Naomi Elaine Campbell was born in London, England. Until age two, she lived in Rome, where her mother worked as a dancer. Then, she returned to live with relatives in London while her mother toured with her dancing company. At the age of three, she began attending the Barbara Speake Stage School, and at 10, she enrolled in the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts to study ballet. In 1986, while window-shopping in Covent Garden, Campbell was scouted by the head of the Synchro Model Agency, making her first cover shoot for Elle magazine a month before her 16th birthday. From that on, her career took off, walking the runway for top designers, such as Gianni Versace and Isaac Mizrahi, and working with A-list photographers, including Bruce Weber and Peter Lindbergh. Within only a few years, alongside Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington, Campbell formed the Trinity trio, which marked the beginning of the supermodels’ era. As one of the most recognizable and sought-after models, Campbell often broke the color barrier and made history as the first black cover girl in several magazines, including British Vogue (1987), French Vogue (1988), American Vogue (1989), and Time (1991). In the mid-1990s, Campbell began to branch out of modeling. In 1994, she published her first book, a novel titled Swan, released an album called Baby Woman, had various roles in films and TV shows, and in 1999, at 29, she signed with Cosmopolitan Cosmetics and launched her first signature fragrance. Over the following decades, Campbell continued to model both on the runway and for magazines and advertising campaigns for brands like Dolce & Gabbana, Victoria’s Secret, and Louis Vuitton. She also developed her TV persona, serving as a coach and judge for the modeling competition The Face and as a recurring character in the drama Empire and American Horror Story: Hotel. Despite her supermodel status and being the most famous black model of her time, Campbell encountered bias in the fashion industry and didn’t receive as many campaigns as her white colleagues. Throughout her career, she was outspoken about the subject, and in 2013, together with fellow black models Bethann Hardison and Iman, she established the Diversity Coalition. In addition to fighting against racism and discrimination, Campbell has been using her fame to advocate for many causes. She is involved with various non-profit organizations, from the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund to the charity Breakthrough Breast Cancer. In 2005, she founded the organization We Love Brazil to fight poverty in Brazil. That same year she established Fashion for Relief, which organizes fund-raising fashion shows for the victims of humanitarian crises such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, the Haiti earthquake in 2010, the earthquake in Japan in 2011, and the 2017 Syrian refugee crisis. She also serves as the honorary president of Athla Onlus, which works for the social integration of people with learning disabilities in Italy, and as a goodwill ambassador for the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood. Read more...

Waris Dirie was born near Galkayo, Somalia, one of twelve children in a nomadic herdsmen family. When she was five years old, she and two of her sisters underwent female genital mutilation (FGM) – female circumcision, a common practice in her tribal tradition. Growing up, she looked after the family’s herd, and by the age of 6, Dirie was responsible for taking about 60 goats and sheep to graze in the desert. At 13, her father had announced that she would marry a 60 years old man who traded her for five camels. Backed up by her mother, she managed to escape from her home. After a long and dangerous journey through the desert, she arrived at relatives in Mogadishu and from there to London, where she worked as a maid for her uncle, who was the Somali ambassador to the United Kingdom. When the uncle’s term ended, Dirie rented a room at the YMCA, earned her living as a cleaner in McDonald’s, and took English classes in the evenings. In 1983, at 18, she was spotted by the photographer Mike Goss who asked to take a picture of her. Soon after, she began to receive offers from casting agents. In 1987, 22 years old Dirie had her first big modeling job with the renowned fashion photographer Terence Donovan for the Pirelli Calendar. Afterward, her career took off with advertisements for Chanel, Revlon, and Levi’s, runway shows in New York, Milan, and Paris, and appearances in the top fashion magazines, including Vogue, Elle, and Glamour. In 1997, aged 32, at the pick of her modeling career, Dirie had an interview for Marie Claire magazine, in which she spoke for the first time about the FGM she had as a child. Following her brave testimony, she got nominated as a UN Special Ambassador against female genital mutilation. In this position, she traveled around the world, giving speeches on the subject of FGM, raising the global awareness of the act, and promoting her mission to prevent future generations of girls and women from suffering as she did. At the time, the World Health Organization estimated that more than 130 million women had undergone FGM, and in Somalia, Dirie’s homeland, 98% of the women had the procedure. In 1998, Dirie published her autobiography Desert Flower, in which she details her story as an FGM victim and her journey from a child bride in Somalia to a supermodel in the UK. The book became a bestseller, sold more than a million copies worldwide, and was adapted into a film and a musical. In the early 2000s, Dirie retired from modeling to dedicate her time to activism. In 2001, she founded the Desert Dawn Foundation, a non-profit organization that raises funds for clinics and schools in Somalia. The following year, she established the Waris Dirie Foundation that focused on abolishing FGM. In 2009, she co-founded the PPR Foundation for Women’s Dignity and Rights, and in 2013, she opened in Berlin the first holistic medical center in the world for the treatment and care of FGM victims, followed by other centers in Amsterdam, Stockholm, and Paris. Dirie continues to advocate for the cause, giving speeches in front of world leaders around the world urging them to take action against FGM that is still happening in many cultures around the globe. Read more...

