Eileen Ford, co-founder of Ford Models, has died at 92 years of age. She was hospitalized days earlier for a fall she suffered in her New York apartment.
Eileen and her husband Jerry co-founded Ford Models in 1946. With Jerry handling day-to-day business operations and Eileen managing the talent, they developed the modeling industry from a part-time, low-paid pastime into one of the world’s most glamorous and highly paid careers. Eileen was noted as a mother figure for her models. She expected a great deal out of them, but was very protective of them and wouldn’t hesitate to hurt feelings to maintain her standards of beauty and professionalism.
The Ford Model agency introduced several young ladies that made a serious impact in the modeling industry; among them are Jean Shrimpton, Lauren Hutton, Brook Shields, Christy Turlington, Naomi Campbell and Rachel Hunter.
Eileen was born in Long Island in 1922, and grew up with three brothers. After she graduated from Barnard College in 1944, she met Jerry Ford, a football player at Notre Dame. They were married three months later.
After briefly modeling herself, Eileen started handling modeling bookings for two of her friends. Two years later, Eileen and her husband piloted an expanding business that would permanently change the modeling landscape.
In an interview with People, she shared some of her ideas about beauty:
I feel that my ideas of beauty have been given very strong backing by Botticelli and a few others. Slender hands, long neck, long limbs – look at Nefertiti. She was very teensy-weensy with a long neck and wide-spaced eyes.
Ford Models reached $40M annually by the 1990’s. Eileen and Jerry’s daughter, Katie, took over as CEO in 1995. The agency was sold in 2007. Jerry died in 2008. He and Eileen were married for more than 60 years.