Donyale Luna
When
the NY Times asked her whether her rise to stardom in the fashion world
and appearances in films would benefit the cause of black actresses,
Luna answered, “If it brings about more jobs for Mexicans, Asians,
Native Americans, Africans, groovy. It could be good, it could be bad. I
couldn’t care less.” (Yeah she was more than a little confused. Don't
judge her too harshly though. She reinvented
herself, renamed herself, and when she first arrived in the NYC, was
just a naive six foot three black girl from the south side of Detroit
who neither drank nor smoked. Richard Avedon's photos of her caused a
stir when she was on the cover of Harper's Bazaar in 1964, prompting
advertisers in the southern states to pull their advertising, while
readers cancelled their subscriptions. William Randolph Hearst, the
owner of Bazaar, did not approve, and told Nancy White as much. 'I was
never permitted to photograph her [Luna] for publication again,' Avedon
later lamented.
In 1965 Luna defected to London, where she became an
instant hit. Soon she was being photographed by David Bailey, William
Klein, Helmut Newton and William Claxton. It was Claxton who introduced
her to Salvador Dalí, who in turn declared her 'the reincarnation of
Nefertiti'. She made history again on March 1966, when she became the
first black model to feature on the cover of British Vogue in a stylish,
Picasso-influenced composition shot by David Bailey, in which one of
Luna's eyes peered suggestively from between her fingers. That same year
the photographer Charlotte March created her own version of Luna's
signature pose for a German fashion magazine, Twen . Donyale Luna With
Earrings - a fierce black-and-white close-up of her face - was to become
one of the most iconic fashion images of the Swinging Sixties. In no
time she renamed herself, reinvented herself and her ethnicity (When
asked where she came from, Luna would reply, 'I'm from the moon,
darling.' She told one boyfriend that her parents were killed in a car
accident and that she was adopted. She once informed the Italian press
that she ate three kilos of meat a day though she barely weighed 90
lbs.) She traveled the world, wore blue and sometimes green contact
lenses, became best friends with A-list celebrities including Mick
Jagger, Michael Caine, Julie Christie, Mia Farrow, Yul Brynner and Andy
Warhol; dated millionares as well as Brian Jones (of the Rolling
Stones), and German actor Klaus Kinski. That she was "beautiful" was no
longer a question. (Hell, even had Jacqueline Kennedy Onasis walked up
to her on the street and told her she was "very beautiful" ). Luna was
also quite tragic. She skipped the civil rights movement all together,
reinvented herself as a multi-ethnic girl whose parents were long dead,
and kept the world guessing. Maya Angelou based her 1972 film "Georgia
Georgia" on Luna (reinventing her as a sadistic self hating ex-patriote
singer whose black maid eventually strangles her to death) and in 1975,
Academy award nominated singer actress Diana Ross used Luna as
inspiration for her 2nd film "Mahagony", spinning Luna as a black girl
from Chicago who rises to become a famous fashion model in Europe but
eventually gives it all up to return to her black politician boyfriend
and her Chicago roots. The truth was more tragic than Ross' and
(perhaps) Angelou's version. Luna snorted, injected, smoked and drank
her way through her career, stopped showing up to work on time, and
eventually died in Rome, Italy of an accidental heroin overdose in 1979.
She was 32. She's gone, but she's not forgotten. Take that NY fashion
Week.
Like · Share · about an hour ago
-
19 people like this.
-
-
-
Don M. Robinder II "There's
a great division coming about on this planet. There are going to be a
lot of people who will die because they just don't know how to live.
They don't know what life's about, they don't know how to give, how to
love - nor do they want to. And ...See More
-
-
Don M. Robinder II No, Carl....sharing.
Despite her tragic demise—and I keep in mind when she said this she
was wrestling with her own demons—she knew about 'essence' in some
beautifully meaningful way.
-
Nashira Priester Donyale
posed for the voluptuous woman in Mati Klarwein's Annunciation which
appeared on Santana's Abraxas. So I heard - might be wishful retro
report!
-
-
Crystal Whaley I
just featured her on my fb page a couple of days ago - in honor of
fashion week. tragic end yes, but she was a pioneer, and a fierce
trailblazer kicking open doors.
