"Come with Me to Casablancas"

By Michael Demarest

So says upstart Johnny, as Manhattan's model wars rage

In New York City, the nation's fashion capital, the $50 million-a-year modeling business has long been the arena for some of the fiercest and most feline competition in the U.S. Rarely has the competition been more savage than today, when top models can, and do, switch agencies almost as often as they change costumes, often at the drop of a harsh word or a seductive whisper.

The pulchritude wars began in earnest three years ago, when the longtime dominance of Ford Models, Inc., was challenged by an interloper from Paris. The parvenu, John Casablancas, had owned the biggest model agency in Paris and for years enjoyed an uneasy working relationship with "Godmother" Eileen Ford, trading les girls between continents as occasion and opportunity demanded. Then, in 1977, despite an unwritten agreement that he would not set up shop in the U.S., Casablancas descended on Manhattan. He promptly aggravated the assault by raiding some of Ford's most toothsome stars--10s or near 10s all--as well as some of her key operational executives.

Hell hath no fury like a woman broker scorned. Eileen sent Bibles to the defectors with passages about Judas marked in red. More significantly, Eileen, 58, and her partner-husband Jerry, 55, filed a $7.5 million suit against Casablancas' Elite Model Management Corp. and his four Parisian partners for "violation of fiduciary trust." The second largest agency in the U.S., Wilhelmina Models Inc., sued Casablancas for $4 million. While the suits have yet to come to trial--and quite possibly never will--the epithets and the raids and the counterraids have piled up with the intensity of Hawaiian breakers boiling in the background of a bathing-beauty cover shot.

Beverly Johnson was one of Elite's most sensational catches. The superstar model, who was the first black to adorn the cover of Vogue, is a typical warrior of the model wars. She started with Ford in 1971, switched to Wilhelmina in 1973, and returned to Ford in 1974 until she landed in Casablancas in 1977. Last month she made a stab at leaving Casablancas and returned to Ford, only to rebound to the Casablancas stable. The most telling deserter from Wilhelmina was Patti Hansen, who disports her form in Calvin Klein jeans and has just finished acting in Peter Bogdanovich's film They All Laughed. In all, some 20 Ford stars--led by sultry, pouty Janice Dickinson and Christie Brinkley, the Chanel No. 19 girl--and a dozen young "boppers" from other agencies also joined John. (Brinkley ended up back with Ford last month.) Considering that an agency makes commissions of 10% to 20% on a star model's $200,000-plus annual income, such defections are costly not only in prestige but also in cash.

Casablancas has also suffered battlefield defeats, most notably the loss of Esme Marshall, 19, fresh-faced cover girl who pioneered the bobbed look. Other stars who have exited Elite are Anna Andersen (Opium perfume) and Cover Girls Kim Alexis and Lisa Taylor. Among the few stellar models who have remained faithful to one agency are Cheryl Tiegs, Lauren Mutton and Shelly (Charlie's girl) Hack, all longtime Ford belles.

Manhattan-born, European-educated Casablancas, 37, has lured the girls and revolutionized the business with a combination of personal charm, a fine eye for female sensuality, and marketing sagacity. Says he: "The girls were tired of the supermarket approach to modeling. They wanted more personalized service." Which he provides. He strokes their egos, breaks out champagne for newcomers and maintains a relaxed, easygoing manner that contrasts with Eileen Ford's housemotherly approach. Says blond Lisa Murrell, 24, a "bread-and-butter girl" who poses for many mail-order catalogues, and has twice quit and returned to Casablancas: "I feel comfortable and confident with John. He's got so much finesse. He may be full of bull, but he does it so well."

Casablancas also realized that the young Venuses who vend every imaginable product in print and on TV could command far higher rates than they were getting. The hourly charge for a top model has trebled (up to $300 an hour) in the past three years. Instead of setting fixed fees for a model's time, Casablancas started negotiating each booking with a canny perception of the client's particular needs and the girl's availability. The whole industry has had to follow suit, with the result that many models' incomes and clients' budgets have skyrocketed. Now, says one rival, "every booking is like deciding a most-favored-nation agreement." With annual billings (and cooings) expected to reach $9 million this year, Casablancas aims to top Wilhelmina in 1980 as No. 2 agency after Ford.

The come-with-me-to-Casablancas approach does not appeal to his competitors. "I confess to unpleasant feelings about John," the urbane Jerry Ford told TIME. "His methods are sleazy. I don't like him and I don't respect him." William Weinberg, who has headed Wilhelmina since the death last year of the former Ford model who founded the eponymous agency, disparages Casablancas with the observation: "The agencies were always competitive but never this low. The Fords always evidenced an ethic and created many of the good practices that benefited the models." Says Casablancas, who speaks in often unprintable terms about the vendetta: "What gets me is the permanent, ever present nastiness of Eileen Ford. She is Machiavellian and Byzantine. She is like a snake with seven heads: cut off six and she still has one left to bite you."

The Fords sprouted an extra head with the formation of a new agency called Fame. Its president is Jerry Masucci, 41, a onetime New York City policeman who made a fortune with the Fania record company. The Fords own one-third of Fame and handle the financial operations. Fame's first famous enlistee was Esme. Echoing the Casablancas philosophy, Lawyer Richard Talmadge, another part owner of Fame (and the Fords' attorney), notes that a model is "more than a pretty face selling a product." Says he: "A model is negotiated for now like an actor in a film series. A model today has almost the same importance to an advertiser or manufacturer as an actor or actress would to a film producer. The models are the movie stars of advertising."

Zoltan Rendessy, Hungarian-born owner of the fourth-ranking Zoli agency, sees Fame as another outpost from which the Fords can shoot Elite down: "The Fords will John." do anything to take models away from There is little doubt that Eileen and Jerry Ford will maintain their sovereignty in the model wars. But Casablancas al ways has a fallback. He is married to his first model, Jeanette Christjansen, a for mer Miss Denmark, who at 32 can still match cheek and thigh with some of bodydom's finest.

With reporting by Georgia Harbison

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