Twiggy (1946—)

British "Mod" fashion model, actress, and pop icon of the late 1960s. Born Lesley Hornby in 1946; married second husband Leigh Lawson (a director), in 1988; children: (first marriage) daughter Carly.

In 1967, 21-year-old Lesley Hornby began modeling in Britain under the name Twiggy and became an icon for a fashion known as "Mod." Like Kate Moss of the 1990s, the aptly named Twiggy was razor thin, with large mascara-enhanced doe-like eyes. The ubiquitous model posed often for Richard Avedon and was seen on magazine cover after cover. With such face and name recognition, in 1971 she starred in Ken Russell's film of the Broadway musical hit The Boyfriend, a stage show that had given Julie Andrews her American start. Pauline Kael noted that Twiggy sang admirably and danced even better, but under Russell's direction remained an "appealing blank." Retiring from modeling in the mid-1970s, Twiggy reappeared on the Broadway stage in 1983 as a star of the musical My One and Only, opposite dancer-director Tommy Tune. She subsequently co-starred with Shirley MacLaine in the film Madame Sousatzka

(1988) about which Kael was more enthusiastic, noting her "appealingly understated performance." Twiggy continues to appear in cameos for television and film. Her other movies include: There Goes the Bride (1980); The Doctor and the Devils (1985); Club Paradise (1986); "The Little Match Girl" (made for television, 1987); "The Diamond Trap" (made for television, 1988); Young Charlie Chaplin (1988); and Istanbul (1989). In 1999, she appeared off-Broadway in the musical If Love Were All.