Life Lessons from Jerry Hall

Welcome to Life Lessons. This week, we celebrate the 64th birthday of the one and only Jerry Hall by revisiting some highlights from our 1978 interview with the iconic model and actor, printed at the pinnacle of her career. Sit down, grab a pen—you just might learn a thing or two.

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“I think it’s great to grow up in a small town because you’re just dying to break loose. Is there more champagne?”

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“I love rhinestones. I used to have this pet alligator. It grew too big and it bit me. Look at these two marks—I still have the scars. But you see, I was going to have a rhinestone chain and walk it down the street. It never worked out.”

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“I went to Paris when I was 16. Me and my best girlfriend took all these special courses in high school and graduated a year ahead of our class and then I had this car accident and got insurance for it—800 dollars. […] [S]o I got a backpack and a sleeping bag and left. My father said I couldn’t go. He wanted my money.”

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“[M]y first job was with Helmut Newton. […] I was on the beach suntanning and Claude Haddad, who’s now my agent in Paris, came up and said, “Do you want to be a model?” and gave me his phone number. So I went back to Paris and he moved me into an apartment with Tom Cashin. Then they sent me to Helmut and he liked me so I did that job with leather and whips and stuff. I was just going to spend the summer there but I never made it back.”

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“I love to work. If I don’t for two weeks I go nuts. Since I’ve been modeling for four and a half years, the biggest vacation I’ve ever had was three weeks and I was dying to get back.”

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“I just drink wine and champagne.”

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“Why would anybody lie? The truth is always more colorful. But I like girls a lot. I come from a family of girls, so I understand. They’re all different, my sisters, so I’ve had this really great thing about being able to understand women real well, much more than I understand men. Men always seem to me kind of mysterious. They think so different. The way they think about relationships and people to me seems much more modern than the way women think. Men can just have relationships and be free.”

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“I’m not jealous. If I’m with someone and some old girlfriend comes up or some girl who’s after him comes up, I always make a special effort to charm the girl. Then the girl likes me and says, ‘You’ve got such a great girlfriend.’”

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“[J]ealousy is the fear of losing the thing you love most. It’s very normal. Suspicion is the thing that’s abnormal. If you become suspicious of someone and think they’re lying to you you’ve lost faith in your trust. You’ve shown the person you don’t trust him which is the worst thing you can do to a friend or a lover. If he has an affair but he really loves you he’s going to tell you about it.”

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“I think it’s wonderful to be with someone that’s wanted by other people.”

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“One of the things Antonio [Lopez] taught me: to look at [a photo shoot] in a graphic way. There’s got to be movement across the picture; it’s not just about you looking pretty; it’s about making a picture that lifts your soul, that somehow says something.”

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