-
Nashira Priester bless
you Helen Williams, Naomi Sims,Bethann Hardison, Iman, Veronica Webb,
Beverly Johnson and lots more trailblazers for all the crap you took so
we can be in Fashion Week today - in smallish numbers! ! !
-
Joseph McGee I
've studied this woman years ago, though she was troubled she is and
always will be rare, I ex feature some never before seen photos of her
in a art show in NY some years ago, though I didn't get a changes to go.
-
-
Nashira Priester And
beautiful, complex, eccentric, daring, dashing Donyale Luna - thank you
too! She was tryin' to get out of any suffocating aspects of Detroit
where she was a part-time tormented being just As Phyllis Hyman was in
her home town. The sistuhs be catching hecka all over the place.
-
-
Nashira Priester Thank
you for the shot- such a fresh image of her just a tinge of
melancholia even maybe fragility, madness. We have such variety and get
so much flak for whatever reason ! We should have the right to be
individual and quirky too - should be one of the privileges of those who
are E-Z on the eyes.
Donyale Luna
When
the NY Times asked her whether her rise to stardom in the fashion world
and appearances in films would benefit the cause of black actresses,
Luna answered, “If it brings about more jobs for Mexicans, Asians,
Native Americans, Africans, groovy. It could be good, it could be bad. I
couldn’t care less.” (Yeah she was more than a little confused. Don't
judge her too harshly though. She reinvented
herself, renamed herself, and when she first arrived in the NYC, was
just a naive six foot three black girl from the south side of Detroit
who neither drank nor smoked. Richard Avedon's photos of her caused a
stir when she was on the cover of Harper's Bazaar in 1964, prompting
advertisers in the southern states to pull their advertising, while
readers cancelled their subscriptions. William Randolph Hearst, the
owner of Bazaar, did not approve, and told Nancy White as much. 'I was
never permitted to photograph her [Luna] for publication again,' Avedon
later lamented.
In 1965 Luna defected to London, where she became an instant hit. Soon she was being photographed by David Bailey, William Klein, Helmut Newton and William Claxton. It was Claxton who introduced her to Salvador Dalí, who in turn declared her 'the reincarnation of Nefertiti'. She made history again on March 1966, when she became the first black model to feature on the cover of British Vogue in a stylish, Picasso-influenced composition shot by David Bailey, in which one of Luna's eyes peered suggestively from between her fingers. That same year the photographer Charlotte March created her own version of Luna's signature pose for a German fashion magazine, Twen . Donyale Luna With Earrings - a fierce black-and-white close-up of her face - was to become one of the most iconic fashion images of the Swinging Sixties. In no time she renamed herself, reinvented herself and her ethnicity (When asked where she came from, Luna would reply, 'I'm from the moon, darling.' She told one boyfriend that her parents were killed in a car accident and that she was adopted. She once informed the Italian press that she ate three kilos of meat a day though she barely weighed 90 lbs.) She traveled the world, wore blue and sometimes green contact lenses, became best friends with A-list celebrities including Mick Jagger, Michael Caine, Julie Christie, Mia Farrow, Yul Brynner and Andy Warhol; dated millionares as well as Brian Jones (of the Rolling Stones), and German actor Klaus Kinski. That she was "beautiful" was no longer a question. (Hell, even had Jacqueline Kennedy Onasis walked up to her on the street and told her she was "very beautiful" ). Luna was also quite tragic. She skipped the civil rights movement all together, reinvented herself as a multi-ethnic girl whose parents were long dead, and kept the world guessing. Maya Angelou based her 1972 film "Georgia Georgia" on Luna (reinventing her as a sadistic self hating ex-patriote singer whose black maid eventually strangles her to death) and in 1975, Academy award nominated singer actress Diana Ross used Luna as inspiration for her 2nd film "Mahagony", spinning Luna as a black girl from Chicago who rises to become a famous fashion model in Europe but eventually gives it all up to return to her black politician boyfriend and her Chicago roots. The truth was more tragic than Ross' and (perhaps) Angelou's version. Luna snorted, injected, smoked and drank her way through her career, stopped showing up to work on time, and eventually died in Rome, Italy of an accidental heroin overdose in 1979. She was 32. She's gone, but she's not forgotten. Take that NY fashion Week.
