MEET the MODELS

MEET the MODELS
The models featured on Anne Taintor products are real people who posed for
advertisements in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. Since the company started using those vintage
images, we've been lucky enough to hear from some of the models or their relatives. We
call these women the Taintorettes, and their stories encapsulate the lives of women over
the past seven decades and are as appealing and memorable as their faces.
Jane Carlson - Jane Carlson was a 19-year-old student at the Massachusetts College of
Art when someone suggested she try modeling in New York. She thought it would be a
fun and lucrative summer job. Her parents thought otherwise. "I'd been asking my father
to buy me a red convertible," she says. "He said, 'Stay in Boston and I'11 buy you a red
convertible.' I told him, 'I'll go to New York and buy one for myself."'In seemingly no
time, Jane landed on the cover of Life magazirre (the magazine of the day), which
anointed her "the most photogenic model in the United States." Then came a contract
with the Ford Agency and an endless stream of modeling gigs.Now in her 80s (though
looking much younger), Jane splits her time between Connecticut and Florida. She
learned she was a Taintorette when friends started sending her cards with the popular
image. "I think, 'Who is that woman?' she says of her former self. "It's like looking at
someone else." Jane enjoys the great outdoors-to a point. After getting her ideas from
nature (the New England coastline is a favorite subject), she moves inside to paint. "f'm a
studio painter," she says. "I need my radio and my sandwich." In other words, she loves
not camping.
Constance Joannes was 16 years old when she
Constance Joannes Dickman Brescia
had her first meeting with legendary modeling agent John Robert Powers in 1938. Powers
saw potential in the dark-haired girl, but told her to come back when she finished high
school. (Good for him, recognizing that brains shouldn't take a back seat to beauty!)
Connie did just that, leaving her hometown of Woodridge, New Jersey, for New York
*I
City in 1940. went to work right then and there," she says, "and worked continuously,
modeling in print and television until I was in my mid-forties." At 89, Connie is still as
beautiful-and active-as ever. She paints, cooks ("Love to entertain!"), plays bridge
and golf, and keeps up with seven grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren.
Arrived in New York in 1937 at age 17 with no money but plenty of
Susann Shaw
enthusiasm; found work as a secretary; visited the John Robert Powers Modeling Agency
on her wedding day (at the urging of the other secretaries); within weeks, was the
agency's top model; appeared in the 1943 movie "Cover Girl" with Rita Hayworth; left
modeling to become a mother; later became a Master embroiderer; finds far more
satisfaction from her art than from her still exquisite cheekbones; is the face of the all(more)
time Anne Taintor, Inc. customer favorite caption; "I dreamed my whole house was
clean"; Susan passed away on June 1 1,2009. She will be missed.
Lovely and petite (barely 5'2"), worked as a face model in New York
Joan Walsh
before leaving for office work with, amazingly, the Manhattan Project; eventually moved
to California and worked as a bookkeeper at Hollywood studios; became a full-time
mother; her daughter recognized her as the face that inspired the caption: "She could see
no good reason to act her age"; "Anne Taintor is liberating my mother," her daughter
says, adding, "It's wonderful to see Mom glorified like that"; Walsh, sadly, passed away
in 1990; her daughter lives in the Bay Area.
To pay her way through New Jersey College for Women,
Barbara Luff McCraine
modeled for the covers of Vogue, Glamour, Seventeen, and other magazines in the 1940s;
left modeling to become a social worker; retired to take up motherhood full-time; was
delighted to discover she was a Taintorette when her granddaughter came to Christmas
dinner wearing a T-shirt featuring McCraine from her modeling days and the slogan, "I
can't be good all the time"; currently lives in Massachusetts.
Milo Gray
A stylish, beautiful debutante in the 1930s, agreed to allow some of the
photographs-taken ofher at charity balls and other events to be used by advertisers (back
then, debs were celebrities); one advertising layout showed her lounging in a spectacular
evening dress; it generated plenty of fan mail; Anne Taintor, Inc. used that photo, with
the slogan, "He had wasted enough of her precious time"; her grandson, spotting the
image on cocktail napkins in2006, bought out the shop's entire supply, and thdlled his
grandmother by presenting her with the napkins-and the proof of her abiding allure, 70
years later.
Katharine Aldridge
Was working as a secretary when she was "discovered" and
began modeling in New York; moved to Hollywood; became the star of the popular
movie serial "The Perils of Nyoka," about a woman always on the verge of disaster;
married a Texas oil wildcatter; retired to full-time motherhood; passed away in 1995; was
close friends while in New York and Hollywood with another future Taintorette, Georgia
Carroll; their daughters would discover their mothers' new roles as Taintorettes (see
Carroll's bio below).
After modeling in New York, traveled to Hollywood in 1941 and
Georgia Carroll
signed an acting contract with Wamer Brothers; during a USO tour, captured the
attention of bandleader Kay Kyser, whom she soon married; retired from modeling and
acting to rear three children; with her husband (and friends Frank Sinatra and Doris Day)
raised funds to build a hospital in her adopted home state of North Carolina; returned to
college and received her degree at the age of 50; currently lives in North Carolina. She
was discovered to be a Taintorette when the daughter of Katharine Aldridge (above) saw
her image on a file folder with the caption, "An attitude is a terrible thing to waste";
(more)
Aldridge's daughter showed Carroll's daughter; Carroll's daughter, flipping through the
whole set of file folders, realized Aldridge's image, too, was on one of the file folders, a
remarkable, heartwarming coincidence. "Our mothers are together again under the same
piece of cellophane," Carroll's daughter says. Georgia passed away in 2011. The world
was a better place for the ninety years she spent with us.
Sally Nickel Mein
Born on January 30,1916, the first great-grandchild of the
- Henry Miller; grew to be a tall and graceful girl; graduated
California Cattle King,
from
Palo Alto High School in 1933; moved to San Francisco to pursue a career as a
professional model; retired from modeling in 1935 to marry W. W. (Tommy) Mein, Jr;
active in the Woodside Atherton Garden Club, Menlo School Mothers Club, Woodside
School PTA, and many other charitable organizations; raised three sons and one
daughter; had eight grandchildren, and fourteen great-grandchildren, all of whom still
live in the San Francisco Bay Area; enjoyed a life-long grace and social prominence that
made her the perfect subject for a profile in a leading women's magazing. with a picture
from that profile, she made her 2001 debut as a Taintorette. Sally died in 1995...a grand
gal who passed away far too soon.
More about the Taintorettes and their pictures at www.annetaintor.com/models.html. For
more information or to arrange an interview, contact Clare Hertel Communications, at
Clare@ClareHertelCommunications. com; 505 -47 4-67 83 .
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