The Model Senator: "Excellent hands and a little full of himself?"
Photogs recall Scott Brown’s ease in front of camera
‘He was drop-dead gorgeous’
By Jill Radsken
Boston Herald Fashion Reporter
‘He was drop-dead gorgeous’
By Jill Radsken
Boston Herald Fashion Reporter
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
The regular-guy image that helped propel Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate was cultivated from his roots as a ruggedly handsome male model years ago.
The buff, 50-year-old GOP rising star spent more than a decade in front of the cameras for Boston’s top fashion and commercial photographers.
“He was drop-dead gorgeous,” said Maggie Trichon, owner of Maggie Inc., which represented Brown during the 1980s. “A lot of people can be great-looking and freeze. Scott just came to life in front of the camera.”
“I definitely booked him,” added photographer Carolyn Ross. “He had a good look for a lot we were doing. He wasn’t too pretty-boy and wasn’t too gruff.”
At her Newbury Street office, Trichon pulled out old portfolio photos of Brown.
Along with test shots - Brown posing with a wrench in front of an industrial wheel, or flashing a come-hither stare - are clothing measurements for the 6-foot-1-inch high school hoops star. Suit: 40 R/L. Waist: 32. Inseam: 34.
Also noted: “Excellent hands.”
“He did a lot of hand work,” said Trichon, praising his “straight fingers, perfect nails” and ability to “hold things correctly.”
Ross photographed Brown for Jordan Marsh and Work Guard, a workwear company. “He had a good look - dark hair and handsome,” she said.
Ross lost track of Brown, but re-enountered him last year at a charity event. She had won a Boston-themed basket in a silent auction that included a lunch date with then-state Senator Brown. But when her husband called to arrange the get-together, his assistant seemed reluctant to acknowledge Brown’s pin-up past.
“The assistant told me, ‘Scott Brown doesn’t know your wife and never modeled,’ ” Ross’ husband said.
“I was floored. His assistant said, ‘You must be mistaking him for someone else.’ ” But after the 1982 nude Cosmopolitan centerfold resurfaced during the Senate race, there was no denying the modeling career that helped him pay for law school and introduced him to his wife, WCVB-TV news reporter Gail Huff, who also modeled for Maggie Inc.
“She was always very talented,” said Trichon, who also still has Huff’s old composites. But, Trichon added, “she was more of a commercial model than fashion model.”
Huff’s stints included lingerie shoots for the old Jordan Marsh; she was also in the 1984 MTV hit video for Boston rocker Digney Fignus’ “The Girl With the Curious Hands.”
Most photographers who worked with him recalled Brown as “ordinary” and “nondescript,” but fellow model Jake Tedaldi remembers him as a “a little full of himself.”
“Some people are genuine and others are not,” said Tedaldi, now a veterinarian. “He was not the kind of person who I would want to have my back.”
The buff, 50-year-old GOP rising star spent more than a decade in front of the cameras for Boston’s top fashion and commercial photographers.
“He was drop-dead gorgeous,” said Maggie Trichon, owner of Maggie Inc., which represented Brown during the 1980s. “A lot of people can be great-looking and freeze. Scott just came to life in front of the camera.”
“I definitely booked him,” added photographer Carolyn Ross. “He had a good look for a lot we were doing. He wasn’t too pretty-boy and wasn’t too gruff.”
At her Newbury Street office, Trichon pulled out old portfolio photos of Brown.
Along with test shots - Brown posing with a wrench in front of an industrial wheel, or flashing a come-hither stare - are clothing measurements for the 6-foot-1-inch high school hoops star. Suit: 40 R/L. Waist: 32. Inseam: 34.
Also noted: “Excellent hands.”
“He did a lot of hand work,” said Trichon, praising his “straight fingers, perfect nails” and ability to “hold things correctly.”
Ross photographed Brown for Jordan Marsh and Work Guard, a workwear company. “He had a good look - dark hair and handsome,” she said.
Ross lost track of Brown, but re-enountered him last year at a charity event. She had won a Boston-themed basket in a silent auction that included a lunch date with then-state Senator Brown. But when her husband called to arrange the get-together, his assistant seemed reluctant to acknowledge Brown’s pin-up past.
“The assistant told me, ‘Scott Brown doesn’t know your wife and never modeled,’ ” Ross’ husband said.
“I was floored. His assistant said, ‘You must be mistaking him for someone else.’ ” But after the 1982 nude Cosmopolitan centerfold resurfaced during the Senate race, there was no denying the modeling career that helped him pay for law school and introduced him to his wife, WCVB-TV news reporter Gail Huff, who also modeled for Maggie Inc.
“She was always very talented,” said Trichon, who also still has Huff’s old composites. But, Trichon added, “she was more of a commercial model than fashion model.”
Huff’s stints included lingerie shoots for the old Jordan Marsh; she was also in the 1984 MTV hit video for Boston rocker Digney Fignus’ “The Girl With the Curious Hands.”
Most photographers who worked with him recalled Brown as “ordinary” and “nondescript,” but fellow model Jake Tedaldi remembers him as a “a little full of himself.”
“Some people are genuine and others are not,” said Tedaldi, now a veterinarian. “He was not the kind of person who I would want to have my back.”
Tedaldi recalled several catalog shoots he did with Brown in Boston’s Leather District. He also remembers getting a lift from Brown, who in those days was driving a beat-up white Mercedes sedan, not a macho pickup truck.
Modeling, it seems, runs in the Brown family. Trichon now represents Brown’s younger daughter, Ariana, who works when she’s home from college.
posted by Clare L. Pieuk at 1:29 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home