Parallel Lives: Caroline and Marina (Part II)
Caroline de Bendern, a slightly rebellious, bohemian, young English aristocrat whose beauty seemed a synthesis of Jane Birkin's sensuality and Twiggy's androgyny, was just passing by and unwittingly entered history.
In 1967, she was living in New York, trying to make a name for herself as a model. She frequented Andy Warhol's circle, experimented with amphetamines, and—it's said—had a love affair with Lou Reed, who dedicated a song to her. Caroline says.
She traveled to Paris to participate in a film, but in May '68 her path crossed with the events. On the 13th, she enthusiastically participated, for the first time in her life, in a demonstration. She was accompanied by the visual artist Jean-Jacques Lebel, who offered to carry her on his shoulders because her feet were so sore from blisters.
Lebel was carrying several flags and asked Caroline to wave one of her choosing. Since she felt no sympathy for either the red communist flag or the black anarchist flag, she raised the Vietnamese flag, recalling the pacifist protests of young Americans. The Viet Cong seemed to inspire unanimous sympathy. As she began to wave it, her model's instincts sensed the presence of the photographers focusing their lenses on her. She straightened up, put on a serious face, and adopted a solemn expression, offering the dramatic pose the situation demanded. She wanted to present an image—a pose—worthy of the theatrical moment she was experiencing. She didn't know that photojournalist Jean-Pierre Rey had been following her for some time, confident that this photogenic girl would give him the shot of the day. And she did, giving him one of the iconic photos of May '68. The moment he pressed the shutter, he knew he had captured the next big thing. Liberty leading the peopleAround her, young people held banners with slogans such as "It is forbidden to forbid," "Run, comrade, the old world is behind you," "Power is at the point of the gun," "Be realistic, demand the impossible"... Ephemeral niceties before the symbol that Caroline embodied.
After the demonstration ended, he went to eat at La Coupole, one of the most renowned restaurants in Paris.
The photograph appeared on May 24 in the American magazine LifeAnd from its pages, it jumped to the media around the world, who quickly dubbed it "The Marianne of May '68." Caroline first saw it in Rome on the front page of the newspaper Il TempoFrom that moment on, her life became trapped in this image, and she became exactly what she had tried to appear to be. And she suffered the consequences.
His family was no ordinary family. His great-uncle was Lord Alfred Douglas, the tumultuous lover of the writer Oscar Wilde. His grandfather, Maurice Arnold, Earl of Bendern, was a British aristocrat with a passion for bridge who took the saying "manners before moralsFollowing this principle, he summarily disinherited his son, Caroline's father, because he dared to marry a commoner. But he had placed great hopes for the future of his fortune in his granddaughter.
Caroline had a bright future as a model, but a fateful photograph crossed her path and changed her destiny. The morning her grandfather, sitting in the living room of his villa in Biarritz, discovered the cover of the magazine on his breakfast tray, Caroline had a bright future ahead of her. Paris Match The image of her being cleaned with the Vietcong flag filled her with an Olympic-level, and therefore devastating, rage. It was far more than he was willing to compromise on. He summoned Caroline to the village and blurted out, in four words, all his disappointment:You're cut off!"
Fashion houses banned her. They didn't want to be tainted by her image. The only modeling job she found was for an erotic magazine. Henry Miller cut out her nude photo and added it to the pile of erotic pictures in his bathroom.
The photograph that made her famous brought her no financial gain. She lost the legal battles over her image because the courts ruled that it illustrated a historical event. And what is biography compared to history?
"That photo has haunted me my whole life and ruined my modeling career," she admitted to a journalist. And what does she remember about '68? "It was cool “There were more freedoms then than there are now,” Caroline summarizes. “In fact, I sometimes wonder if we’ll ever end up trapped in prohibition.”