Peter de Jonge

When New York scenemaker and hotelier Steve Rubell left his fortune to his brotherʼs family, what did they do with it? They steeped up their art collection and developed some hotels of their own.

Although the women on these pages are undeniably beautiful, they have never asked the world to think of them that way. Standing in front of a sweeping gray canvas, they occupy their bodies with an ease and intimacy seen only in people who spend a great deal of their time going flat-out.

They are the beauty world’s hired guns, the genetic-Lotto winners who stare at us with such vacant intensity every time we turn a corner or flip a page. For exclusive access to their lips and cheeks and eyes and hair, a make of lipstick, mascara, and haircolor will gratefully pay more than a million dollars a year.

A woman I’d never spoken to before invited me to smell the Champagne on her slip. Another offered the Cristalle on her neck, while confiding that she’s also been known to anoint the back of her knees.

Like Iman in Somalia and Bianca in Bosnia, Cher has just touched down for a whirlwind misery tour in one of the more hard-pressed pockets of the world, believing that the six pages in People and the 11 minutes on 20/20 it will yield somehow represent a significant contribution toward revealing the hardship.