Veruschka von Lehndorff

Veruschka was born Vera Gottliebe Anna Gräfin von Lehndorff-Steinort on 14 May 1939, in Königsberg in the German state of East Prussia, now known as Kaliningrad, Russia.

She is one of four sisters: Marie Eleanore "Nona" (b. 1937, married Jan van Haeften and later Wolf-Siegfried Wagner (b. 1943), son of Wieland Wagner and great-grandson of composer Richard Wagner); Gabriele (b. 1942, married Armin, Edler Herr und Freiherr von Plotho); and Katharina (b. 1944, married Henrik Kappelhoff-Wulff).

She grew up at Steinort, an estate in East Prussia, which had belonged to her family for centuries. Her mother was Countess Gottliebe von Kalnein (1913-1993). Her father, Count Henrich von Lehndorff-Steinort, was a German aristocrat and army reserve officer who became a key member of the German Resistance, after witnessing Jewish children being beaten and killed. When Veruschka was five years old, her father was executed for allegedly being involved in the attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler in the 20 July Plot. After his death, the remaining family members were detained in labor camps until the end of World War II. Her family was left homeless by the end of the war and the annexation of East Prussia by the Soviet Union. As a young girl, she attended 13 schools.

She studied art in Hamburg and then moved to Florence, where she was discovered at age 20 by the photographer Ugo Mulas and became a full-time model. In Paris, she met Eileen Ford, head of the prestigious Ford Modeling Agency. In 1961 she moved to New York City, but soon returned to Munich. For some time she was with the Stewart Modeling Agency at 405 Park Avenue in New York, where she reigned as the girl with the most covers on the wall inside the agency's entrance. She had also garnered attention when she made a brief five-minute appearance in the 1966 cult film Blow Up by Michelangelo Antonioni.

Veruschka appeared on the cover of Life magazine's August 1967 issue; and various times on all four major Vogue magazines' (American, Italian, French and British) covers throughout the 1960s.[3] She once worked with Salvador Dalí and photographer Peter Beard, who took her to Kenya. At her peak, she earned as much as $10,000 a day. In 1975, however, she departed from the fashion industry due to disagreements with Grace Mirabella, the newly appointed editor-in-chief of Vogue. In a 1999 interview, Veruschka said of their disagreements, "She wanted me to be bourgeois, and I didn't want to be that. I didn't model for a long time after that."[4]

In 1969, she attended the Woodstock festival.[5]

She appeared as one of 28 women under the banner We've had abortions! (Wir haben abgetrieben!) on the cover page of the West German magazine Stern on 6 June 1971. In that issue, 374 women publicly stated that they had had pregnancies terminated, which at that time was illegal.[6]

Occasionally Veruschka still appears on catwalks. She was a guest model in the Melbourne Fashion Festival in 2000 in Australia. In October 2010, at the age of 71, she modeled for Giles Deacon's showing for the fall run of London Fashion Week.[7] She appeared in the Resort 2018 lookbook for Acne Studios in 2017.[8]

Veruschka provided vocals on several tracks on the 2010 album Mimikry by ANBB, a collaboration of Blixa Bargeld and Alva Noto.[9]

• Blowup (1966) - Herself
• Veruschka: Poetry of a Woman (1971)
• Salomé (1972) - Myrrhina
• Evil Thoughts (1976) - Mario Manani's Lover
• Flesh Color (1978) - Anna
• Milo-Milo (1979) - Barbara
• Bizarre Styles (1981) - Prophet
• Dorian Gray im Spiegel der Boulevardpresse (1984) - Dorian Gray
• Vom Zusehen beim Sterben (1985) - Herself
• The Bride (1985) - Countess
• L'Orchestre rouge (1989) - Anna Maximovitch
• Veruschka – Die Inszenierung (m)eines Körpers (2005) - Herself
• Casino Royale (2006) - Gräfin von Wallenstein

• Veruschka at Fashion Model Directory
• Veruschka von Lehndorff at IMDb
• Portraits of Veruschka
• Veruschka.net
• Veruschka von Lehndorff mySPACE
• Veruschka, after a fashion
• Veruschka's enduring mystique
• Veruschka and Rubartelli at aenigma
• LIFE Magazine Aug. 18, 1967