Hello! magazine profile:
Six-foot tall with long, honey-brown hair and legs that go on into next week, Elle Macpherson is not called 'The Body' for nothing. She turns heads wherever she goes.
Born Eleanor Nancy Gow in Sydney on March 29, 1964 – she changed her name to Macpherson when her mother remarried soon after Elle's 14th birthday – the young Australian was, by her own confession, a tomboy who preferred climbing trees to playing with dolls.
She gained a place at Sydney University to study pre-law but left after a year when she was spotted by a modelling scout while on holiday in Aspen. It was to be the start of an extremely lucrative career, which led to her fortune being valued at an estimated £21 million in 1999.
Elle was the covergirl for the prestigious swimsuit issue of
Sports Illustrated three years in a row, and her magazine namesake was so taken with her statuesque beauty that she was featured in its pages every month for six years. For her part, the ubermodel was so enamoured of the publication's creative director, Gilles Bensimon, 20 years her senior, that she married him when she was just 21. The couple broke up in 1989.
Not just a pretty face, Elle also has a reputation as a shrewd businesswoman. Her Australian lingerie business, Elle Macpherson Intimates, is worth around $10 million and she is on record as saying that she prefers the marketing and business side of fashion to its fluffy, frock-tastic face.
In 1990 she branched out into acting, first appearing on the silver screen in Woody Allen's
Alice. Perhaps her most famous role was that of Sheela in the Australian film
Sirens, for which she put on 20lb to play the part of a nude artist's model. Since then she has appeared in the TV series
Friends, and starred opposite
George Clooney in
Batman And Robin. She has also released her own fitness video.
On February 14, 1998, Elle gave birth to Flynn, her son by French banker Arki Busson. The couple have not married, although they live together happily, and when asked whether they would be heading down the aisle together, Elle laughed and said: "You'll have to ask Arki. I'm quite old-fashioned – I still believe it's up to the man to propose." And he did pop the question in 2002; the two became engaged during a romantic trip to the Bahamas. Their second child, Aurelius Cy was born on February 5, 2003.