Charlize. Chris Karsten
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wet, as if she had just come out of the water. The caption read: “Lovely Charlize Theron comes from the Benoni district. She is fifteen years old, 1,75 metres tall and her measurements are 84–65–91.”
On Friday evening, 2 August, six days before her sixteenth birthday, Charlize, with no previous modelling experience, was named the winner of the Model ’91 competition during a direct broadcast from Johannesburg. One of her prizes was the chance to take part in the international New Model Today competition in Italy. After she had received her prizes on stage, she asked whether she might say a few words. She thanked everyone with great confidence and charm. Joan Kruger, editor of Rooi Rose at the time, said the audience must have wondered whether Charlize could really be just a standard-eight girl. She made special mention of Charlize’s determination, which was immediately apparent when one spoke to her. She would even stick out her chin slightly, Joan said.
But now this beautiful teenager was on her way to Italy, and there had to be concerns about how vulnerable or strong she would be. And how did her mother feel? To have ambition for one’s daughter is nothing new, but to turn her over to potential predators at such a young age is a different story.
At a hotel in Johannesburg Joan conducted the very first magazine interview ever with Charlize on 3 August 1991, the morning after the crowning. Despite having slept for only fifteen minutes, Charlize arrived as fresh as a spring flower in her chic suit, with Gerda by her side.
As the editor of Rooi Rose, sponsor of the competition, and mother of a teenage daughter herself, Joan felt responsible for the young Charlize. (Her daughter attended ballet classes with Charlize and performed in shows with her.) In 2008 she revealed to me for the first time her serious reservations at the time about the Italian modelling company that was her magazine’s co-sponsor, especially after disturbing reports had been published in the Sunday Times about the pitfalls for young models in Italy.
All the girls were accommodated in apartments in Milan and had to pay their own expenses, so they often ended up deeply in debt and willing to do almost anything for money. Joan said that the South African consul general in Milan had told her personally how a desperate young girl had approached him for help.
During the interview with Charlize, Joan asked her directly: “Bad things are sometimes whispered about the modelling world. Do you think you’re mature enough to handle it?”
Charlize’s confident reply as it appeared in the magazine was not that of a typical fifteen-year-old: “I believe I’ll be able to handle the pressure. Otherwise I would not have entered. I believe in myself. I am positive. The negative things I’ll simply have to deal with. I have a capacity for being happy. My feet are firmly on the ground.”
And Gerda remarked: “After all, Benoni and Milan are just a flight apart.”
Joan remarked that those who knew about the great sadness she was hiding underneath that beautiful smile could only look at her with even greater respect. Gerda’s only comment on the tragedy was a shrug of the shoulders and a laconic: “It happened. We’re both still shaken by it, but we have to look at the future. It’s a baptism of fire for Charlize, but I have faith in my child.”
In August 2008, almost exactly seventeen years after that conversation with the two Theron women, Joan recalled their meeting. She described how she had experienced Charlize as a fifteen-year-old, barely seven weeks after her father’s death, and said that at the time she had had no inkling of how famous the child would one day become. She admitted that she had been worried about Charlize. Awful things had been said about what could await young models in Italy. And more vulnerable than she had been, you could hardly find.
Or so she had thought.
Joan had asked about her father. Charlize and Gerda had looked at each other for a split second, after which Charlize simply replied that her father had died in an accident.
(Their eyes were shiny and mother and daughter looked at each other in perfect understanding, Joan had stated in Rooi Rose at the time.)
Joan said that she had not understood the full significance of that meaningful glance then. Only later did she realise that, far from being defenceless, there was ice in Gerda and Charlize’s veins. After all, everyone at school had believed that she had been a princess in a previous life. Perhaps they had all just been too blind, or too stupid, said Joan, or they had seen only the fifteen-year-old and not the steel inside her.
Charlize had enormous self-discipline and determination, but not one of them had dreamed that she would go so far . . . perhaps as a model, yes, but never as a famous film star.
Even when Charlize went on to win the New Model Today competition in Italy, Joan’s fears were not appeased, though Charlize now had a modelling contract and was out of their hands. She said she later heard that Charlize had acted in an Italian film. But when she saw a portfolio with photos of Charlize in underwear, she was deeply concerned. As a mother herself, it was the last thing she wanted to see. Nowadays models of fourteen or fifteen are a common sight, Joan said, but not in those days. And especially not in a foreign country. She said she often spoke to Charlize’s mother about it, but Gerda said that Charlize was well taken care of. Perhaps she was . . .
Joan said she had agreed at the time to keep the secret of Charles Theron’s shooting and denied that there had been any likelihood of Charlize withdrawing from the competition. She was just too strong, her life carried on.
Later Rooi Rose severed its ties with the Italian modelling sponsor. (An Italian talent scout claimed that he had “discovered” Charlize in 1991.) In 2008, Gianfranco Iobbi was still coming to South Africa in search of young talent, but as far back as 1990, before Charlize was discovered, he had been surrounded by controversy for selecting an eleven-year-old girl from Cape Town to do a modelling course in Italy.
In 1990, Dawn Gardiner, whose daughter Margaret became a successful model and wore the Miss Universe crown, said that Margaret had only left at sixteen. They had been worried, though she was very mature for her age.
According to Lynette Fourie, mother of the successful South African and international top model, Tanya Fourie, such an opportunity is wonderful if a child’s mother can accompany her, but it is not as easy as it may sound. No work is guaranteed and even though a modelling agency might hire her, she still needs to be exposed to clients. She said that in Italy, Tanya had gone from door to door with her portfolio. A young girl must be strong to cope with the realities of modelling, the daily exposure to rejection. The child must have had a stable upbringing and she must have a very special personality.
On 31 August 1993 Iobbi was interviewed by the Johannesburg daily newspaper Beeld and gave guidelines to which young models had to conform if they were to succeed. Being tall or short, having blonde or dark hair, a short or a long nose, were unimportant, he said. What was important is what the industry was looking for at that moment, the right appearance in the right place at the right time.
But what made a model a winner in his opinion?
A successful model was almost like a successful athlete, he maintained. She had to decide whether she wanted to qualify for sprints or long-distance running. She had to have the right physical qualities, and then she had to have the determination to achieve her ideals. And the younger she was, the better her chances.
On 17 May 1994, thirteen-year-old Celesté Fourie of Bloemfontein was chosen as the winner of the New Model Today competition in Johannesburg, and Iobbi commented: “Fresh and innocent young faces with freckles are in. That’s why the current trend is to use younger and younger girls as models. They also have to be tall and slender, with an unspoilt appearance. When I saw Celesté for the first time, I immediately knew: Here is the winner.”
A month later this trend to recruit girls as young as eleven and thirteen as models was discussed by the TV presenter Felicia Mabuza-Suttle on the South African TV programme Top Level. One of the participants was a young girl of Johannesburg, simply known as Tracey, who maintained that she had been raped while modelling in Italy.
Retha Snyman, organiser of the Rooi Rose modelling competition, was also struck by the close bond between Charlize