Cheryl Rae Tiegs is a famous American model and fashion designer. She is most famously known as America’s first supermodel. Throughout her career, Tiegs was featured as the cover girl for many magazines, including Vogue, Glamour, Time, and Sports Illustrated.
Tiegs 1978 pink bikini poster became an iconic image of 1970s pop culture.
Cheryl was born in September 1947 in Breckenridge, Minnesota, in the United States of America. In 1952, her family moved to Alhambra, California. When attending Alhambra High School, Cheryl got a chance to pose for a swimsuit ad for Cole of California, which appeared in Seventeen and officially launched her modeling career.
Despite enrolling herself in an English major course at California State University in LA, Cheryl left college before her junior year to pursue her career in modeling.
Her first breakthrough occurred when Glamour Magazine’s editorial staff saw her bathing suit ad for Cole of California and directly called her for a shoot at the age of 17. In 1964, she appeared as the cover girl for Glamour, and later the same year, she also appeared on the covers of Seventeen and Elle.
The following year, Tiegs made it on Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar’s cover pages, and many other fashion magazines.
“I thought models were from another planet, and it was just out of the realm of possibility,” the supermodel said in an interview in 2017.
“I started very slowly. I worked part-time in high school and college. I would do anything and everything. I would do fashion shows in the back parking lot of a department store for free. I would work for $5 an hour, which was great money for me at the time. I was thrilled. I just worked hard, and I did anything and everything I could.”
Tiegs was the only model to appear twice on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue – she was featured on three covers of Time Magazine and four times on People. In 2008, she was listed on People’s 50 Most Beautiful People list, and Men’s Health Magazine named her one of the 100 Hottest Women of All Time.
“I don’t know exactly what it’s like today, but I think that it’s much more catered to the models. They’re in the limelight much more; it just wasn’t like that,” Cheryl said about her earlier days as a model.
“People magazine wasn’t even around when I first started modeling. There was no Entertainment Tonight; there was no CNN. There were no cell phones; there was no Twitter or Facebook. So, it was just the immediate. It was more in the moment, and I liked that.”
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