Nancy Donahue is an American fashion model

Model (person)

A model , sometimes called a mannequin, is a person who is employed to display, advertise and promote commercial products or to serve as a subject of works of art....

 and actress.

Early life

The daughter of a noted lawyer and a philanthropist mother, Donahue grew up in Lowell

Lowell, Massachusetts

Lowell is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, USA. According to the 2010 census, the city's population was 106,519. It is the fourth largest city in the state. Lowell and Cambridge are the county seats of Middlesex County...

, Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

, as one of eleven children. While attending Lasell College

Lasell College

Lasell College is a private, non-sectarian, coeducational college located in the Newton, Massachusetts village of Auburndale. Lasell offers both undergraduate and graduate degrees in the liberal arts and professional fields of study.-History:...

 in Auburndale

Auburndale, Massachusetts

Auburndale is one of the 13 villages of Newton, Massachusetts. It lies at the western end of Newton near the intersection of interstate highways 90 and 95, and is bisected by the Massachusetts Turnpike. Auburndale is surrounded by three other Newton villages as well as the city of Waltham and the...

, Massachusetts, she was discovered by Mademoiselle

Mademoiselle (magazine)

Mademoiselle was an influential women's magazine first published in 1935 by Street and Smith and later acquired by Condé Nast Publications....

 magazine after winning a modeling

Model (person)

A model , sometimes called a mannequin, is a person who is employed to display, advertise and promote commercial products or to serve as a subject of works of art....

 competition. She appeared in the August 1978 edition and went on to feature on the cover of 10 more issues of the magazine. Donahue signed up with the upstart modeling agency, Elite

Elite Model Management

Elite Model Management is a large modeling agency based in New York and Paris. It is a subsidiary of Elite World S.A.-History:Founded in France in 1972 by John Casablancas and Alain Kittler, it was rebought in 1990 by Nicholas Farrae. Elite World S.A. is the parent company of Elite Model...

, and moved to New York City at the age of eighteen.

Career

Donahue worked alongside some of the top international models of the 1980s, including Kim Alexis

Kim Alexis

Kim Alexis is an American model and actress.- Career :Alexis was one of the top models of the 1980s, identified along with Gia Carangi, Carol Alt, Christie Brinkley, Kelly Emberg, Iman, and Paulina Porizkova...

, Carol Alt

Carol Alt

Carol Ann Alt is an American model and actress.- Early life:Alt was born in Flushing, Queens, New York, the daughter of Muriel, an airline employee and model, and Anthony Alt, a fire chief. She was noticed waiting tables in her hometown of East Williston, New York. When she was 18, she decided to...

, Gia Carangi

Gia Carangi

Gia Marie Carangi was an American fashion model during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Carangi is considered by some to be the first supermodel, although that title has been given to others, including Janice Dickinson, Dorian Leigh, and Jean Shrimpton...

, Janice Dickinson

Janice Dickinson

Janice Doreen Dickinson is an American actress, author, fashion photographer, model and talent agent.Initially notable as a model, she has described herself as the first supermodel. One of the most successful models throughout the 1970s and 1980s, she expanded her profession to reality television...

 and Paulina Poriskova. Donahue's face was on the cover and the inside fashion editorial of countless fashion magazines including American Vogue

Vogue (magazine)

Vogue is a fashion and lifestyle magazine that is published monthly in 18 national and one regional edition by Condé Nast.-History:In 1892 Arthur Turnure founded Vogue as a weekly publication in the United States. When he died in 1909, Condé Montrose Nast picked up the magazine and slowly began...

, French Vogue

Vogue Paris

The French edition of Vogue magazine, Vogue Paris, is a fashion magazine that has been published since 1920.-1920–1954:The French edition of Vogue was first issued on June 15, 1920. More information about French Vogue in the 1920s is available in Mary E. Davis's book Classic Chic: Music, Fashion,...

, Vogue Italia

Vogue Italia

Vogue Italia is the Italian edition of Vogue magazine. Owned by Condé Nast International, it is the least commercial of all editions of Vogue magazine and has been called the top fashion magazine in the world....

, British Vogue

Vogue (British magazine)

The British edition of Vogue is a fashion magazine that has been published since 1916.When British Vogue was launched, it was the first overseas edition of an existing fashion magazine. Under the magazine's first editor, Elspeth Champcommunal, the magazine was essentially the same as the American...