Lucille Désirée Ball was born in Jamestown, New York. When she was 3 years old, her father had died, and she moved with her mother and little brother to her grandparents’ house in Celoron, New York. At the age of 12, while auditioning for the chorus line of her stepfathers’ Shriner’s organization, Ball discovered her passion for performing, realizing that this was a great way to earn praise and recognition. At 17, Ball came to NYC, auditioning for various productions while working as a house model for Hattie Carnegie. At 21, after two years of hiatus due to rheumatoid arthritis, she landed some chorus work on Broadway, using the name Diane Belmont. Afterward, she moved to Hollywood and acted in various minor movie roles. In 1937, at the age of 26, Ball was cast in her first credited part, starring alongside Ginger Rogers and Katharine Hepburn in the film The Three Musketeers. During the 1940s, Ball became known as the current “Queen of the B’s” for starring in numerous B-movies. One of them was the musical Too Many Girls, where she and Desi Arnaz, who already played together in her previous movie, became a couple. They got married that same year. Between one acting job to another, Ball gained exposure working in radio shows, including The Phil Baker Show and CBS’s My Favorite Husband. Ball’s portray of the wacky wife caught the attention of the producers, who asked her to develop a TV show. Insisting on working with her real-life husband, the network rejected the pilot, claiming that the audience will not believe that a Cuban and a red-haired Caucasian is a couple. Instead, Ball and Arnaz created a vaudeville act, in which she played a housewife who wants to get into her husband’s show. In light of the act’s successes, I Love Lucy got into the CBS lineup. The show was produced by Desilu – the production company that Ball and Arnaz had founded, for which Ball became the first woman to head a TV production company. In I Love Lucy, Ball played a witty housewife who finds creative ways to leave the house. Ball charmed the audience with her range, physical comedy, and timing. Premiered on October 15, 1951, the show immediately became the #1 watched sitcom, with a record of an overall of 67.3 on Nielsen ratings over its six years course. The show was innovative in television broadcasting, being the first production to film before a live studio audience and to use three cameras. While I Love Lucy was on the air, Ball was also teaching a comedy workshop at the Brandeis-Bardin Institute. During the show’s time off, she and Arnaz starred together in two films and produced various movies and TV shows, including The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Untouchables, Mission: Impossible, and Star Trek. In 1957, after the show ended, 46 years old Ball returned to Broadway and the radio, hosting a radio talk show called Let’s Talk to Lucy. She continued to star in two more successful sitcoms – The Lucy Show (1962-1968) and Here’s Lucy (1968-1974). In 1960, she and Arnaz got divorced, and in the following year, she married her second husband, Gary Morton, who was 13 years younger than her. During the 1980s, Ball performed in various television specials and had a TV comeback with the sitcom Life with Lucy. Ball died at the age of 78 from a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm, leaving behind her a legacy of joy and laughter, inspiring many comediennes and actresses to follow her path. Read more...

