Donyale Luna

[EvaLaDiva]

Doyale by Patrice Habans(1966). Photo Source:scanned by me

Those are gorgeous, OMIFAN9! Thanks for posting them.

 

[sepia]

Wow, the one in the checkered dress is so regal!

 

[iluvjeisa]

she's so perfect

 

[60swildchild]

YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jlk4cK3LG7w

 

[Gaultier_Bandit]

So gorgeous, although I hate how people hold it against her for hiding her race. It was understandable for her times.

 

[scriptgirl]

I don't think it was understandable for her to hide her race. I don't think it is ever "understandable" to do so. What's more, I can't believe people fell for it. It is not like she looked like Jennifer Beals. Claudia Mason, a super of the 90s, also hid her part black ancestry, which I also find abominable.

 

[rubydon]

Donyale Luna - Playboy Magazine, April 1975

the photos were taken by luigi cazzaniga, who fathered her daughter, dream.

(source - donyaleluna.tripod.com)
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]
Donyale Luna[/FONT] [FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]April 1975 [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]"I'm not a model," says Donyale. "I'm an artist. I do modeling and acting as part of my artistry; instead of a paintbrush and canvas, I use film. Most people who model are not artists - just models."[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][/FONT]
[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Donyale Luna[/FONT] [FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]April 1975 [/FONT]
"I have many visions of myself when I go through photographic trips," Donyale has said. "I've gone through periods from Nerfertiti to Josephine Baker."
[/FONT]

 

[iluvjeisa]

I wish I could find more pix of her in my mags. I can't find anything.... Her eyes

 

[rubydon]

I don't think it was understandable for her to hide her race. I don't think it is ever "understandable" to do so. What's more, I can't believe people fell for it. It is not like she looked like Jennifer Beals. Claudia Mason, a super of the 90s, also hid her part black ancestry, which I also find abominable.

in all fairness, i think her situation was a bit different from claudia's.

claudia, i believe, passed herself off as latina, denying her black ancestry completely. donyale claimed she was multiracial, but she never said she didn't have some black ancestry. she couldn't have denied her black blood even if she wanted to, since it was obvious from looking at her that she has some african heritage. this is from her wikipedia entry:

According to Judy Stone, who wrote a profile of Luna for The New York Times in 1968, the model was "secretive, mysterious, contradictory, evasive, mercurial, and insistent upon her multiracial lineage -- exotic, chameleon strands of Mexican, American Indian, Chinese, Irish, and, last but least escapable, Negro."
Media interest in Luna's racial heritage seemed to cause her enormous discomfort and in interviews, she tended bristle when she was described as black or Negro. ("She's white, didn't you know?" a boyfriend told Stone.) When Stone asked her about whether her appearances in Hollywood films would benefit the cause of black actresses, Luna answered, "If it brings about more jobs for Mexicans, Chinese, Indians, Negroes, groovy. It could be good, it could be bad. I couldn't care less."

now, from the looks of her, she was probably mixed, but likely not as mixed as she claimed to be, so there was some self-delusion going on. but i have to say that i know mixed-race people to this day with black blood who don't categorize themselves as black. and really, it's their right to do so. whether or not someone chooses to buy into the whole "one-drop" rule -- a function of the slave trade, let's not forget -- should be up to them.

it would have been nice for everyone if she'd been black and proud, but sometimes people/things are just more complicated.

 

[scriptgirl]

To me, Claudia and Donyale had the same sitch, because in my eyes, Donyale was denying being black and I am sorry, but Donyale does not look one iota mixed to me.

 

[sepia]

So gorgeous, although I hate how people hold it against her for hiding her race. It was understandable for her times.

I would never justify someone passing, but why would you say it is understandable in "her day", the late '60s- early '70s when she was popular? That was at the center of the Black Power/civil rights movement and people, more than ever, were proud of their black heritage. And there were other Black models who were popular at the time. I could see if it were a few decades earlier but what would be her reasoning?

 

[scriptgirl]

She just didn't want to be black. It wasn't good enough for her.

 

[sepia]

That's what I think.

 

[Gaultier_Bandit]

I think its hard for us to understand because we live in a very different time, and it makes it that much harder for us to understand. I think Donyale knew what she wanted, but knew that presenting herself as "black" would most definately make it that much harder. Think about it, it still is. I think she did not wanted to be categorized, she just wanted to be a star, who happened to be black. Unfortunately her drug abuse seemed to contribute to her downfall more than her race...I think people should just admire her for what she accomplished, instead of judging her...that is all...no need to argue with anyone...its just opinions

 

[scriptgirl]

I disagree. Don't you think it would have been easy for Lena Horne to pass-yet she didn't and the world is a better place for it. Fredi Washington damn sure could have passed and had a very good career, yet she did not.

 

[rubydon]

the lovely ms. luna is featured in this month's style.com "beauty icon" article. here are the text and photos:

Long before Iman, Naomi, or Tyra ever set a stiletto on the catwalk, Donyale Luna was strutting her way across the globe. Born Peggy Anne Freeman, Luna grew up in Detroit, where her home life was far from idyllic (her father was murdered when she was 18). The following year, photographer David McCabe spotted the lithesome beauty on the street, and it wasn't long before she was pursuing modeling in New York City. Her arrival in 1964 had magazine editors and designers competing to book the singular-looking teen.


"Back in Detroit I wasn't considered beautiful or anything, but here I'm different," Luna explained of her success. "They were looking for a new kind of model, a girl who is beautiful like you've never seen before." With her spellbinding features, ultramarine contact lenses, and seemingly endless limbs (she was 6' 2"), she certainly fit the bill. And at the height of her career, she charged a hefty day rate of $60 because, as she succinctly put it, "Being what I am, I can get what I ask."


As much a child of the sixties as the face of it, Luna spent her off-hours partying at Andy Warhol's Factory and canoodling with the likes of Rolling Stones rocker Brian Jones and sometime paramour Klaus Kinski. Her nightlife pursuits took their toll on both her career and her health, and on May 17, 1979, she was pronounced dead from a drug overdose at a clinic in Rome. But not before her beauty was immortalized in Fellini's Satyricon, The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, and several of Warhol's films, as well as in the pages of Paris Match, Harper's Bazaar, and Vogue.
—Evelyn Crowley

 

[EvaLaDiva]

Thank you - those are gorgeous photos!

 

[rubydon]

You're welcome!

 

[EvaLaDiva]

Her legs were so amazing. I just can't get over them. She was truly one-of-a-kind.

I'd love to see her in Fellini's Satyricon. I've got to buy it!

 

[EvaLaDiva]

To me, Claudia and Donyale had the same sitch, because in my eyes, Donyale was denying being black and I am sorry, but Donyale does not look one iota mixed to me.

I think she looks mixed.
Either way, it doesn't matter.
As for the Vogue cover being "groundbreaking," that is very sad - because here they have this beautiful black woman on the cover, yet they have her hand covering over half her face. Come on - that HAD to have an effect on her and how she felt about owning up to her blackness. "Donyale, please put your hand over your face. Yes, that's it. Great." If anything, Vogue should be ashamed. It also sent a clear message that black really wasn't so acceptable. At least, that's how I'd have perceived it if I were Donyale.