La La Land Pipe Dreams Prove Costly
These moms are madder than supermodels waiting in a snowstorm for a late limo. They took their beautiful children to La La Land with visions of getting them into the glitzy world of modeling only to be gouged by a silver-tongued Italian countess with a Beverly Hills address.
“People down there are awful,” says Deer Park’s Leslie Love of her costly five-week adventure in L.A. “It’s a terrible place.”
Love and her 18-year-old son, Nick, recently returned from an unhappy experience with Glamour Models, a firm on South Beverly Drive that purports to recruit fresh new faces for the modeling industry.
The Loves and the others were put in touch with Glamour through Brenda Lee, who operates Barbizon modeling franchises in Spokane and Boise.
Gullible parents swallowed the hype about how a so-called “classy” Beverly Hills outfit would help their marvelous kids make important contacts and groom them for possible exciting careers under the klieg lights.
Yet all these people have to show for their time and money, they say, is a portfolio of photographs that nicked them for $1,400 to $2,000 - plus a lot of broken dreams.
According to industry experts, the going rate for a first-rate portfolio is $300 to $400.
“We were down there five weeks and got one photo shoot,” says Wanda, who requested anonymity so as not to embarrass her 14-year-old daughter. “We were taken through the wringer and led down the path.”
Francesca de’Tolomei, president of Glamour Models, says the gripers got exactly what they bargained for. No more. No less.
“I cannot in a month or five weeks guarantee to make you a star,” she says in a thick Italian accent. “I’m willing to take the rap when I make a mistake, but I did nothing wrong.”
De’Tolomei, who claims extensive background in the modeling biz as well as her countess status, says she is proud of her portfolios.
“If they felt it was too much, why are they paying it?” she says. “… Nobody forced them, nobody whipped them or shot them.”
A camera crew for the tabloid TV news show “Hard Copy” was in Spokane last week digging into this modeling mayhem. Their segment is scheduled to air tonight (11 on KAYU-28).
As well as being charged scurrilous prices for the photo sessions and prints, the parents paid through the flared nostrils for housing arranged by Glamour.
Love, for example, says she paid $1,850 for a studio apartment for five weeks.
She later heard she could have got the lodging for less than half of that.
Total expenses ran about $5,000 to $6,000 for three moms interviewed for this story. The disappointing results have devastated some of the kids who missed school time to make the trip.
Brenda Lee, who originally boosted Glamour, now claims to be furious about its through-the-roof pricing and lack of results.
“I was told they were going to promote our people through the agency,” she says, adding that she sent a letter warning dozens of her students to not have anything further to do with the company.
Yet for all the outrage being expressed, it remains to be seen whether de’Tolomei did anything actually illegal.
This may be a case of a cagey capitalist cashing in on the naivete some very well-intentioned suckers.
Outfits like Glamour “sell pipe dreams,” says Walt Cromeenes, co-owner of Spokane’s Drezden International Modeling Agency.
“They know that 98 percent of the girls who open their wallets and buy into this have absolutely no chance of making it as models.”
Take note any of you would-be Elle MacPhersons or Fabios: The modeling height minimum is 5 feet 9 inches for women and 6 feet for men.
“You can look like Adonis, be the best-looking guy in the world,” Cromeenes adds, “but if you’re short you better forget modeling and try to become a TV talk show host.”
, DataTimes