, Italian Bazaar, Mademoiselle, Self

Self (magazine)

Self magazine is an American magazine for women that specializes in health, fitness, nutrition, beauty and happiness. Published by Condé Nast Publications 12 times a year, it has a circulation of 1,486,992 and a total audience of 5,541,000 readers, according to its corporate media kit. The...

, Redbook

Redbook

Redbook is an American women's magazine published by the Hearst Corporation. It is one of the "Seven Sisters", a group of women's service magazines.-History:...

, Glamour

Glamour (magazine)

Glamour is a women's magazine published by Condé Nast Publications. Founded in 1939 in the United States, it was originally called Glamour of Hollywood....

and the New York Times and, more recently, More!

More!

More! is a weekly women's fashion magazine and associated website published every Tuesday in the United Kingdom by Bauer London Lifestyle. It includes celebrity news, high street fashion, and sex tips...

magazine. Donahue was the face for Helena Rubenstein's beauty campaign in the UK and Virginia Slims

Virginia Slims

Virginia Slims is a brand of cigarette manufactured by Altria Group . The brand was introduced in 1968 and marketed to young professional women using the slogan "You've come a long way, baby." Some media watch groups considered this campaign to be responsible for a rapid increase in smoking among...

 in the USA.

Donahue often did the Paris collections for American Vogue along with Gia Carangi, Joan Severance

Joan Severance

-Early life:Severance was born in Houston, Texas to John and Martha Severance. Her father was an IBM Systems Manager that had to move frequently around the world. According to Severance "by the time I was 11, we'd lived in 12 different places". Severance and her family also lived in Libya, but in...

 and Kelly LeBrock

Kelly LeBrock

Kelly LeBrock is an American actress and model. Her acting debut was in The Woman in Red co-starring with comedian Gene Wilder. She also starred in the film Weird Science, directed by John Hughes.-Early life:...

. She also did some runway work in her early career for Calvin Klein

Calvin Klein

Calvin Richard Klein is an American fashion designer who launched the company that would later become Calvin Klein Inc. in 1968. In addition to clothing, Klein has also given his name to a range of perfumes, watches, and jewelry....

, Ralph Lauren

Ralph Lauren

Ralph Lauren is an American fashion designer and business executive; best known for his Polo Ralph Lauren clothing brand.-Early life:...

, Donna Karan

Donna Karan

Donna Karan is an American fashion designer and the creator of the Donna Karan New York and DKNY clothing labels.-Early life:...

 and Perry Ellis

Perry Ellis

Perry Ellis was an American fashion designer who founded a sportswear house in the mid-1970s.-The rise of Perry Ellis:...

 in New York and Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

. Donahue also did countless catalogs for Lord and Taylor, Neiman Marcus

Neiman Marcus

Neiman Marcus, formerly Neiman-Marcus, is a luxury specialty retail department store operated by the Neiman Marcus Group in the United States. The company is headquartered in the One Marcus Square building in Downtown Dallas, Texas, and competes with other department stores such as Saks Fifth...

 and Bloomingdale's

Bloomingdale's

Bloomingdale's is an American department store owned by Macy's, Inc. .Bloomingdale's started in 1861 when brothers Joseph and Lyman G. Bloomingdale started selling hoop-skirts in their Ladies Notions' Shop on Manhattan's Lower East Side...

. She has worked with numerous photographers including Francesco Scavullo

Francesco Scavullo

Francesco Scavullo was an American fashion photographer best known for his work on the covers of Cosmopolitan and his celebrity portraits.-Biography:...

, Irving Penn

Irving Penn

Irving Penn was an American photographer known for his portraiture and fashion photography.-Early career:Irving Penn studied under Alexey Brodovitch at the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art from which he was graduated in 1938. Penn's drawings were published by Harper's Bazaar and he...

, Steve Landis, Arthur Elgort

Arthur Elgort

Arthur Elgort in New York) is a fashion photographer, who has become especially known for his work as a Vogue photographer.-Life and career:...

 and Patrick Demarchelier

Patrick Demarchelier

Patrick Demarchelier is a French fashion photographer.-Life:Born near Paris in 1943 to a modest family, he spent his childhood in Le Havre with his mother and four brothers. For his seventeenth birthday, his stepfather bought him his first Eastman Kodak camera...

.

