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‘She is the most important model working today.’ In 1956 Gjon Mili shot a photo story for LIFE, following junior model Ann Klem on a typical working day. The images effectively contrasted Klem’s pale, innocent face with Manhattan's hard planes and hurrying crowds. But in one unexplained frame, there’s an even starker contrast — with the haunted face of Elise Daniels, whose stellar career was ending just as Klem’s was blossoming to life.
Born in Illinois, Daniels spent her youth in privileged Palm Beach. After a brief marriage at 16, she followed her older sister to New York, and whilst there paid a visit to an old f
‘She is the most important model working today.’ In 1956 Gjon Mili shot a photo story for LIFE, following junior model Ann Klem on a typical working day. The images effectively contrasted Klem’s pale, innocent face with Manhattan's hard planes and hurrying crowds. But in one unexplained frame, there’s an even starker contrast — with the haunted face of Elise Daniels, whose stellar career was ending just as Klem’s was blossoming to life.
Born in Illinois, Daniels spent her youth in privileged Palm Beach. After a brief marriage at 16, she followed her older sister to New York, and whilst there paid a visit to an old family friend. That friend turned out to be John Robert Powers, who started her on a run of striking success. But there was success — and then there was Dick Avedon.
The same age as Daniels, Avedon had begun to study with Brodovitch in 1944. Two years later, he opened his own studio, and soon became Bazaar’s brightest star, thanks to images that were startling in their graphic physicality. But in the Forties, he began a photographic love affair with Paris, and with a series of tall, dark-haired women; Ronny Compton, Barbara Mullen, Dovima — and Daniels. The pictures they created blended his flair for atmosphere and her nuanced poise. In 1950, he declared her the most important model he’d worked with; ‘Elise' s natural sense of movement, sense of elegance, sense of line, sense of a photograph, was directly responsible for the most recent change in my fashion pictures.’ By the time Mili photographed her, Daniels was ending a second marriage; there would be a third, and a fourth. Her money ran out, and her beautiful homes had to be sold. She spent her last years on the move, running towards fresh starts (or away from messy endings). Her last home was a council estate north of London; when her sister visited, she found a gorgeous flowerbed outside Daniels' home — the only patch of colour on the estate. “That was Elise,” she sighed. “this delicate, exquisite creature, who created beauty wherever she walked.”
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