Background and career
Dame Lesley Lawson (née Hornby; born 19 September 1949), known professionally as Twiggy, is an English model, actress, and singer. Regarded as a British cultural icon, she rose to fame as a teenage model during London's Swinging Sixties and became one of the first international supermodels. In the following decades, she successfully expanded her career into acting and singing.
As a model Twiggy was known for her thin build and androgynous appearance, her big eyes, long eyelashes, and short hair. She was named "The Face of 1966" by the Daily Express and voted British Woman of the Year; her fame had spread worldwide by 1967, notably modelling in France, Japan, and the United States. She became disillusioned with the industry and temporarily retired in 1970, shifting focus onto her ongoing entertainment career.
Twiggy's first leading role in the musical comedy The Boy Friend (1971) won her two Golden Globes for Best Actress and New Star of the Year. She recorded material across the late 1960s, but it was her self-titled debut album (1976) that yielded chart success, peaking at number 33 on the UK Albums Chart. Three of her singles entered the UK Singles Chart, including her cover of "Rings". She made her Broadway debut in the musical My One and Only (1983), for which she received a Tony nomination for Best Actress in a Musical.
Twiggy worked on several autobiographies and exhibits, including Twiggy in Black and White (1998), which entered the best-seller lists. She served as a judge on the reality show America's Next Top Model (2005–2007) and concurrently returned to modelling, working for Marks and Spencer and attributing to the company's successful revival.
Lesley Hornby was born on 19 September 1949 and raised in Neasden (originally in Middlesex, now a suburb of north-west London). She was the third daughter of Nellie Lydia (née Reeman), a factory worker for a printing firm, and William Norman Hornby, a carpenter and joiner from Lancashire. Their first daughter, Shirley, had been born 15 years earlier; their second, Vivien, had been born 7 years earlier. According to Twiggy, her maternal grandfather was Jewish. However, her mother's genealogy, which was examined on the series Who Do You Think You Are? in 2014, does not contain Jewish ancestry.
How Twiggy makes money
Twiggy was soon seen in all the leading fashion magazines, commanding fees of £80 an hour, bringing out her own line of clothes called "Twiggy Dresses" in 1967, and taking the fashion world by storm.