Like · Share · about an hour ago In 1965 Luna defected to London, where she became an instant hit. Soon she was being photographed by David Bailey, William Klein, Helmut Newton and William Claxton. It was Claxton who introduced her to Salvador Dalí, who in turn declared her 'the reincarnation of Nefertiti'. She made history again on March 1966, when she became the first black model to feature on the cover of British Vogue in a stylish, Picasso-influenced composition shot by David Bailey, in which one of Luna's eyes peered suggestively from between her fingers. That same year the photographer Charlotte March created her own version of Luna's signature pose for a German fashion magazine, Twen . Donyale Luna With Earrings - a fierce black-and-white close-up of her face - was to become one of the most iconic fashion images of the Swinging Sixties. In no time she renamed herself, reinvented herself and her ethnicity (When asked where she came from, Luna would reply, 'I'm from the moon, darling.' She told one boyfriend that her parents were killed in a car accident and that she was adopted. She once informed the Italian press that she ate three kilos of meat a day though she barely weighed 90 lbs.) She traveled the world, wore blue and sometimes green contact lenses, became best friends with A-list celebrities including Mick Jagger, Michael Caine, Julie Christie, Mia Farrow, Yul Brynner and Andy Warhol; dated millionares as well as Brian Jones (of the Rolling Stones), and German actor Klaus Kinski. That she was "beautiful" was no longer a question. (Hell, even had Jacqueline Kennedy Onasis walked up to her on the street and told her she was "very beautiful" ). Luna was also quite tragic. She skipped the civil rights movement all together, reinvented herself as a multi-ethnic girl whose parents were long dead, and kept the world guessing. Maya Angelou based her 1972 film "Georgia Georgia" on Luna (reinventing her as a sadistic self hating ex-patriote singer whose black maid eventually strangles her to death) and in 1975, Academy award nominated singer actress Diana Ross used Luna as inspiration for her 2nd film "Mahagony", spinning Luna as a black girl from Chicago who rises to become a famous fashion model in Europe but eventually gives it all up to return to her black politician boyfriend and her Chicago roots. The truth was more tragic than Ross' and (perhaps) Angelou's version. Luna snorted, injected, smoked and drank her way through her career, stopped showing up to work on time, and eventually died in Rome, Italy of an accidental heroin overdose in 1979. She was 32. She's gone, but she's not forgotten. Take that NY fashion Week.
- 19 people like this.
- Don M. Robinder II "There's a great division coming about on this planet. There are going to be a lot of people who will die because they just don't know how to live. They don't know what life's about, they don't know how to give, how to love - nor do they want to. And ...See More
- Don M. Robinder II No, Carl....sharing. Despite her tragic demise—and I keep in mind when she said this she was wrestling with her own demons—she knew about 'essence' in some beautifully meaningful way.
- Nashira Priester Donyale posed for the voluptuous woman in Mati Klarwein's Annunciation which appeared on Santana's Abraxas. So I heard - might be wishful retro report!
- Crystal Whaley I just featured her on my fb page a couple of days ago - in honor of fashion week. tragic end yes, but she was a pioneer, and a fierce trailblazer kicking open doors.
- Nashira Priester bless you Helen Williams, Naomi Sims,Bethann Hardison, Iman, Veronica Webb, Beverly Johnson and lots more trailblazers for all the crap you took so we can be in Fashion Week today - in smallish numbers! ! !
- Joseph McGee I 've studied this woman years ago, though she was troubled she is and always will be rare, I ex feature some never before seen photos of her in a art show in NY some years ago, though I didn't get a changes to go.
- Nashira Priester And beautiful, complex, eccentric, daring, dashing Donyale Luna - thank you too! She was tryin' to get out of any suffocating aspects of Detroit where she was a part-time tormented being just As Phyllis Hyman was in her home town. The sistuhs be catching hecka all over the place.
- Nashira Priester Thank you for the shot- such a fresh image of her just a tinge of melancholia even maybe fragility, madness. We have such variety and get so much flak for whatever reason ! We should have the right to be individual and quirky too - should be one of the privileges of those who are E-Z on the eyes.
- 13 people like this.
Spyro Poulos That's pretty - sadly it happened in reverse. Those who don't know "how to live" are literally killing the rest of those that do.
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