Cindy Crawford Bomis Ring

Cindy Crawford is the second of three girls and four children. Her parents, Daniel and Jennifer, are now divorced. Younger brother Jeff died of leukemia when he was 4, and young Cindy was 8. Older sister, Chris, has always lived in the Chicago area and is a teacher. Younger sister Danielle has worked in the Peace Corps and worked most recently as production assistant on Cindy's film "Fair Game", in which she also appears as a waitress. She now works on a dude ranch in Colorado. Before becoming a megamodel, Cindy detasselled corn, won a chemical engineering scholarship, and scored perfectly on her college calculus exams. She graduated Valedictorian of DeKalb High with a 4.0 average, then went on to attend Northwestern University for one semester.

Cindy Crawford's life is the classic rags-to-riches tale. Well, almost. No overnight sensation, it was rags, or rather the clothing trade, that brought her to the rather lofty financial level of the highest paid and probably single most widely recognized supermodel, commanding somewhere in the neighborhood of six to nine million dollars last year alone. Cindy was the spokesperson for Pepsi Max for a while, and her commercial introducing Pepsi's new look was a finalist for Advertising Age's "The Best Awards 1991". Her picture has graced the covers of over four hundred major international magazines. As the host of MTV's "House of Style", satellites beam Cindy and her world of fashion to the farthest reaches of the globe. Celebrating its Fifth Anniversary this year, "House of Style" remains one of the most popular shows on MTV. Cindy hosted her first special for the network which featured a behind-the-scenes look at "Melrose Place", "Saturday Night Live", and the White House as well as interviews with Shaquille O'Neal and Rosie O'Donnell.

She has also done at least four calendars (including a new for 1996) and half the profits (I believe) go towards fighting leukemia. She has also put out two exercise videos, had a three year $3 million contract with Revlon, appeared in print ads for JH Collectables and Capezio Bags, and also in a series of lingerie posters for Hennes & Mauritz in Europe. The Norway police was forced to tear many of them down because they feared drivers were being too distracted. She is also the jewelry fashion spokesmodel for Kay Jewelers, part of the Sterling family of fine jewelry stores, which will launch a signature collection bearing her name soon. She has said she feels too old for runway modeling, and wishes to cut back to part-time modelling. When she was first starting out, Cindy was called "Baby Gia" after now dead Gia Carangi, the main difference being that Cindy was wholesome and Gia died from her lifestyle. The resemblence between them in the early years is uncanny.

Cindy appeared topless in the July 1988 issue of "Playboy". Quote: "I don't mind if someone thinks a picture of me decorates their wall nicely. It's weird when you think what people might be doing to it. But if just the way I look can make someone feel good, that's a pretty easy way for me to bring them some pleasure. I just don't want to hear about graphic details, you know." Cindy was married to actor Richard Gere in December 1991 at the Little Church of the West in Las Vegas by Rev. Wes McPherson. They using wedding bands twisted from chewing gum wrappers. Cindy said, during an interview, they planned on having a child soon, but those plans are now, of course, cancelled. Cindy is frequently rumored to be bisexual and having an affair with Christy Turlington. In 1991, they were photographed while kissing behind the Roxy nightclub in New York. The rumors have intensified since Cindy appeared on the cover of "Vanity Fair" shaving k.d. lang, a confirmed lesbian. On May 6th, 1994, the London Times published a full page advertisement in which Cindy and Richard Gere proclaimed: "We are heterosexual and monogamous and take our commitment to each other very seriously." It cost them $30,000. She has now broken up with Richard Gere.

The move to producing came for Cindy in 1992 with the highly successful "Cindy Crawford/Shape Your Body Workout". In addition to starring in the exercise video, which she developed with personal trainer Radu, Cindy also served as an executive producer. Topping Billboard's Health and Fitness charts since its debut in October 1992, the video has sold more than 2 million copies in the United States alone. Amazed at the overwhelming response to the workout tape, Cindy and Radu did it again with a follow-up release entitled "The Next Challenge". No surprise, true to form, this tape also became a winner. The video is comprised of one complete workout program that features a "cross-training" approach to total body workout rather than the "circuit training" approach of the first video. In 1992, Cindy hosted two specials for Fox TV: "Concert for Life", dedicated to the memory of Freddie Mercury and broadcast live from Wembley Stadium, and "Stuntwomen World Tour '92", an exciting look at Hollywood's stuntwomen.

