In the 1980’s, Claude Haddad was one of the top four most powerful modeling agents– up there with John Casablancas and Jean Luc Brunel. Back in the day, they called them “playboys” and Haddad was the king of excess in an age defined by excess. He was also, as 60 Minutes later proved, a king of sleaze.
I didn’t know any of this when I first met him on a late afternoon in the fall of 1983.
**
The day had been a long one, with a cattle-car flight across the Atlantic. I had been warned against thieves, so on the train to Brussels I was being extra careful about my luggage. Luggage might be overstating it. It was a single duffel bag, in 80’s neon green. It weighed, I’m guessing, 100 pounds and was stuffed with all the things I couldn’t possibly live without for the next three months: a backup pair of long johns, bluegrass tapes and my favorite pillow.
I fell in love with Paris at first sight. It was like walking into an art history book, only with fresh baguettes. There were sidewalk flower markets and old men in Berets. The modelling agency – the people I had come to see – was housed in a block of historic buildings with only the street number posted on the castle-like door.
Uncertain how to proceed, I knocked but got no answer. I waited, sitting on my giant bag, hoping some other tall girl would walk by and go in. But minutes passed, and nothing happened. I sat there, literally fresh off the farm and more than a little overwhelmed by the busy, beautiful international city that swirled around me.
Eventually, I got more bored and less afraid, so I pushed the tall door open and ventured in. As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I saw on one side what seemed to be a never-ending flight of chipped marble stairs. On the other hung a brass plate adorned with rows and rows of doorbell buttons. An intercom. I hadn’t used one before. After careful inspection, I located a business card with the agency’s name on it. Prestige (the name that had been on the contract that I’d signed.) And “quatrième étage” which I would later come to find meant, “Fifth Floor,” not the fourth.
I pressed the button beside the card and waited. A woman spoke merrily in French, which I didn’t understand. Then she hung up. So, I buzzed again, hoping for an English voice. More laughing. More French.
I sat at the bottom of the stairs for a long time, hoping for a leggy girl to come swinging through the big doors and offer to help with my bag. But that didn’t happen. I hid my bag behind the trash cans (wary hillbilly) and dashed up the steps, two at a time, until I finally found the Prestige sign. Breathless, I burst into the office where table full of agents turned to me in surprise. I blurted, “Can somebody help me with my bag?”
I was answered with a barrage of French and German. “My god you didn’t leave it down there?” Two of the guys ran down the stairs, with me in hot pursuit. We discovered my bag had disappeared.
It turned out that the concierge of the building called in a gang of thieves whenever a model showed up and left a human-sized bag at the bottom of the stairs. I still wonder which gang had scored mine, and what they thought as they rifled through my Bill Monroe cassette tapes and five-year-old Walkman. At least they didn’t get Liberty overalls; I was wearing them.
We all returned to the agency office. I was stunned and empty-handed. That’s when I met Claude Haddad. I honestly don’t remember how he looked, other than having the impression that he was old. But I do remember exactly what he said: “You stupid Americans.”
His tirade lasted a few long minutes, focused on how “only a stupid (expletive) would leave her bag for somebody to steal.” He next looked at me suspiciously and asked, “How old are you?” I answered, “21.” Then he started yelling again, this time about me being a liar. It turned out that the agency where I’d been scouted in Georgia had told Prestige I was 19. Haddad made me show him my passport, then raged some more about me being too old.
Just at that moment, my Southern grandmother Hattie Lou manifested inside of me, and I spoke with a calmness that I wasn’t feeling, “If I’m too old, send me home. I’m happy to go.”
But they didn’t send me home. I became Girl #43 at Prestige Modeling Agency.
When I first got to Paris, I was assigned a crazy roommate. Her name was Leza and she had mood swings like pendulums, from bluebird sunshine (and bringing home kittens) to furious storm (as when she put her hand through the pane of our kitchen window). She also entertained at night and my door didn’t have a lock. After I woke one evening to find one of her guests was standing in the dark watching me, I decided it was time to get find some new digs.
That was the second time I spoke with Claude Haddad. He was sitting behind a large desk in a surprisingly small office. The walls were lined with cover photos of models, each more beautiful than the first. I tried to convince him that Leza and I weren’t compatible and asked him if I could get another roommate. I don’t remember much about him; just gray hair, coarse and long. But I do remember exactly his response. He laughed. “You think I’m a (expletive) travel agent? If you don’t like it, go sleep in the gutter.”
By now I had started to suspect Haddad enjoyed making girls cry. I’d seen him at it, day after day. Dissolving a teenager into tears really seemed to snap his suspenders. So, early on, I swore, by gum, he wasn’t going to make me cry. Sure, I’d shed some tears – but only later, on the Metro or at home, behind my lockless door.