Nancy co-authored ONE on ONE with her former husband, the fashion model, Jeff Aquilon, published by Simon and Schuster, a best-selling book about two people giving to each other physically and emotionally.

Donahue was the Pastry Chef at Bianco's Catering Company in Chelmsford, Massachusetts

Chelmsford, Massachusetts

Chelmsford is a suburban town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts in the Greater Boston area. As of the 2010 United States Census, the town's population was 33,802. The Census Bureau's 2008 population estimate for the town was 34,409, ranking it 14th in population among the 54 municipalities in...

 for the ten years where she won numerous awards for her pastry at different events.

Model mismanagement

Donahue hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons in 1995 when the head of Elite Model Management, John Casablancas, blamed her for recommending David Weil to her as an experienced money manager. Casablancas claimed that the recommendation from Donahue was so good that he never investigated Weil further, nor did he search into the background of his business partner, Peter Bucchieri. The two operated a firm, Star Capital, within Elite's offices and managed many of the model's financial portfolios. They were subsequently accused of mismanaging the funds. On September 21, 1997, Bucchieri, pleaded guilty to conspiring with Weil to sell fictitious Colorado real estate investments to the models. Bucchieri was sentenced to 33 months in prison. It was subsequently discovered that they had transferred many of the model's funds to their own bank accounts and used it to pay personal bills and make purchases, including a new Porsche. Donahue accepted no blame for the incident and claims that she also lost a considerable amount of money to Bucchieri and Weil.

Acting

• Exposed, with Natashia Kinski, 1983
• Portfolio, with Kelly Emberg, Julie Wolfe and Paulina Porizkova, 1983
• The Self-Destruction of Gia
  The Self-Destruction of Gia
  The Self-Destruction of Gia is a 2003 documentary film about model Gia Carangi and her death from drug abuse. It was directed and produced by J.J...
  
  , with Francesco Scavullo, Diane von Fürstenberg, and Janice Dickinson, 2002

Education

• Lasell College
  Lasell College
  Lasell College is a private, non-sectarian, coeducational college located in the Newton, Massachusetts village of Auburndale. Lasell offers both undergraduate and graduate degrees in the liberal arts and professional fields of study.-History:...
  
  , graduated in 1978.
• Newbury College graduated with Chef's degree at the top of her class in 1998.

Fitness qualifications

Donahue is an ACE and NSCA certified Personal Trainer and has 200 hour RYT from Yogafit, and is certified with Physical Mind Institute in Standing and Mat Pilates, as well as certified in Mat Pilates with Yogafit. Donahue is passionate about health and fitness and has been training and teaching for the past six years at various clubs in the area.

Donahue has been a triathlete for the past 16 years and has participated in 100 triathlons, one being the "Escape from Alcatraz" triathlon and "Wildflower Triathlon" in California. In almost all of her events, she placed in top 10 of her age group.
Also, ran one Boston marathon and four New York marathons.

Donahue resides in her hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts, with her third husband, local businessman, Steven Joncas. She has a son, George Eng, from her second marriage. He is a college student in Charleston, South Carolina.

Sources

• New York magazine, Jul 17, 1995 - v. 28, no. 28
• No Lifeguard on Duty: The Accidental Life of the World’s First Supermodel
• New York magazine, July 3, 1989 - v. 22, no. 27
• One on One, by Jeff Aquilon and Nancy Donahue, Simon & Schuster, 1984
• "Model Agent Prides himself on discovering ‘raw talent’", Boca Raton News - July 5, 1983
• "Notes Gathered on the Campaign Trail", Boston Globe, Jan 27, 1980
• "Fashion; Model of success; From magazine spreads in the '80s to dessert spreads in the '90s, Lowell's Nancy Donahue takes the cake", Boston Herald; Oct 20, 1999
• Becoming a Professional Model, by Larry Goldman, Beech Tree Books (New York), 1986
• Vogue USA 1980 Jan: "Nancy Donahue" by John Stember
• "Twenty Years as a Self Girl", Self magazine, May 1999, page 218
• "Modeling mogul: It's big business seeking out the Elite", The Ledger, June 29, 1983
• "The Body Game", People magazine, Jan 11, 1993, v. 39, no. 1
• "Spoiled Supermodels", New York magazine - Mar 16, 1981 - v. 14, no. 11
• "Girl Crazy", New York magazine, Jan 25, 1988 - v. 21, no. 4

External links

• Nancy Donahue's official website