Christy Turlington is an American model, yoga enthusiast, and a maternal health advocate. Spokesperson for anti-smoking Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Today, she is one of the most successful American models.
Background
Christy was born on January 2, 1969 in Walnut Creek, California, United States. She is the middle of three daughters born to Dwain Turlington, a pilot for Pan American World Airways, and María Elizabeth, a flight attendant from Cojutepeque.
Education
Turlington began modeling after school from age 14 to 16 and during summers while she attended Monte Vista High School. After turning 18, she moved to New York City to model full-time, and later graduated from high school. She went back to school in 1994 and graduated cum laude in 1999 from the Gallatin School of Individualized Study of New York University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with a concentration in Comparative Religion and Eastern Philosophy. She continued her studies at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.
Career
During the 1990s, she appeared in Unzipped, a documentary about fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi, and the fashion mockumentary film Prêt-à-Porter by director Robert Altman. Additionally, she was featured in Catwalk, a documentary about her life on the fashion runways by director Robert Leacock. She was presented on the November 1999 Millennium cover of American Vogue as one of the "Modern Muses".
Turlington also appeared in two music videos. Fellow model Yasmin Le Bon got her husband Simon Le Bon of Duran Duran to feature Turlington in their "Notorious" video in 1986, at the age of 17. In 1990, singer George Michael drew inspiration from Peter Lindbergh's January 1990 British Vogue cover (which features Turlington, Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Cindy Crawford, and Tatjana Patitz) for his "Freedom!" video. The video featured all top 5 female models along with their top 5 male counterparts, lip-syncing the song. The video was shown during George Michael's 2008 concert tour while he sang.
Turlington starred in her fashion documentary Catwalk and Isaac Mizrahi's Unzipped. She was added on as the fourth model investor, after Elle Macpherson, Naomi Campbell and Claudia Schiffer of the now defunct Fashion Cafes.
A devoted fan of running and yoga, she also developed an active women's clothing line for Puma.
After suffering complications in her own 2003 childbirth, and upon learning that over 500,000 women die each year during childbirth (of which 90% of the deaths are preventable).
An advocate of health and humanitarian issues, Turlington is an anti-smoking activist (her father died of lung cancer), a yoga enthusiast, and a maternal health advocate. In 2010 she debuted No Woman, No Cry, a documentary exploring maternal health around the world, which she directed. Around this time, she co-founded Every Mother Counts, a non-profit organization that aims to educate people on maternal mortality. Turlington is currently pursuing a master's degree in public health at Columbia University.
Personality
Unlike her friends, furious Naomi Campbell and relaxed Linda Evangelista, Turlington has always been calm and responsible.