Suzy Parker

Suzy Parker (born Cecilia Ann Renee Parker; October 28, 1932 – May 3, 2003) was an American model and actress active from 1947 until 1970. Her modeling career reached its zenith during the 1950s, when she appeared on the covers of dozens of magazines and in advertisements and movie and television roles. She appeared in advertisements for Revlon and many other cosmetic companies, including Solo Products, the largest hair care product company in the country at the time. (Models did not have exclusive cosmetic company contracts until Lauren Hutton and Karen Graham in the early 1970s). In 1956, at the height of her modelling career, she became the first model to earn $100,000 per year ($ today). A song that The Beatles wrote for her, though not released on record, appeared in their 1970 documentary film Let It Be, which won the Academy Award for Best Original Score. Early life Suzy Parker was born Cecilia Ann Renee Parker in Long Island City, New York, to George and Elizabeth Parker, who married in 1916. She had three older sisters: Dorian, Florian, and Georgiabell. Elizabeth believed she was undergoing menopause, but then discovered she was several months pregnant with her youngest child, Cecilia ("Suzy"). Suzy's original names came from three of her mother's best friends. A then-teenaged Dorian advised her mother to arrange the names in the order, Cecilia Renee Ann Parker, so the initials of the names would spell the word "crap". Dorian claimed her mother had no idea what it meant. Parker's father George disliked the name Cecilia and called her Susie, a name which Parker would retain throughout her life. A French Vogue photographer later changed the spelling to "Suzy". Parker's family later moved to Highland Park, New Jersey, and then to Florida. Parker was a model with the Walter Thornton agency and later her sister Dorian, herself one of the top models of the era, introduced her to Eileen Ford.