{"id":317319,"date":"2025-11-29T22:11:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T22:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/317319\/"},"modified":"2025-11-29T22:11:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T22:11:10","slug":"model-reflects-on-1960s-fame-career-and-new-film-by-sadie-frost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/317319\/","title":{"rendered":"Model reflects on 1960s fame, career and new film by Sadie Frost"},"content":{"rendered":"

Normal text sizeLarger text sizeVery large text size<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never been one of those people who looks backwards,\u201d says Twiggy<\/a>, the former model who, at 16, was dubbed \u201cThe face of 1966\u201d by the UK\u2019s Daily Express newspaper.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never really think about the 1960s unless I\u2019m doing an interview and someone brings it up,\u201d she says. \u201cOld pictures can do that. Whenever I travel to places like Italy, France or Bangkok, you\u2019ll see my [younger] face on a T-shirt or bag… I can\u2019t ever really get away from it. I am constantly reminded of the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

Born Lesley Hornby, she became famous and part of the UK\u2019s fashion revolution while still in her teens thanks to her signature pixie haircut and the lithe figure which spawned her moniker, Twiggy. But it all started from a seemingly random moment in a Mayfair hair salon in 1966.<\/p>\n

On that fateful day, little did she know that esteemed hairdresser Leonard Lewis was watching her from afar as she discussed a haircut with another stylist. \u201cLeonard was like a film-star hairdresser at the time,\u201d she recalls. \u201cI was this shy kid in his Mayfair salon and he came over and introduced himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe asked if he could cut my hair. I didn\u2019t want it cut because I was a mod and I wanted my hair to remain the way I had it, in a bob. Thank god I let him do that cut because otherwise I wouldn\u2019t be sitting here talking about it. That led to my test shots being seen, and the jobs rolled in.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it wasn\u2019t just the haircut that defined Twiggy\u2019s signature look \u2013 there were also her long, spidery eyelashes. \u201cThose lashes and eyeliner were inspired by a rag doll in my bedroom,\u201d she says. \u201cMy friend and I decided to copy and draw lines like that under our eyes. It was so over the top, but it stuck and became a permanent feature of the \u201960s. Who would have thought?\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite her reluctance to look backwards, the 76-year-old is speaking to Sunday Life ahead of a new documentary about her life, simply titled Twiggy. Directed by British filmmaker Sadie Frost, it celebrates a remarkable career from her earliest jobs as a model right through to today, where we see her recording music and working on a podcast series, Tea with Twiggy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Twiggy admits she had been approached to tell her life story numerous times before, but the moment never seemed right. But when she was asked by Frost some years ago, she says agreeing to it felt natural.<\/p>\n

\u201cI actually met Sadie at Stella McCartney\u2019s house to celebrate one of Stella\u2019s children\u2019s birthdays,\u201d recalls Twiggy. \u201cSadie and I have sort of lived parallel lives. She\u2019s younger than me, of course, but she began to model at 15 and has also been in the public eye for most of her adult life. We naturally gravitated to one another.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Twiggy<\/p>\n

Twiggy in 1966, the year she was \u201cdiscovered\u201d.Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n

Frost, 60, started as a model before moving into acting (notably in Francis Ford Coppola\u2019s Bram Stoker\u2019s Dracula and, more recently, 2021\u2019s A Bird Flew In). But it\u2019s her foray into documentary-making that has attracted the most praise and attention. For the release of her 2021 film Quant<\/a>, about 1960s British fashion designer Mary Quant, Frost roped in some of her celebrity mates to reflect on the fashion icon.<\/p>\n

Having started to explore the UK fashion scene in the 1960s, it made sense that Frost\u2019s next subject would be Twiggy. \u201cOur friendship circles overlap as well,\u201d says Twiggy. \u201cI was best friends with Linda McCartney and have known Paul since I was 17 \u2013 we\u2019re very close. When Sadie came on my podcast to talk about Quant, I asked what was next. And she said, \u2018I should do one on you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The resulting film covers Twiggy\u2019s career as a model and subsequent move into acting, both on stage and in film, while also addressing the misogyny she faced. It\u2019s a comprehensive record of the personal wins and losses that have shaped her life.<\/p>\n

