatemala, and a prenatal clinic in the United States. No Woman, No Cry made its world premiere at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival in New York City, and the US television broadcast premiere aired on the new Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) on May 7, 2011.[24] The documentary earned Turlington a nomination for the Do Something With Style Award from the VH1 Do Something Awards. Concurrent with the debut of her documentary, Turlington launched 'Every Mother Counts', an action and mobilization campaign designed to educate and support maternal, newborn and child health. Turlington is pursuing a master's degree in public health at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. Christy currently serves on the Harvard Medical School Global Health Council and as an advisor to the Harvard School of Public Health Board of Dean’s Advisors, Mother’s Day Every Day and the White Ribbon Alliance.
She recently completed her first ING NYC Marathon, running with Team Every Mother Counts to raise awareness for maternal and child health.