Cindy Crawford

By Sara Templeton

As one of the first top models to conquer the Western World, along with our own Elle McPhearson, Cynthia Ann Crawford is still as ravishing as she was in her heyday during the early nineties.

Her face was as recognisable as McDonald's golden arches, what with her trademark beauty mole above her lip, and her statuesque appearance (she's almost 5'10" tall) helped her stand out, and strikingly so.

The Crawford story starts on February 20, 1966, in the town of De Kalb, Illinois.

Her American upbringing isn't the happiest of stories - when she was eight years old, her four year old brother, Jeff, died of leukaemia and ever since, Cindy has donated a significant proportion of her earnings to leukaemia research.

Cindy Crawford was a brilliant student, who won a scholarship to study chemical engineering at the North-western University after graduating from De Kalb High School. She never graduated from university after embracing the fashion industry. Interestingly, Cindy scored perfectly on her college calculus exams, too, helping to dispel the myth of all models being air-heads.

Cindy's first brush with the wild world of fashion occurred when she was 16 years of age, when a local newspaper photographer in Illinois asked for a few photos. Since then, she's never looked back, going on to become one of the world's most recognisable faces (and bodies) making millions and millions in the process.

In 1983, Cindy Crawford got to the finals of an Elite Model [Management] Look of the Year contest, and following this her star just kept on rising.

Since then, she's appeared on too many magazine covers to mention, about 600 in total, and was arguably the first top model to pose in Playboy magazine. Of this somewhat controversial photo shoot she was quoted as saying: "When I did Playboy, I got letters from women who didn't consider it feminist to do nude photographs. I thought the whole point of being a feminist was that you got to make your own choices."

The all-American beauty even tanked at #5 on Playboy's list of the 100 Sexiest Stars of the Century, and her love of getting her clothes off didn't wane - in 1997 she again posed nude on the cover of a French magazine (Voici) with Rande Guber.

There were also many rumours in the early 90s that Cindy was bisexual, some even suggesting she had an affair with Christy Turlington. This was because the famous American models were photographed kissing behind the Roxy nightclub in New York in 1991.

A few years later, the rumour mill cranked up another gear as Cindy Crawford appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair shaving K.d. Lang. She is also a gay rights supporter, openly standing by the Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) group.

Anyway, getting back to our timeline (of sorts) Cindy Crawford married Richard Gere on the 12th of December, 1991, by Rev. Wes McPherson at the Little Church of the West, in Las Vegas.

This marriage lasted four years and in 1995 the two high-profile celebrities parted ways. The reason for their split? Nobody knows...

In the early to mid-1990s, Cindy Crawford was earning an estimated $7million a year, had been voted into the upper echelons of numerous 'sexiest' lists and was a household face thanks to her multi-million dollar deals with ABC, MTV, Revlon cosmetics, Pepsi and Blockbuster Video.

In 1998 she wedded night club owner Rande Gerber in 1998 and has since had a baby daughter, Kaya Jordan Gerber.

Today, Cindy Crawford leads a much less hectic life, spending her time in New York and Los Angeles with her family.

As a side note, an avid reader, Ashley, recently wrote in to me to and said: You should add that she is a sell-out. Cindy Crawford, who once posed for PETAs Fur Campaign and signed a statement declaring that she would speak up for animals by refusing to wear fur, has gone back on her word. She will appear in ads for coats made out of animals' stolen fur this [northern] fall/autumn.