Once again, Frost brings in her celebrity mates. From Paul McCartney and Joanna Lumley (whose deadpan reflections on her own early modelling career warrant their own doco) to Brooke Shields and Kate Moss, their observations force Twiggy to not just look back on the decades that shaped her but to see herself as others saw her.<\/p>\n

While leaving home at the age of 16 to start modelling might have been an unexpected dream come true, it also forced Twiggy to grow up quickly. She was initially managed by her boyfriend, Justin de Villeneuve, but the couple split in 1973. An age gap of 10 years didn\u2019t help, nor did de Villeneuve\u2019s controlling nature, as seen in the documentary.<\/p>\n

\"Twiggy<\/p>\n

Twiggy (left) with filmmaker Sadie Frost: \u201cWe naturally gravitated to one another.\u201dCredit: Getty Images<\/p>\n

While Twiggy helped bring mod into the mainstream, sexism was rampant in the era during which she blossomed. As hemlines crept up, so did the sleaze. We see and hear evidence of this not just in her first-hand experiences on photo shoots and TV appearances but in the previously unseen archival footage and photos that Frost has managed to dig up.<\/p>\n

Within a few years, Twiggy had segued from modelling to acting via a performance in Ken Russell\u2019s 1971 musical The Boy Friend that won her two Golden Globes. The film also showed she could sing \u2013 she was later nominated for a Tony for her turn in the Broadway musical My One and Only in 1983 \u2013 and she\u2019s still recording music to this day.<\/p>\n

She admits making the documentary wasn\u2019t an easy process for someone who doesn\u2019t like to romanticise the past. \u201cMemories always bring tears but seeing my life on the screen really hit me. All those feelings came back, especially the story of my first husband [actor Michael Witney, whom she married in 1977 and who died of a heart attack in 1983] and the impact of that on my daughter [Carly, born in 1978].<\/p>\n

\u201cSadie always said she wanted to portray a true picture of my career and my life. I didn\u2019t want to do anything sensational or dig too deep, and I think she found a nice, happy medium. The response so far has been great.\u201d<\/p>\n

Twiggy also feels the documentary sheds light on some bigger themes, such as the class divide that existed in Britain when she started work. \u201cGirls from my working-class background didn\u2019t become models. My mum worked in a factory, and all the girls who became models were from the upper class and the middle class.<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved fashion magazines and had Jean Shrimpton all over my bedroom walls, but I would never have had the courage to go to an agency and look for work. In those days, they would have turned me away because I was too small and too thin.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Ultimately, Twiggy\u2019s high-fashion career took off in the US first, helped by American fashion editor and columnist Diana Vreeland. Twiggy appeared on the cover of American Vogue, photographed by Bert Stern, in 1967, six months before the Brits followed suit, and wonders if her background might have held her back in Britain: \u201cI think there was a little bit of snobbery there perhaps?\u201d<\/p>\n

She elaborates, \u201cI was famous in London thanks to the newspapers, but Diana Vreeland was the one who put me on a glossy cover first. Diana was the one who brought me to New York, and she was the queen of fashion \u2013 an Anna Wintour before Anna was on the scene. She was powerful and made things happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

The documentary has also given Twiggy a chance to reflect on a remarkable career that might not have happened if the stars hadn\u2019t aligned. \u201cI guess I owe a lot to the \u201960s for helping make me who I became,\u201d she says. \u201cI don\u2019t think what I experienced would have happened a decade earlier. I appeared at the right time, at the right age, in the right city. I often think somebody up there was looking after me, because you couldn\u2019t plan this if you tried.\u201d<\/p>\n

Twiggy is in cinemas December 4.<\/p>\n

Get the best of Sunday Life magazine delivered to your inbox every Sunday morning. Sign up here for our free newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Normal text sizeLarger text sizeVery large text size I\u2019ve never been one of those people who looks backwards,\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":317320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-317319","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}