Cynthia Ann Crawford (born February 20, 1966) is an American model. During the 1980s and 1990s, she was among the most popular supermodels and a ubiquitous presence on magazine covers and runways, as well as fashion campaigns. She subsequently expanded into acting and business ventures.
Early life
Crawford was born in DeKalb, Illinois, on February 20, 1966,[2] the daughter of Daniel Kenneth Crawford and Jennifer Sue Crawford-Moluf (née Walker).[3][4] She has two sisters, Chris and Danielle,[5] and a brother, Jeffery, who died of childhood leukemia at age 3.[6]
On the social media, she stated that her family had been in the United States for generations and that her ancestry was mostly German, English, and French.[7] She is a descendant of English Puritan settler Thomas Trowbridge, who helped establish the Congregational Church in New Haven.[8] She was raised in the Congregationalist faith and found it "incredible" that religious values "trickled down" to her family.[9] According to official census records, Crawford's paternal great-grandfather David Crawford was of Scottish ancestry from Northern Ireland who settled in Wisconsin.[10][11] Appearing in an episode of Who Do You Think You Are? in 2013, she discovered that her ancestors included European nobility and that she was descended from Charlemagne.[3][12]
In her sophomore year at high school, she received a call from a local clothing store regarding modeling work, only to discover it was a prank by two of her classmates. However, the following year, another store hired a number of high school girls, including Crawford, to work for them (including a fashion shoot). In her junior year, local photographer Roger Legel, whose duties included photographing a different college girl to be that week's coed in the DeKalb Nite Weekly, asked to take her picture for the publication; the result was Crawford's first cover.[13] The photo and positive feedback she received were enough to convince her to take up modeling. Initially, she worked with a small agency, which was sold to Elite Model Management shortly after she signed. In 1983, she entered Elite's Look of the Year contest at 17 and made the national finals.[14][15]
In July 1988, she posed nude for Playboy magazine in a shoot by photographer Herb Ritts.[21] In October 1998, Crawford returned to the pages of Playboy for a second nude pictorial, again taken by Ritts.[22] She was ranked number 5 on Playboy's list of the 100 sexiest stars of the 20th century. A 1997 Shape magazine survey of 4,000 picked her as the second (after Demi Moore) most beautiful woman in the world. In 2002, Crawford was named one of the 50 most beautiful people by People magazine. In her forties, she claimed No. 26 in the 2006 Hot 100 issue of Maxim magazine.[23] She was named No. 3 on VH1's 40 Hottest Hotties of the 90s and was named one of the "100 Hottest Women of All-Time" by Men's Health.[24]
The red Versace dress she wore to the 63rd Academy Awards in 1991 had a major influence on fashion, and many copies and fakes of the dress were produced.[25][26][27] In 1992, Crawford—through GoodTimes Home Video and her company Crawdaddy Productions—made an exercise video with Radu Teodorescu named Cindy Crawford: Shape Your Body; although criticised by some[who?] for being unsafe,[citation needed] it was hugely successful and led to two equally lucrative followups, Cindy Crawford: The Next Challenge in 1993 (again with Radu) and Cindy Crawford: A New Dimension in 2000; the latter, made with fitness expert Kathy Kaehler and produced not long after Crawford gave birth to her first child, was aimed at new mothers getting back into shape. In 2001, Crawford also made a shorter fitness video aimed at children, Mini-Muscles with Cindy Crawford and the Fit-wits, an animated production featuring the voices of Crawford (who also appears at the beginning in live action), Radu and Kobe Bryant.
