The Face of Her Generation

In 1978, Cherry Marshall published a sixties inspired book, The Cat-Walk, accounting her work as a modelling agent during this time. One of Cherry's biggest clients was none other than our adorable Pattie Boyd, whom she discovered in 1962, and would represent until '66. In her book, she talks about the changing fashions and standards during the sixties, as well as how things came to be with her latest discovery, Miss Pattie Boyd...

"I found it hard to recognize that models didn't want to be well groomed any more, or elegant, and that they had a right to push away the old standards. I know they aimed to look marvellous without trying, to be uniquely themselves with the minimum of effort, and I was a sufficiently good agent to know that the girl who could personify all this was the next top model. I wanted to find a girl who was the product of her generation, not someone a bit older who'd changed course in mid-stream, and I was lucky enough to have her turn up on my doorstep. Her name was Pattie Boyd; she was clean, fresh and bubbly, and we all loved her."

"She was living in Wimbledon with her mother and five brothers and sisters, and had not long ago left her convent school in Hertforshire. She'd been spotted training to be a beauty consultant at four pounds fifty a week, and the photographer who took pictures of her sent her round to me. She was shy until she started talking, and then she bubbled over with enthusiasm as she spoke of her ambition to be a model. `I know I'm a bit plump,' she giggled, `but I can't stop eating sweets.' When she was little her biggest dream was to own a sweet shop, and, although she had loved looking at pictures of models in the magazines, it didn't seem remotely possible she could ever be one."

"`Pattie, from now on you cut out all sweets,' I said, `and I want you to report on Monday at the school for training.' I wanted her rebellious hair groomed into a straight gleaming bob, and she had to be taught how to apply photographic make-up. Nothing else should be changed. The name was right, the look was right, and it would have been crazy to do anything to subdue her sparkling personality. She had an impish quality that sprung at you from her photographs, and I knew I had a winner. Everyone in the office agreed with me and they immediately swung into action. New pictures were taken, photographers and magazines informed, casting agents bombarded, press alerted. Here, we told them with absolute confidence, was the girl for the swinging sixties."

"We were too experienced to expect things to happen over-night, but we were impatient because Pattie was already seventeen and that wasn't the youngest any more. All we needed was to get one top photographer mad about her and she was made, but few of them would risk using an absolutely new girl on a job. They'd take test shots to find out what she was like and give her pictures for her portfolio, but no money. It was invaluable experience, but Pattie had to earn her living and we didn't have much time. I rang Norman Parkinson, the king of them all, and asked if he'd see her. A model had to be really good before he could be approached, particularly as he was not impressed by an agent's idea of who was photogenic. We knew that superficially Pattie had certain drawbacks. She was un-modelly in the accepted sense, her face was too round and she had a gap in her front teeth. But she had a quality that we were always being asked for - a young exuberance and lack of self consciousness that illuminated all her pictures. She was in her element in front of the camera with a spontaneity that was rare. We waited eagerly for `Park's' reaction."

"She came back to us in tears, eyes swimming with disappointment, all set to give up. She finally blurted out, `He asked me if it's fashionable these days to look like a rabbit.' He was bang on target. Every model knows her weak point, and every photographer does too. It's the easiest thing in the world to make her collapse like a matchstick building. We crowded round her, maternal instincts to the fore. It wasn't often we felt so warmly towards a girl, but Pattie was different and we'd do anything for her. It was the younger photographers who took to her with her mischievous smile and ability to adapt to their moods. With her coltish quality, beautiful legs and hands, she was the new comtemporary girl, and she looked fantastic in all the way-out clothes of her generation. She personified the way the young lived - with mopeds, twisting, bowling, coffee bars and jazz parties - and designers like Quant, Biba and Tuffin and Foale made clothes exactly right for her way of life. She was only five feet six in her stockinged feet - closer to the average girl than models had ever been."

"Within three months her diary began to fill up and she was in constant demand. Her first TV commercial made an enormous impact, and as the Smith's Crisps girl with her enchanting lisp* she became the darling of the viewers. (*Note: Pattie doesn't really speak with a lisp, she just assumed one for her role as the Smith's Crisps girl.) I sent her pictures to Paris, and the French were also captivated by her, featuring her in Elle magazine as the typical French teenage miss. The year after Jean Shrimpton* had been voted top model by national press Pattie replaced her, and she was hailed by the press as the face of her generation. (*Note: Jean Shrimpton was voted model of the year in 1963). Pattie remained sweet and unspoilt even when she became famous all over the world and requests poured in for her pictures and autograph. We were as thrilled as she was when she landed the part of the schoolgirl in the Beatles film, A Hard Day's Night. She was an ardent Beatles fan, and the chance of working with them was beyond her craziest dreams. Dick Lester had spotted her when he was directing the Smith's Crisps commercial, and he had grabbed her at once."

"`Can you dance?' he asked. `I'm looking for a couple of girls to play Beatles fans in my new film.' She was beside herself with excitement but didn't think she stood a chance when there were so many young actresses around. But there was no doubt in my mind that she'd be perfect. She'd done so many magazine and newspaper photographs wearing Beatle wigs, Beatle jackets, clothes the Beatles would like and so on, that she was ready-made for it. When I phoned to ask her - in my coolest voice! - if she'd like a week's filming with the Beatles, I thought she'd faint with shock. The day before filming started she had to attend a press conference where she was photographed and quizzed as if she was all ready a star. The next day the papers were full of her and her fame had begun."

"She would often pop into the office to tell us what they were like, and we soon spotted that she was struck on George Harrison, and he with her. But she liked all the boys and said they were very friendly right from the start, laughing and joking with her until she felt at ease. We wanted to hear everything there was to know about them because we were fans too, and I particularly was interested in John. `He's the leader,' she told us, `and he's thoughtful and serious. He's even writing a book. He doesn't talk half as much as the others, but when he does everyone shuts up.' `What about Paul?' asked Mariette. `Oh, you'd like him!' Pattie exclaimed enthusiastically. `He's very serious too, and likes everything done properly, especially where the fans are concerned. He likes to do the right thing by them. But Ringo's the really funny one. He has everybody rolling and doesn't care what he does or says, but I think he's very strong minded for all that.'

"`Well, he's very nice,' she said rather shyly, `and I think he's the best looking. We get on well together because he's a bit shy like me. Do you know, he's just got a silver "E"-type Jag, and I told him I was going to have a silver Mini one day. We talked about cars an awful lot.' One day he called in to the office to collect her, and he really did seem as shy and unpretentious as she was. I asked him, as a favour, if he'd just look in at the model school where about a dozen girls were finishing a course. He hesitated for a moment, then grinned and went in. As he fooled about on the platform we could hear the shrieks of the girls who simply couldn't believe their eyes. It was at the height of Beatlemania when girls - and some of their mothers - became hysterical at the sight of them, and they were incapable of doing another thing after he'd gone."

"I was rather afraid Pattie might want to push ahead with a film career, but she was more interested in George than anything else, and she kept on with her modelling even after she married him. Her two younger sisters also came on to the agency, and they all looked extraordinarily alike, but they didn't have her star quality. Jenny had been a house model with Mary Quant and wanted to try freelancing, and Paula, the youngest, also had ambitions but neither of them had that much success. There could only ever be one Pattie Boyd."