Naomi Campbell

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Naomi Campbell (born May 22, 1970) is an iconic English supermodel, actress, singer and author.


Biography

Campbell was born in London, England. Her mother was a ballet dancer, Valerie Campbell, who told Arena in 1996 that her daughter's unnamed father is a mixed-race man of part-Chinese ancestry.

She attended Dunraven School, a comprehensive school run by Inner London Education Authority in Streatham and attended the London Academy for Performing Arts.

A graduate of the Italia Conti Academy stage school, Campbell's first appearance to a wider public was in February 1978 when she was cast as a pupil to appear in a music video with Bob Marley for his song Is This Love?. In 1982, she appeared in another music video, this time as a tap dancer for Culture Club's "I'll Tumble 4 Ya".

On graduating from Italia Conti, her looks ("My features are completely ethnic", she said in the September 2003 issue of Essence magazine. "And I'm proud of them.") led her to become a fulltime model, creating a high-profile career and creating two spin-off companies, NC Connect and a self-named line of perfumes.

Her charity work mainly focuses on the children and people of Africa, including working with Nelson Mandela, since 1997. In 2005, she helped to create and participate in 'Fashion Relief' for Hurricane Katrina victims, raising over a million dollars.

Modeling

Aged 15 and while still a student of the Italia Conti Stage School, Campbell was spotted by Beth Boldt, former head of Synchro models agency, window-shopping in Covent Garden. In April 1986, she appeared on the cover of Elle, when a black model had to cancel out of the appearance, and was replaced by Campbell. By August 1988, she had appeared on the cover of the French Vogue as that publication's first black cover girl, and she completed campaigns for Ralph Lauren and François Nars.

Her modelling career started as a catwalk model, but she was quickly picked up for various high-profile advertising campaigns for Lee Jeans and Olympus Corporation, which brought her to the American market. The highpoint of her career was in the early 1990s, when she was part of the two major supermodelling powerhouses, the Big Six and the Trinity, (with Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington).

She has walked the catwalk for many fashion designers, including Gianni Versace and Valentino. Naomi did tumble over on the catwalk at Vivienne Westwood's Anglomania fashion show in 1994. Naomi was the first black model to appear on the cover of Time magazine and the French and British Vogue magazines. She was the first black model on the cover of Vogue Nippon. She has also appeared on the covers of Harper's Bazaar and ELLE magazine. In total, Naomi Campbell has been on over 500 magazine covers.

She posed nude for Playboy magazine, exposing her nipples to the light. She also appeared in Madonna's 1992 book, Sex, in a set of photos with Madonna and rapper Big Daddy Kane.

Music

Campbell starred at age 7 in the music video for Bob Marley and the Wailers song "Is This Love". Campbell later appeared in music videos for artists such as Michael Jackson, Culture Club, Jay-Z, P.Diddy, The Notorious B.I.G, Macy Gray, Prince, and Usher, as well as Madonna's 1992 music video for "Erotica", which featured filmed footage from photoshoots for the book Sex. She famously appeared in George Michael's music video, "Freedom '90", where she lip-synched to his song along with other models, including Turlington and Evangelista. She was also seen in Frankie J's music video, "That Girl".

Campbell has tried her hand at singing. Her single "Love and Tears" was a hit and her solo album Baby Woman sold over 1 million copies worldwide (but mostly in Japan) despite being panned by critics, and she was featured on Vanilla Ice's single "Cool as Ice". In 1995, her collaboration with Toshinobu Kubota, "La La La Love Song" the theme song to Long Vacation, became a no. 1 hit in Japan, with the single selling approx. 1,856,000 copies. That same year she sang on Quincy Jones' album Q's Juke Joint.

On her album B'day, Beyoncé Knowles mentions Campbell's signature walk as part of a sequence of called-out dance moves in the 2007 single "Get Me Bodied". She sings "Do the Naomi Campbell walk" referring to Campbell's runway walking style. In the video, 3 dancers are seen imitating Campbell's walk.

Personal life

Campbell has had relationships with many famous people. She was rumoured to have a brief relationship with boxer Mike Tyson in the late 1980s, and was engaged to U2's bassist Adam Clayton. In the 1990s Campbell went out with actor Robert de Niro, dancer Joaquin Cortes and with Renault F1 team boss Flavio Briatore. In late 2004 she had a high profile relationship with Usher, although by 2005 their relationship appeared to be over. In addition, she has been romantically linked to musician Eric Clapton, actors Sylvester Stallone, Gerard Butler[3], Prince Albert, Robert Goode, Norman Sukkar, and Matteo Marzotti. She has also been linked to Terrance Howard, although Howard was quoted as saying that they are just friends.

