Model Striving to Legitimize Her Occupation
When she ran for model’s representative in the Washington, D.C., area in 1985, Selena Parker’s campaign speech began with the words:
“Look at those legs! Those teeth! That behind!”
These words, she says, are heard frequently by a model as prospective clients and photographers prowl around her, summing up her assets.
“You’d think they were talking about a horse! Not a human being who is listening,” Parker, 35, said. “And if they start muttering that they think she’s too short, or her face is too fat, or she should get her moles fixed, or whatever, it can be really demeaning.”
An actress, model and lecturer, Parker was speaking in her home. The cheerful clutter of life with an aerospace engineer husband and two daughters, age 2 and 11, surrounded her. Photographs from her 15-year career dotted the walls.
“Varied” is the word that springs to mind when describing that career.
She has acted in the soap opera “Days of Our Lives.” She has wandered through Baltimore with a Dustin Hoffman look-alike for a commercial portraying the romance of that city. She has been a model for Ferrari, for Porsche. And she has been the movie photo double for Jaclyn Smith, Margot Kidder and Karen Valentine, all of whom she manages to resemble.
“I’ve been described by photographers as the model with many faces,” she said, moving her toddler’s Raggedy Ann doll so she can curl up--very gracefully--on the sofa.
“Modeling has been very good to me,” she said. “But there are abuses in the industry. Models can be taken advantage of physically, financially and mentally unless they are very careful only to work with ethical people. I feel strongly that somebody has to speak out.”
Parker has been speaking out. She has spoken on television as the representative for the Screen Actor’s Guild. She has spoken at high schools, colleges, career awareness programs, and as the Western states liaison for the World Modeling Assn.
On Saturday, she will be speaking up again. As San Diego’s Women’s Opportunities Week opens, she will be celebrity emcee of the “You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby” fashion show at Mira Mesa Mall. (The first model down the ramp will be Parker’s 11-year-old daughter, Samantha Rose, wearing a cavewoman’s bearskin.)
“Women’s Opportunities Week is all about the fact that we have to help each other,” she said. “I want to get the message across to parents that there are a lot of unscrupulous people around. People who exploit naive teen-agers who want to become models.”
Insults and rejection, she said, are not the worst hazards of her craft. The sexual and financial exploitation can be heartbreaking.
In towns all over the United States, girls as young as 13 are being approached by con men posing as talent scouts, agents or photographers, Parker said. Some promise covers on national magazines but ask for money to “cover expenses.” (Usually neither the money nor the talent scout will ever be seen again.)
Some place advertisements, saying that a TV show or commercial is casting on a certain date. Anyone interested should show up at such-and-such a hotel.
“Any woman with common sense wouldn’t go alone to meet strangers in a hotel room,” Parker said. “But it’s easy to be starry-eyed, to forget your common sense, when you’re 15 years old and someone who says he’s a famous photographer tells you can be the next Christie Brinkley.”
But isn’t there a chance that the offer may be genuine? What if you really do have “the look” somebody wants for their product? Don’t ethical photographers approach people in the street? Don’t legitimate companies shoot commercials in hotels?
“Yes, they certainly do,” Parker said. “It’s best to ask for a business card, and then check them out, to see if they really are legitimate, by calling the unions--SAG and AFTRA” (the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists).
On the positive side, she stresses, for those sturdy enough to withstand the insults, the rejections and the hard work needed to stay in top physical shape, modeling offers many rewards.
“You meet exciting people--famous ones, who you’d probably never get the chance to talk to in the course of everyday life,” she said. “You receive lots of free samples. Cosmetics. Clothes. If you have children, you can work part of the week and still make it to the PTA. And you learn how to make the absolute best of yourself.”
The myths that models are all merely decorative, vain and stupid, infuriates her.
“I once got a call from someone in a women’s voters group,” she recalled. “When I told her I was a model, she hung up on me!
“Good models, the ones who last more than a year, are anything but dumb. They usually become expert in the skills of photography, business, acting and diplomacy.”
“How do I get into modeling?” is a question she hears often. Other popular ones are “Could I be one?” and “Am I too old?”
“Regarding age, we’ve come a long way, baby, in every respect,” said Parker, who plans to stay after Saturday’s fashion show to answer questions.
“I always thought that, when I hit my 30s, it would be all over. Not so. Now we’re into the age of shows like ‘Dynasty,’ of actresses like Joan Collins and Linda Evans,” she said. “There are more mature women around now who are happier with themselves, and with the way they look.”
Women in the future, she believes, will be even more aware of the fact that there is beauty in every age.
“And models can do a great service to the public by showing this,” she said.
One of Parker’s own troupe of models is a 43-year-old woman who is a former Catholic nun. At a recent shoot that Parker arranged for the North County Photographic Society, her models--there are 20 of them, both male and female--ranged in age from 11 to 50.
“I’m actively looking for graceful older women for the troupe,” she said. Called Selena and Co., her group models for fashion shows in the San Diego and Los Angeles areas. “I’d be delighted to find a model who is in her 60s or 70s.”
Her own start in modeling was not exactly something she planned. Fifteen years ago, she was a college student, an art major at the University of Maryland.
“I was on staff at the campus paper, drawing cartoons and ads,” she recalled. “One day a T-shirt manufacturer came in to place an advertisement.”
The manufacturer took one look at Parker and decided that a photograph of her wearing one of his T-shirts would be far more attractive than anything she might draw.
“He came back with a photographer. Next day I was astonished to see the ad in the Washington Post!”
She was paid $10.
“But from then on, I started really modeling. My fees rose,” she said, laughing.
For the 15 years of her modeling career, Parker has been married to Alan Plotkin, chairman of the aerospace engineering department at San Diego State University. They moved to San Diego County from Washington last November.
“More than half the models here are married,” she said. “The free-lance nature of the job is one reason. And, personally, I’ve found that a family provides balance. It’s so good, after a day spent feeling like a prop--an object in some cases--to come home to a husband who really loves you.”
Parker was recently elected to the AFTRA Executive Board and appointed co-chair of the San Diego SAG-AFTRA Conservatory.
“Our goal is to promote high standards in the craft, and to bring more acting and modeling jobs to San Diego,” she said. “It’s really distressing that a show like ‘Simon and Simon,’ shot here, was cast entirely in Los Angeles.”
Currently, Parker says, she has to commute to Los Angeles for most of her work in commercials and print (photographic) modeling. But she has hopes that this will change.
“The SAG-AFTRA Conservatory is going to be inviting directors and producers out of Los Angeles to come down here and see what we can do,” she said. “There are a lot of talented people here in San Diego. We’re serious about our craft.”
Doesn’t combining a family, and a career, and shepherding a troupe, and sitting on the board of SAG-AFTRA, and writing the union newsletter, plus a monthly column for Casting Call, get somewhat hectic?
Parker dissolved into laughter again.
“Hectic? Oh, yes! Every minute has to be organized,” she said, leaning forward. Her dark hair was tumbled. Her waist minute. She looks like Jaclyn Smith, (or Margot Kidder, or Karen Valentine) playing Scarlett O’Hara on a Rancho Bernardo sofa.
“After one of my talks, I got a letter from a psychiatrist who practices in San Diego,” she said, sounding suddenly serious again. “A woman psychiatrist. She told me that she’s currently treating five cases of girls who have been traumatized because of abuses they suffered in the modeling industry. Unethical people are causing destruction through the whole profession.
“But this is my craft, and I love it. I would like my daughters to be proud that their mother is a model.”