That night I asked God: “It doesn’t seem like anybody wants me here. If you want me to stay, I’m going to need a sign.”
Next day, I was in a “go see.” That’s where girls as tall and taller than me wore solid black, smoked lots of cigarettes and sat waiting to meet a photographer. They had Bible-sized portfolios on their laps, filled with all manner of astonishing photographs. I sat there in my Liberties with a few Polaroids.
A man moved down the line and looked at girls’ portfolios. He was the photographer’s assistant, or gatekeeper. He stopped by me and smiled. “Hi, my name is Diderot. How do you like Paris?” I answered, “I hate it.” He laughed, surprised and asked me why? I told him my tale of woe. “Lost luggage, no clothes. Crazy roommate.” He asked: “What size do you wear?”
It turned out his ex-girlfriend had returned to the states, leaving a bunch of clothes at his house. They were all my size. Including her shoes. Fancy ones, like models wore. He gave them to me. That’s not where the miracle stopped, though. Then he revealed, “My aunt has a small apartment and she’s looking for a renter. One hundred fifty bucks a month – cash in an envelope under the door on the first day of the month.” “Deal.” I said.
But I had to charm the aunt first. She invited me for tea. With tiny sugared cakes. And beautiful china. We sat in her living room, which looked exactly as you might imagine, stuffed with tasseled plushness. I sat, well postured, on the edge of my chair. Of course, she didn’t speak English, so I used my horrifying French to converse. She, thankfully, thought it was charming and let me live there, on a hallway with six people and one toilet. I can still see it, to this day, sun streaming through lace curtains and a big window looking over the Seine.
I moved in quickly (since my duffel had been stolen, it didn’t long to pack) and this brings me to the third time that I met Claude Haddad. When I was safely tucked into to my new apartment (with my locking door), I walked in and threw the model apartment key on his desk. I smiled and said, “If you need me, I’ll be in the gutter.”
Surprisingly, that insubordination didn’t get me fired. But it did get his attention. He started homing in on me with his bullying. But I never cried, not a tear. Even when he took me into his office where three suited men sat, and, without introduction, spun me around, pulled up my skirt and said, “Now this is a great (expletive).” Then he shoved me, mute with anger, out the door and into the lobby of the agency.
All the while, I saw things. Mothers bringing their daughters to model – young girls, like 14 and15. I heard whisperings from the older girls about parties at Claude’s house. Nights filled with bacchanal celebration; parties where girls couldn’t remember everything that happened.
One day, at the agency, I saw a young girl sitting in the lobby, waiting as her mother talked to Claude in his office. The mother had been in there for a while, and he was really pouring on the charm. I realized later that this is what he did: flatter the mothers, dazzle them with the promise of celebrity and riches, and convince them to leave their children with him. “They don’t need to understand the money or speak French. They can stay at my house. It’s like a big slumber party.”
The girl sat alone outside, waiting. On impulse, I wrote my name and number on a card and whispered to her that she didn’t have to do anything against her will to make it in the fashion business. And I told her that if she were scared or needed to get home, to call me and I would come and get her, no matter how late it was. I never got a call from her. Which makes me hope she got through it safely.
I like to think that I evaded Claude’s ultimate snare because of my hillbilly wariness, passed on to me by my grandmother. Or because I had my mama’s second sense about people and their intentions. But honestly, I think it was because I was too old. After all, 21 is long in the tooth for a model and he was probably repelled by my advanced age.
For years, I never told anybody about my time there. I felt badly that I stayed, putting up with abuse and humiliation. I’d like to say that I threw my portfolio in his face and said, “I quit” in righteous indignation, but honestly, I ate myself out of a job. With baguettes and pastries and creamy sauces, I gained 20 pounds in three months and had almost outgrown my Liberties by the time I left Paris.
The other day, I Googled the old agency and Claude Haddad’s name and was horrified to find article after article, reporting what had really been going on behind the glamorous curtain. It chilled me to think of how close I’d been to that sexual predator. 60 Minutes reported that he not just harassed, but molested hundreds of young women, some of them 14 and 15 years old. “The ugly business of beautiful girls.”
I felt weird and weightless, like I was looking at a 30-year-old picture of myself swimming in the warm ocean and only now noticing the shadow of the great white shark that swam beneath my feet. I thought about how young and silly and susceptible to flattery I had been, and how I could have easily been a victim.
I think about the rest of the girls. The ones that were drugged and molested and shamed. And I carry a little of that shame with me. If I had been braver and stood up to Claude, could I have saved any of them? They’re mothers now. And grandmothers.
My hope for them is that they can move out of the darkness of their past and teach their children to value themselves, to beware of charming strangers and not trade innocence for celebrity and fame.