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memphisbluesagain · 1 year

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Pattie Boyd 1961-1962 (Elizabeth Arden, Cherry Marshall and Norman Parkinson)

I couldn’t find much detailed information about lovely Pattie from 1961-1962, so I decided to put together this long form post. Please, do let me know if I’m missing anything. Thanks!

- June 1961, Pattie leaves school with three GCE O Level passes and is living at home in Wimbledon, with her single mother and four siblings

- Late 1961, Pattie’s mother pulls some strings and gets her daughter a job at the Elizabeth Arden hair salon in London

“After school, I got a job at Elizabeth Arden in Bond Street, London - because I wasn’t qualified to do anything and my mum knew the CEO there.” - Pattie Boyd (December, 2022)

- In the new year, Pattie moves to London and begins working as a ‘shampoo girl’ / ‘trainee beautician’ on a small wage of £4.50 per week - which roughly translates to £97.53 as of 2023

“I thought: ‘I must get out, I must try and be independent’ - so I got a job and shared a flat with about five other girls.” - Pattie Boyd (December, 2022)

“I shampooed people’s hair and took their coats. I was a general dogsbody, but I must say that it was terribly glamorous because it was where I first saw fabulous magazines - like Vogue, Tatler and Harper’s Bazaar.” - Pattie Boyd (December, 2022)

“The job at Elizabeth Arden was deadly boring. I was training to be a beautician, but my heart wasn’t in it and I’m not sure I would have made the grade. Elizabeth Arden herself came in one day and berated me for my makeup. She didn’t like the black pencil under my eyes; it was not the ‘Elizabeth Arden’ look, she informed me.” - Pattie Boyd, Wonderful Tonight

- Early 1962, Pattie had been working at the salon for roughly two months, until a Cherry Marshall Model Agency staffer took a special interest in her look

“A client who worked for Honey magazine asked me if I’d ever thought of becoming a model.” - Pattie Boyd (December, 2022)

“Imagine my excitement when a client came into the salon one day and asked if I had ever thought of being a model. I said: ‘No, but I certainly could.’” - Pattie Boyd, Wonderful Tonight

- The following day, Pattie was scheduled for a test shoot

“When I arrived, she had arranged for her in-house photographer, Anthony Norris, to take some test shots of me. He had set up some lights in a little studio and she gave me a couple of outfits to wear - I remember a beret and having to look sultry, smoking Gitanes. [a French brand of unfiltered cigarettes] They were black and white, moody shots, with a bit of a Parisian feel.” - Pattie Boyd, Wonderful Tonight

- Anthony Norris sends Pattie along to a secretary at Cherry Marshall Model Agency and a personal meeting with Cherry Marshall herself is arranged - Pattie was signed to a modelling contract the very same day

“A successful model has just got to be strict with herself and lay off all fattening foods. That means no bread, butter, spaghetti or sweets! Watch out for ‘puppy fat spread’ - eat proper meals at regular times, with lots of lean meat and green vegetables.” - Pattie Boyd (April, 1965 - Letter from London)

“My fairy godmother phoned Cherry Marshall, who then ran one of the top model agencies and she said she was sending me to her. Anthony Norris went with me and told Cherry he thought she should take me on.” - Pattie Boyd, Wonderful Tonight

“My secretary brought Pattie’s picture into me and told me Pattie was waiting outside. ‘I’ll see her’ I said - and there was Pattie, a shy 17-year-old who when she spoke, bubbles with impish charm. It would have been a mistake to change a thing about her. All we needed was to groom her rebellious hair and slim down her puppy fat. She started training immediately, the following Monday.” - Cherry Marshall, 1964

“She was shy until she started talking and then she bubbled over with enthusiasm, as she spoke of her ambition to be a model: ‘I know I’m a bit plump - but I can’t stop eating sweets!’ I said: ‘Pattie, from now on you cut out all sweets - and I want you to report on Monday at the school for training’. I wanted her rebellious hair groomed into a straight gleaming bob and she had to be taught how to apply photographic make-up. Nothing else should be changed. The name was right, the look was right and it would have been crazy to do anything to subdue her sparkling personality.” - Cherry Marshall, 1978

- Pattie attends Cherry Marshall’s modelling school - graduating within three short months