Drug addiction

In February 2001 pictures were published in the Daily Mirror newspaper showing Campbell leaving a Narcotics Anonymous meeting in London. In March 2002 Campbell sued the paper citing a breach of confidentiality, since she was receiving treatment for drug addiction at the time. The Mirror claimed that the pictures were in the public interest as Campbell had denied having a drug problem publicly and had, up to that point, not been known or demonstrated to be a drug addict. The High Court ruled in Campbell's favour and the Mirror was ordered to pay £3,500 in damages (although legal costs were thought to be around £500,000.) In October 2002, the Mirror won an Appeal Court ruling that the photographs were indeed in the public interest. Campbell was ordered to pay the costs of the Mirror's legal fees, a cost of around £350,000. However, in May 2004 the Law Lords overturned the Appeal Court ruling by a 3 to 2 majority, which reinstated the High Court's original decision, and Campbell was rewarded £3,500 and the £350,000 legal costs. The Mirror's legal cost is thought to be over £1,000,000. The case is also thought to be a landmark in the rights of celebrities to privacy.

Feuds

Campbell is purported to have had feuds with several celebrities, the most publicised of which is with fellow model Tyra Banks. The two finally made up in 2005 on an episode of Banks' syndicated talk show The Tyra Banks Show. At the end of the 2005 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show Banks and other models left the runway, and Banks explained her emotions of the event being her last runway show as a fashion model; and as she was talking Campbell came to hug Banks and kiss her on the cheek.

Campbell also had a rift with former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham, who publicly branded the model as a "massive cow" and a "bitch" in 2000.[5] They have since been photographed holding hands at a fashion show so a detente appears to have taken place.

Legal troubles

Campbell has been accused and arrested because of committing acts of physical violence and verbal abuse against some of her employees and associates. She is often referred to in UK tabloids such as The Sun as Nutta because of her shocking public behaviour.[citation needed] Documented accusations include:

• In 2000, she pleaded guilty in a Toronto court to a 1998 assault on Georgina Galanis, her then assistant; Campbell had assaulted Galanis with a telephone in a hotel room and threatened to throw her out of a moving car. Under an agreement with the prosecution her record was cleared in exchange for her expressing remorse; Campbell also paid Galanis an undisclosed amount of money and agreed to attend anger management lessons.
• March 2005, the model was said to have slapped assistant Amanda Brack and beaten her around the head with a BlackBerry hand-held personal organiser. The star's spokesman Rob Shuter denied the incident ever took place. In July 2006, Brack began legal proceedings against Campbell, claiming the supermodel abused her verbally and physically on three continents. Brack accused Campbell of assault, battery, false imprisonment and infliction of emotional distress in incidents that started a month after she began working for her in February 2005.
• Italian actress Yvonne Scio has claimed the model left her "covered in blood" after a spat at a Rome hotel. Yvonne claimed: "She punched me in the face. She was like Mike Tyson."
• On 30 March 2006 in New York City, Campbell was arrested for allegedly assaulting her housekeeper with a jewel-encrusted mobile phone, resulting in a bloody head that required several stitches.[9] She was charged with second degree assault,[9] a felony that carries a minimum sentence of one year and a maximum of seven years in prison.
• On 28 September 2006, she did not attend a required court appearance in New York City, and the judge ruled that he would order her arrest if she failed to turn up on court the following week, on charges of a second-degree assault on her housekeeper, and could be jailed for up to seven years if convicted.
• On 25 October 2006, she was arrested in London on suspicion of assault. [2] She has been released on police bail.
• On 14 November 2006, another former Campbell housekeeper, Gaby Gibson, began a new court case against the supermodel seeking unspecified damages, and accused her ex-employer of being a "violent super-bigot".
• On 15 November 2006, Campbell appeared in criminal court in New York City regarding her March 2006 assault charges. Her defence lawyer and the prosecutor told the judge that they were "still in the process of working out a possible" plea deal in the case.
• On 16 January 2007, Campbell pleaded guilty to a charge of reckless assault against her maid Ana Scolavino. She was sentenced to five days community service and ordered to attend two days of an anger management course. In addition, she was ordered to pay medical bills of $363 (£185) to Mrs Scolavino who needed four stitches after the incident.[14] According to a report on CNN, Campbell blames "her temper on lingering resentment toward her father for abandoning her as a child".[15] On 19 March 2007, Campbell began mopping floors at New York's Sanitation Department for her service.
• The Boston-based law firm Sullivan & Worcester, which had assigned a top litigator to defend Campbell throughout her many escapades, severed their relationship with Campbell in 2006.

Filmography

• Cool as Ice (1991)
• The Night We Never Met (1993)
• Ready to Wear (1994) (Cameo)
• Unzipped (1995) (documentary)
• Miami Rhapsody (1995)
• To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995)
• Catwalk (1996) (documentary)
• Girl 6 (1996)
• Invasion of Privacy (1996)
• Beautopia (1998) (documentary)
• An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn (1998)
• Trippin' (1999)
• Prisoner of Love (1999)
• Ali G Indahouse (2002)
• Fat Slags (2004)
• The Call (2006) (short subject)
• Karma, Confessions and Holi (2006)