The inaugural issue of George, a short lived political magazine in the 1990s, featured Crawford dressed like George Washington on the cover. In 2005, the American Society of Magazine Editors listed it as the 22nd best magazine cover of the last 40 years.[28]
Crawford has also been on TV and in films. From 1989 to 1995, Crawford was host and executive producer of MTV's House of Style. In the early 1990s, Crawford starred in the Pepsi and Pepsi Stuff advertising.[29][30] In 1992, she appeared in Pepsi's Super Bowl commercial,[31] aired during Super Bowl XXVI. In 2016, Pepsi released a remake of the commercial, also featuring Crawford.[31] In 1995, Crawford broke into movies as the female lead in the movie Fair Game. Her performance was panned by critics—Leonard Maltin commented "In her acting debut, supermodel Crawford makes a good jogger."[32] The film was also a financial failure, with expenses of $50 million and $11 million takings at the box office. In 2001, she costarred as part of an ensemble cast in The Simian Line. Again the film was not successful or critically acclaimed, but Crawford's acting was not criticized. She has had many lesser roles guest starring on TV and as supporting roles, often playing herself. For example, in 2000, she was one of the celebrities (along with Victoria Silvstedt, Anna Falchi and Megan Gale) playing themselves in the Italian comedy Body Guards – Guardie del corpo. In the 1990s, Carol Shaw, her make-up artist, named a lipstick color after Crawford as a part of the Lorac Cosmetics lip-wear line.[33]
In the late 1990s, she made a number of appearances in magician David Copperfield's stage shows, standing in for her fellow supermodel Claudia Schiffer as Copperfield's guest assistant. During these appearances, she took part in a number of different illusions including being levitated, guillotined, and sawn in half in Copperfield's Clearly Impossible illusion. On a number of occasions, she joined Copperfield and Schiffer in a performance of the Double Sawing illusion in which both women were sawn in half and then reassembled with their lower halves swapped.[34]
After modeling
Crawford quit full-time modeling in 2000 and now appears only occasionally in fashion magazines. In 2005, Crawford created a line of beauty products with Jean-Louis Sebagh called Meaningful Beauty for Guthy-Renker.[35] Crawford has stated that she regularly receives certain cosmetic procedures, including Botox and vitamin injections. She first saw a plastic surgeon at the age of 29.[36]
In 2005, Crawford launched a new line of furniture under the "Cindy Crawford Home Collection" name. The collection is manufactured by HM Richards Inc. She assisted in the creation of the line by consulting on the features, colors, or styles that fit the needs of families or reflected her own tastes.[37] She also has a furniture line with Rooms to Go, Raymour & Flanigan and launched a home goods line with J. C. Penney in late 2009.[38]
In 2009, Crawford was one of many celebrities to be photographed by Deborah Anderson for the coffee table book Room 23, produced by philanthropist Diana Jenkins. In addition to appearing in the book, Crawford was the cover model and wrote the dedication.[39]Becoming, a book about Crawford's life and career co-written by Crawford and Katherine O'Leary, was published in September 2015.[40]
Crawford was featured in an upcoming four-part Apple TV+docuseries titled The Super Models, which premiered on September 20, 2023. The series also featured Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington, and Linda Evangelista and was directed by Roger Ross Williams and Larissa Bills.[46]
Personal life
Crawford was married to actor Richard Gere from 1991 until their divorce in 1995. She married businessman and former model Rande Gerber on May 29, 1998.[47] They have two children, son Presley Walker Gerber (born July 2, 1999)[48] and daughter Kaia Jordan Gerber (born September 3, 2001),[2][49][50]
Crawford is 5 feet 9+1⁄2 inches (1.77 m) tall with brown hair and eyes. Her measurements are 34–25.5–36.[52] Her trademark is a mole (or "beauty mark") above her upper lip. She is so closely associated with this physical feature that she appeared in an Australian advertising campaign for flavoured milk featuring a TV commercial wherein she "licked off" her own mole.[53] Her resemblance to model Gia Carangi led her to being known as "Baby Gia".[54][55]
Advocacy and charity work
When Crawford was 10 years old, her three-year-old brother Jeff—whom she continues to praise as "the fourth most influential person in [her] life"—died of leukemia. Since becoming a model, Crawford has made childhood leukemia a focal point of her charity work, donating proceeds of her calendars to medical research.[56] Crawford has been a long-time supporter of the pediatric oncology program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where Jeff was treated, stating that she believes he received the best care possible.[57] She is also an honorary board member of the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation.[58]
In 2007, she became an official supporter of the Ronald McDonald House Charities and is a member of their celebrity board, called the Friends of RMHC.[59] Crawford is on the honorary committee of the California Wildlife Center.[60]
In 2021, Cindy Crawford recreated her iconic Pepsi ad with photographer David Yarrow to help raise funds for the American family Children's Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin where her brother, Jeff, was treated for leukemia.[61]
^Mosciatti, Lorenzo [1]Archived December 20, 2016, at the Wayback Machine "San Benedetto sceglie Cindy Crawford e investe 20 milioni in pubblicità nel 2016". Engage, April 29, 2016.(link in Italian)
