Elle Macpherson

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Elle Macpherson (born 29 March, 1963) is an Australian supermodel and actress. She is most famous worldwide for her five cover appearances on Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue in the 1980s and 1990s. Nicknamed “The Body”, she is 183cm (6'0") tall.

Biography

Early life

Macpherson was born Eleanor Nancy Gow in Cronulla, New South Wales, the daughter of Peter Gow a former club president of Sydney rugby league club the Cronulla Sharks. She is the eldest of four children. Her parents divorced when she was fourteen, and her mother later married Neil MacPherson. MacPherson then changed her last name to her stepfather's. She studied law for one year at the University of Sydney.

Rise to fame

While on holiday in Tasmania, Macpherson was discovered by Francis Grill and signed to Click Model Management. Macpherson became an international star through her appearance in Elle magazine. She appeared in every issue for six straight years. During this time she married (at age 21) Elle creative manager Gilles Bensimon. Eventually she gained even more exposure through Sports Illustrated magazine’s annual swimsuit issue. She appeared on the cover a record five times, (1986,1987,1988,1994 and 2006). Rising in popularity her exceptional body measurements (36-25-35) quickly adored her with the reputation of "The Body". A tag that was to become her brand. She also released a series of successful calenders and modeled for lingerie giant Victoria's Secret.

By 1986, her popularity had increased sufficiently for Time magazine to run a cover entitled “The Big Elle”. The Australian government offered her a post on the tourist commission as an unofficial ambassador.

Acting career

Macpherson made her movie debut playing an artist's model in the 1994 Sirens, which starred Hugh Grant, Sam Neill, Tara Fitzgerald, Kate Fischer and co-starred Portia de Rossi, as another model. Macpherson gained 9 kilograms (20 lbs.) and her breasts grew to 37D. She surprised fans and critics by appearing unabashedly in numerous nude scenes, earning her top billing for the film above more established actors (in fact, all the female characters in the movie appeared nude at least once).

Soon after Sirens, Macpherson appeared nude in Playboy magazine. She chose for the pictures to be published in all countries except Australia, as she didn't want her parents to see them. At the time she posed for Playboy, Australian magazines Women's Day and New Idea published shots from the shoot. They were also featured on current affairs programs A Current Affair and 60 Minutes. Macpherson also published two calendars in which she appeared in see-through tops.

In 1999, Macpherson appeared in five episodes of the United States sitcom Friends as Joey's roommate and girlfriend, Janine Lecroix. (The actress had been named in an earlier season as someone Chandler would picture during sex.) Macpherson went on to film Batman & Robin with George Clooney, Jane Eyre with William Hurt and has also appeared alongside Ben Stiller and Sarah Jessica Parker in If Lucy Fell. Her most controversial acting to date is the Showtime Cable Network miniseries A Girl Thing. In it she plays a woman experimenting with bi-sexuality. Macpherson appears in several nude love scenes with co-star Kate Capshaw.

Extortion attempt

On July 12 and 23 of 1997, William Ryan Holt and Michael Mischler burglarized Macpherson's Los Angeles home while she was away on business in Chicago. The pair stole an estimated $100,000 worth of jewelery, $6,000 in cash and 15 nude photographs.

Shortly after the burglaries, Macpherson was contacted by telephone and by mail from someone who threatened to release the photos on the Internet if she did not give them $60,000. Macpherson called the police, who set up a sting operation. After the pair realized that law enforcement had been called, they increased their demand by an additional $20,000. The duo was arrested on August 4, 1997.

Mischler, 29, was charged with two counts of burglary and six counts of extortion. He eventually pled guilty to one count of attempted extortion and one count of burglary. He received a six year, eight month sentence.

Holt, 26, a former Air Force service member and a military inmate on parole, was charged with two counts of extortion. He eventually pled guilty to one count of extortion and was sentenced to one year in jail. After completing his sentence in the Macpherson case, he was returned to military custody where he served out the remainder of his military sentence at the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Personal life

Macpherson married Gilles Bensimon in 1985, but the couple divorced as Macpherson's career escalated in 1989. She was then rumoured to be dating comedian Norm Macdonald, around the time he was promoting the movie Dirty Work.

Macpherson has two sons, Arpad Flynn Alexander Busson and Aurelius Cy Andrea Busson; known as Flynn and Cy respectively; with long term boyfriend Arpad Busson, a wealthy Swiss/French financier worth roughly $100,000,000 (USD). The couple got engaged on the announcement of Macpherson's second pregnancy in August 2002. But Aurelius Cy's birth in February 2003 led to tensions, with Macpherson booking herself into Arizona's exclusive Meadows Institute, where she was treated for exhaustion and post natal depression. The couple parted in July 2005 as, according to Macpherson, Busson was so devout a Catholic he decided he could not marry a divorcée, despite having two children with her out of wedlock and in spite of Macpherson herself being Catholic.

Love reportedly struck again for the Australian supermodel in November, 2006, when she started dating British actor Ray Fearon. But their love story was short-lived, with the couple splitting in April, 2007. Mcpherson and Fearon always maintained they were "just friends".

The Hollywood rumour mill went into overdrive again in February 2008, with reports that Mcpherson, 44, had begun seeing art curator Vito Schnabel – the 21-year-old son of Oscar-nominated director and artist Julian Schnabel.

Mcpherson and Schnabel first hit the celebrity radar a month earlier, when London paparazzi caught the unlikely couple at 1am as they sat chatting together inside her luxury car.

The London-based fashion entrepreneur is also rumoured to have dated the late Michael Hutchence, Australian restaurateur David Evans and real-estate developer John Hitchcox.

Name

Macpherson's last name is often printed as "MacPherson" and sometimes as "McPherson", but these appear to be incorrect. Sources which can be expected to be reliable, such as Playboy magazine (vol. 41, no. 5, May 1994), and the website for Macpherson's official lingerie line, consistently print the name as "Macpherson".

Intimates

Elle Macpherson launched her own lingerie line called "Intimates in 2001. Since then, it became very successful in the United Kingdom and in her native Australia. The lingerie was also modelled by the top twelve in America's Next Top Model Cycle 10.

Trivia

She is named in a Seinfeld episode in which Kramer goes to the Cayman Islands and allegedly meets Elle, attends a nudist beach, and plays "naked backgammon" with her.

Filmography

Year	Film
1994	Sirens
1996	Jane Eyre
1996	If Lucy Fell
1997	Batman & Robin
2001	A Girl Thing

References

External links

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Last updated on Tuesday March 11, 2008 at 00:28:45 PDT (GMT -0700)
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