Norma Jean Darden - Versailles, Revisited

 

 

Thank you. I was a fashion model for many years. I got this dream when I was very young. My father used to give fashion shows in our backyard to raise money for the NAACP. And he was quite a character. He managed to get Sammy Davis Jr. to come be the emcee. I was a teenager and I got to see these gorgeous creatures in our guest room on sheets. They painted their bodies, they had false eyelashes I'd never even seen these things. I got this idea that I would love to be a model. I told my mother, but I was a bit of an ugly duckling. I was so tall. I was taller than everyone in the class, the boys included. I wasn't exactly a raving beauty. So, she said, “No, you're going to college. That's what you're doing.” [audience laughter] 

 

I went to college and I did finish. My teachers noticed that I was as happy with my outfits as I was with my books. And so, they decided to get me to represent our college, Sarah Lawrence at Mademoiselle magazine. So, this is in the 1960s, so I had my little shoes to match my bag, my hat to match my gloves, a suit and a red boucle coat with a cape and I was very dramatic. [audience laughter] So, I dashed into Conte Nash, went up in my little high heel patent leather shoes. I got to the receptionist. And she said to me, “What are you doing here? Why didn't you use the delivery entrance?” And I said, “Well, I'm here to represent my college.” And she said, “There must be some mistake. We only use white models here.” I was so stunned and really flabbergasted, so I called my college and our person who had sent me was a Southern white person. He became outraged and he carried on. He finally got them the next year to use a black model. But it wasn't me. [audience laughter] 

 

 So, I came to New York after I graduated with the idea of being an actress. But there again, I was looming over the leading men. I was always too something. Once I was too dark for a part, then I was too light for a part, too tall for a part, too thin for a part, not thin enough. So, I was having a hard time getting cast. And they told me, “Try modeling. Come through the back door.” So, I was trying that. And then, people were telling me in the 1960s, “Well, we would love to use black models. But the Southern people wouldn't buy our products, so we can't do it.” I thought that was such a phony argument, but couldn't do anything about it. 

 

And then, one of the models from my father's fashion show, Audrey Smaltz, got this idea that we would picket Harper's BAZAAR. So, we went down with our little placards and we marched in front of there. There were only six of us, but we created quite a stir. And they came down, they told us that wasn't necessary and that the magazine was changing. And sure enough, they hired a black model, but it wasn't us. [audience laughter] So, we felt like we were opening doors, but we weren't getting anywhere. [audience laughter] And I guess that's the way we called ourselves the little pioneers. 

 

Then along came an agency called Black Beauty. And Black Beauty made a big imprint. They got Life magazine to do a cover with Naomi Sims. We were inside, and suddenly we were the rage of the town. Along came the black designers, like Stephen Burroughs and Jon Haggins and Scott Barrie, and we were suddenly the N girls. We were everywhere. So, along came Eleanor Lambert, who got this idea to take American fashion to Paris. So, she hired all the black models to represent, some of the American designers, and the French people got everybody to represent them. And off we went to Paris. 

 

And the French took two hours on their rehearsals, and they had Nureyev leaping into the balcony, and they had Grace Kelly as the emcee and Josephine Baker, our favorite artist, as the singer. We came in. It was freezing cold, and they didn't have any food for us. We were there all day. And this was the one day of rehearsals. And we had Kay Thompson, who'd written Eloise, as a choreographer, and she gave up on us and quit. And no one was getting along. It was a terrible thing. The show started, and the Paris went first and they went on for about two hours with one show after another. We had absolutely nothing, but our wonderful music from Barry White and ourselves. We had been working in churches, most of us, before were able to work on 7th Avenue and make the magazines, so we had only our own exuberance. 

 

When we hit the stage, they were astonished to see that kind of energy, because the French models were very stiff, and they just moved around slowly. We’re just dancing and cavorting, and at the end, just posing everywhere. They got so excited, they threw their programs in the air and they were stamping their feet and they were yelling. And the Americans were successful. Well, I came back to America. [laughs] [audience cheers and applause] 

 

And not much was going on. No one seemed to have carried our wonderful success over here. I managed to get the cover of Essence magazine. And for us, that was a very big deal. And the day before I was to shoot it, all of a sudden, I felt a terrible pain. I took myself to the hospital, and they said, “Oh, my God, you're green.” And they said, “This is an awful time for you to be ill, because all of our surgeons are in a seminar in California.” So lovely. [chuckles] I don't remember another thing for three days. I lost my cover. And because of the operation, I was no longer able to be a fashion model. And this, for me, was just devastating. My dream was gone. But everyone knows that modeling is a rainbow career, and you don't expect to do it forever. But the next thing was what to do. 

 

So, I took a job as an assistant working backstage in fashion, and I was asked to do a tango with Jon Haggins, who was the designer who had hired me. He wanted us to tango out and then to do his show. So, he didn't want to get the white runway dirty, so we couldn't practice. So, when the day came and he was so excited, the Vogue editor had come, the Harper's BAZAAR editor was there, and we got out to do our tango, and the stage collapsed and we fell into the laps of the Vogue editor. [audience laughter] Needless to say, the show was not quite a hit. But he had asked me to bring some goodies to serve people after the show. When I did, they liked what I brought, and Channel 13 was there and they asked me to be a caterer. 

 

So, my sister and I didn't know anything about catering at all. And they said, “We're going to pay you $5,000 and you're going to bring the food for the grandmothers and the grandchildren affair.” And we said, “Yes, we will.” [audience laughter] So, that turned out to be quite successful. And at that point, and we were in our 30s by now, we had found out that our grandfather was born a slave. We decided that we would interview our relatives that were then in their 1970s and 1980s and find out about what it was like in their time. We managed to create a memoir cookbook called Spoonbread and Strawberry Wine. 

 

So, in our journey to rediscover our family, we found the most precious thing to do is to collect photographs, to collect recipes, because that is all of our legacies, and that is what makes things so special and it makes our contributions to society. We feel they're small, but when we look back on it, they're really grand and we're part of a fabric that makes the society work. And in my travels, I managed to work for President Clinton, for President Bush, President Trump. Money is money. [audience laughter] When one door closes, another can open if we're open to our destinies. And thank you for listening.