Grace was also fighting for a self-made place in the world. Unlike Carolyn, Grace came from money—her father was a millionaire—but that wouldn’t help her if she failed in New York; she’d still have no place to go but back home. Each night, after her classes at the Academy were over, Grace practiced her vocal exercises standing in front of a mirror in her room, a clothespin on her nose. Her instructors at the Academy had told her that her voice was too high and nasal and “improperly placed.” She kept a wire recorder in her room and listened to herself so that she might improve her diction, working to perfect a tone that was lower, with an accent that fell somewhere mid-Atlantic. They were such hard workers, the two of them, building their lives up from scratch in those next-door rooms on the ninth floor.
* * *
THE NEXT TIME Carolyn appeared in a magazine, it was in an advertisement for silverware. This time, she wore a canary-yellow dress, with puffed sleeves and a black ribbon at her waist.
Carolyn learned to model on the job, listening to the photographer’s direction and observing the other, more experienced girls. For some shoots, clothing was provided, but for others you had to bring your own outfits; you were told in advance whether to come dressed for the street or in afternoon dresses or evening gowns. The other models carried around black bandboxes with a leather strap attached where you could store an extra change of clothes and accessories, so Carolyn started carrying a bandbox, too. Instinctively, she understood how to dress a look up or down, adding a jacket, a hat, or an apron, or changing shoes. The photographers appreciated her ability to style herself, delivering exactly whatever the job required.
Carolyn kept booking jobs, and the more jobs she booked, the more photographs she had to circulate to prospective clients, which meant more assignments. Each new appointment was scrawled on the callboard marked CAROLYN SCHAFFNER in the Conover offices. After only three months in New York, Carolyn had appeared in Glamour, Junior Bazaar, Seventeen, Mademoiselle, and Charm. By now, she was making more than enough money to cover her expenses, but even so, she worried about paying her weekly bill at the Barbizon. The reality was that Conover was slow to pay. He had hundreds of models on his books and seemed to barely know their names, let alone how much he owed them. Two months after Carolyn started work for him, she was still waiting for Conover to cut her a check.
Carolyn wasn’t the only model unhappy with Conover’s failure to pay. Many of the girls were talking about a new agency started the year before by the model Natálie Nickerson and her friend Eileen Ford. Natálie was one of the most successful and highly paid models in New York. Blond and towering at five feet ten, she’d initially been with John Robert Powers—another well-established New York modeling agency—but had left in protest after Powers repeatedly failed to pay her on time. Natálie had heard about models in California who were taking matters into their own hands, asking clients to pay them directly. So she set up her own shop with Eileen, a former model booker. Together, the two women had instituted a new payment method. At the end of each job, the model gave an invoice to the photographer, and then the photographer paid the girl directly. After that, the model paid the agency its 10 percent fee. Instead of waiting months to be paid, the model got her money right away.
Natálie had heard about Carolyn’s success as a junior model and suggested to Eileen that they approach her about joining their fledgling agency. And so, one morning in the new year, Carolyn found herself walking across to Eileen’s offices on Second Avenue in the Fifties. Arriving at the dilapidated old brownstone sandwiched between a funeral parlor and a cigar store, Carolyn had to check to make sure she had the correct address. After she confirmed she was in the right place, she rang the bell and went inside, climbing the darkened stairs, then knocking on a red-painted door on the third floor. A voice called out to her to come in, and Carolyn peered around the door, looking for a receptionist’s desk or banks of secretaries. Instead, a tiny woman with a shock of curly brown hair sat in a small room at a folding card table, in front of six black telephones, one of the receivers tucked under her chin.
This was Eileen.
Carolyn sat on the office’s old red sofa while Eileen explained, rapid-fire, how the agency worked. While Natálie was the “face” of the agency, bringing new girls into the fold, Eileen handled the business side, fielding the phone calls, negotiating with the clients, and taking the photographers to task when they failed to pay or made unwanted approaches to her girls. Like Natálie, Eileen was in her early twenties, not much older than many of the young women she represented. She understood the models on her books, knew what they needed from her. At most agencies, models were responsible for every aspect of the job—all the footwork, selling yourself, figuring out where you had to be and when, bringing the right clothing and makeup to the shoot. There was no training, no instruction, and very little support. The girls worked hard for the agency, but the agency gave very little in return. Natálie and Eileen felt that these male agents had gotten things upside down: the agent should work for the model, not the other