“So that’s the advice that I’d pass on to all of you who dream of becoming models: train at a school that has proved itself - not just one of those places that give you a paper diploma and nothing else - and don’t try to sell yourself when you have qualified. Let your agent do that.” - Pattie Boyd (April, 1965 - Letter from London)

- Pattie attends test shoots and works to build her portfolio - unpaid

“I knew I had a winner - everyone in the office agreed with me and they immediately swung into action. New pictures were taken, photographers and magazines informed, casting agents bombarded, press alerted. Here, we told them with absolute confidence that Pattie Boyd was the girl for the swinging sixties.” - Cherry Marshall, 1978

“Finding an agency was easy; finding a job was the hard part.” - Pattie Boyd, Wonderful Tonight

“We were too experienced to expect things to happen overnight, but we were impatient because Pattie was already seventeen and that wasn’t the youngest anymore. All we needed was to get one top photographer mad about her and she was made, but few of them would risk using an absolutely new girl on a job. They’d take test shots to find out what she was like and give her pictures for her portfolio, but no money. It was invaluable experience, but Pattie had to earn her living and we didn’t have much time.” - Cherry Marshall, 1978

“My agent would phone me last thing in the afternoon and tell me my jobs for the next day and my diaries would be quite full. But not to begin with - I had to work quite hard, going around to photographer’s studios and showing them my portfolio.” - Pattie Boyd (December, 2022)

[Rayment Kirby, 1962]

“Everyday I would go out with a list of photographer’s names and addresses and trudge around with my portfolio, hoping they would like what they saw and use me on a job. And if one did, I would try very hard to get him to give me some prints at a low rate, so that I could add them to my portfolio. I must have travelled on every bus and tube in London and when I was out of money, I walked. My diary for those days is full of IOUs for the odd fiver.” - Pattie Boyd, Wonderful Tonight

“Within three months her diary began to fill up and she (Pattie) was in constant demand.” - Cherry Marshall, 1978

“If I had a job, I had a big, tall bag - no wheels in those days - with dark shoes, light-coloured shoes, all sorts of jewellery, wigs and hairpieces.” - Pattie Boyd (December, 2022)

“I was lucky. The trekking around worked and soon my diary was full of jobs. Modelling was fun. I loved trying on clothes and fiddling with my hair and makeup. We had to do it ourselves - there were no hair stylists or makeup artists and certainly no chauffeur-driven cars to ferry us around. We were not celebrities in the way that today’s top models are. For advertising jobs, we even had to bring our own accessories. I have my old appointment diaries about what I had to take to a shoot. Usually, it was light and dark court shoes, flatties, gloves, costume jewellery, hats or caps, boots, makeup, wigs and hair pieces. You could spot a model a mile off from the heavy bags that she was carrying.” - Pattie Boyd, Wonderful Tonight

“I went on to do lots of lovely shoots, although I never enjoyed posing for Freeman’s catalogues. They’d book you in for three or four days in a row, which meant lots of money, but the clothes were hideous and far too big - they had to have clips on the back.” - Pattie Boyd (December, 2022)

“I rang Norman Parkinson, the king of them all - and asked if he’d see her. A model had to be really good before he could be approached, particularly as he was not impressed by an agent’s idea of who was photogenic. We knew that, superficially, Pattie had certain drawbacks - she was un-modelly in the accepted sense, her face was too round and she had a gap in her front teeth. She came back to us in tears, eyes swimming with disappointment, all set to give up. She finally blurted out: ‘He asked me if it’s fashionable these days to look like a rabbit!’” - Cherry Marshall, 1978

“One day I went to see the great Norman Parkinson. He looked at my book, then looked at me and said: ‘Come back when you’ve learned how to do your hair and makeup properly’ I felt so humiliated.” - Pattie Boyd, Wonderful Tonight

“Seeing myself in magazines was so exciting. I couldn’t wait to show my mother and she was totally amazed, saying: ‘How on earth did you do that?’ - she had no idea that I’d been trampling the streets trying to get jobs and hopping on buses and trains to persuade photographers to take pictures of me.” - Pattie Boyd (December, 2022)

- Late 1962, Pattie began working for Honey magazine, which led to many other opportunities...

I will try to make a Pattie Boyd 1963-1964 long post soon! :)

#pattie boyd #pattie harrison #pattie clapton #1961 #1962 #i tried lol #elizabeth arden #norman parkinson #jean-claude #cherry marshall #swinging sixties #london #vintage #mod #pattie boyd archive

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