Born in Israel to a middle-class family. Gadot was athletic from childhood, playing volleyball, basketball, and taking dance lessons, wanting to be a choreographer when she grows up. At 18, she won the 2004 “Miss Israel” beauty pageant and represented Israel at the Miss Universe beauty pageant of the same year. Not long after, she was drafted into the Israeli Defense Forces, serving the mandatory two-years as a fitness instructor for combatants. After completing her military service, Gadot began a professional modeling career, leading campaigns both in Israel and abroad. Throughout the years, she has been featured as the cover girl on international magazines such as Glamour, Cosmopolitan, and Entertainment Weekly. At the age of 22, she started studying law and international relations, but after completing the first year of college, she was called to an audition for the part of a Bond girl in the film Quantum of Solace. Though she didn’t get the role, this experience led her to pursue acting opportunities, and she stared in numerous Israeli productions. A few months after the James Bond audition, the same casting director contacted her once again, this time for the role of Gisele Yashar in the Fast & Furious franchise. She got the part, and after the first film, Gisele’s part was expanded, and Gadot returned to play the role in the next three sequels. In those movies, she performed her own stunt work. Soon she began to play small roles in various films, including Date Night, Knight and Day, and Triple 9. In 2013, Gadot was cast as Wonder Woman – the warrior princess of the Amazons. This was the first time that the superhero appeared in a movie, after appearing only on TV (starring Lynda Carter). Wonder Woman, or by her civilian name – Diana Prince, is the first widely recognizable female superhero and a symbol of female empowerment. She’s known for her physical strengths as well as her compassion and sense of justice. Gadot’s first appearance as the superhero was in the film Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, for which she received training in various martial arts, such as kickboxing, Kung Fu, Capoeira, Swordsmanship, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Five years later, she starred as Wonder Woman in a standalone film. The Wonder Woman movie was the biggest opener for a movie directed by a woman ever, and had one of the biggest openings for a superhero movie worldwide, earning a total of $821.74 million. Gadot continues to portray the superhero in other movies, including Justice League and Wonder Woman 1984. In addition to acting, Gadot, alongside her husband Jaron Varsano, established the production company “Pilot Wave,” and she is serving as a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Read more...

Audrey Marie Munson started her career as a Broadway chorus girl, after moving with her divorced mother to New York City. Her life took a turn at the age of 17, while window-shopping on Fifth Avenue, the teenager was spotted by a photographer who offered her to pose for him. He introduced Audrey to his artists friends, and she soon became a wanted model, often in the nude, for many famous male artists and sculptors. Audrey Munson has posed for iconic sculptures on government buildings and public monuments, many of the statues still in place in the streets of New York city – winning her the title “Miss Manhattan.” Other titles included “The American Venus,” “America’s First Supermodel,” “The Queen of the Artists’ Studios,” and “Panama–Pacific Girl” for modeling for a majority of the carvings at the International Exposition in San Francisco.   Munson took pride in her work, claiming nudity as an expression of female freedom, writing: “Clothes ruined us. They do harm to our bodies and worse to our soul.” She moved to California and shifted her career towards the film industry. She starred in four silent films and is considered the first actress to appear fully nude in an American feature film. She played a sculptor’s model in her first film, “Inspiration” (1915), which is nowhere to be found today. Audrey Munson was also a writer, publishing a series of 20 short stories about her life in the Sunday Magazine. She and her mother became associated with a famous murder case – when their landlord killed his wife, supposedly because he was in love with Audrey. Even though she had no part in the crime, it has affected her reputation negatively. At 40, she was admitted by her mother to a psychiatric institution for depression and schizophrenia. She lived there for the remaining 60 years of her life, until her death at the age of 104. Her gravestone, which was added 20 years after her death, features a small sculpture of an angel figure, dressed. Read more...

In her short life, she captured the American dream when transformed her life from an illegitimate child into a movie star and a national sensation. Her mother named her Norma Jean, and soon after the birth suffered from a nervous breakdown and was admitted into a mental institution. The newborn girl was shuffled between 12 foster homes, marrying at 16 to avoid going to an orphanage. When she worked in a war factory at 19, a photographer captured her while shooting an article about working women. That image surfaced and opened the doors for her modeling and acting career, which she dreamed of since age 5. Her success wasn’t immediate, but she kept on pushing – as she is said to have been “raised on a steady diet of rejections.” In an early stage of her career, she took on the stage name Marilyn and her mother’s maiden name Monroe. At 22 she got her first film role in a musical. When she “made it” to a movie star status – the fame was extreme. Some of the indicators of her popularity were a crowd of 4,000 people who came at 3 am to see her shoot a scene in New York, or being invited to sing for the president’s birthday rally in Madison Square Garden. Her film career lasted about a decade and included 33 credited films, some of the most popular are “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” “The Seven Year Itch,” “Some Like It Hot,” and “Don’t Bother to Knock.” She married two more times, both to famous men, both ending in divorce: baseball star Joe DiMaggio and play-writer Arthur Miller. Shortly after her 36 birthday, she was found dead in her bedroom with an empty bottle of sleeping pills next to her. She is still celebrated in the global culture as an icon of sexuality, beauty, and fame. Even though she capitalized on her image, she was critical of being treated as a commodity: “The trouble is, a sex symbol becomes a thing. I just hate being a thing.” Read more...