Cindy has apartments in New York City and Bel Air, California, has cottages in Westchester, New York, and a beach house in Malibu. She lives in the same New York City building as Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, and Winona Ryder. Dividing her time between New York and Los Angeles, Cindy Crawford is hard at work building her career from coast to coast when she's not starring in major motion pictures. John Casablancas of Elite modeling agency was not a happy camper after he read Cindy Crawford's explanation in the "New York Post" of why she left Elite. Cindy said that Elite was "double dipping" her commissions, and she felt that constituted a conflict of interest. John said, "La Crawford is misrepresenting the situation, and the famous beauty led us down the garden path -- or the catwalk, as it were." Casablancas says that "All model agencies around the world charge what your article described as 'double dipping' -- with the full knowledge and consent of their models and, without having anyone accuse us of 'conflict of interest'.

This is an open and legal practice... At one point, she decided she no longer wanted to pay such commissions and regardless of what we had done to bring her to the top, she wanted to deal with us as if we were recently met theatrical agents who had nothing to do with the construction of her career. What Cindy basically said was this: 'If you want the privilege of representing me and to avoid the embarrassment of losing me, you have to reduce your take by 60 percent; take it or leave it.' We decided to leave it, and she was gone." But Casablancas also says that if Cindy would "come down off her high horse and make us a reasonable offer," Elite would love to have her back. "You could probably put a Hefty bag on her, cinch it at the waist, and she'd look good," says Melrose Place costumer Denise Wingate. "Fan-tastic!", exclaims RuPaul of the clingy Herve Leger dress that Crawford donned for the MTV Movie Awards in L.A. last June.

"It makes the curves she has all the more dangerous." And TV talker Rolonda says, "I even love that Barbarella look." Says John Henson of Cindy in outfits like the leather dress she wore to a New York City party last October: "She's just a perfect clothes hanger." "Really slick," says Rolonda, eyeing Cindy in pants at the "Batman Forever" premiere in June 1995. "You can't get better than this," says RuPaul of Cindy's ribbed number at a Revlon L.A. affair in December 1995. "I like it when women dress down," says John Henson of Cindy's jeans 'n' leather at a November Rolling Stones concert. "You can eat a burrito with your hands in front of this girl." Says RuPaul of Cindy all glammed up at the Blockbuster Awards in June: "Why not wear a color that says, 'I'm a star'?" It would make Henson clean up fast. "If that were my date, I'd be, 'Don't move!'", he says. "You'd want to put her on a pedestal." Thanks to modeling, MTV, and endorsements for everything from panty hose to perfume, the woman nicknamed Cindy, Inc. raked in some $6.5 million last year.

She obviously spent a chunk of it on smashing fashions, which she wears with a natural verve. Even the 29-year-old Crawford's September 1994 split from husband Richard Gere hasn't dampened her sense of style. "She's so pretty, and her look really isn't artificial," says Dave's World's DeLane Matthews. "She is like the girl next door -- squared to infinity." On May 29, 1998 Cindy married longtime friend, nightclub owner Rande Gerber. The couple were married at the Ocean Club resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas. The ceremony was private and limited to a small group of family and friends. Cindy and Rande were married on the beach. Cindy's wedding dress was a shere short white gown by designer Galliano. Rande wore a white shirt and Armani pants. Neither bride nor groom wore shoes! The couple had been dating for years and recently had purchased a home together in Malibu where Rande proposed. Cindy never hid the fact that she wanted to have a family and on July 2, 1999 she became the proud mama of Presley Walker Gerber. Cindy's son weighed in at 8 pounds and 4 ounces and was born at home.

As expected Cindy is a beaming mom and couldn't be happier. We wonder if there are anymore children in Cindy's future. The thought of Cindy having a daughter stirs to mind visions of future supermodels.