1. Peggy Ann Freeman, known professionally as Donyale Luna, was an American model and actress who gained popularity in Western Europe during the late 1960s.
70 Facts About Donyale Luna
1. 2.
Donyale Luna was one of three daughters, Lillian, Peggy Ann, and Josephine.
3.
Donyale Luna's father had moved to Detroit from Georgia as part of the Great Migration.
4.
Donyale Luna's parents married and divorced on four separate occasions due to their "headstrong characters" and Nathaniel's relatives' alcoholism.
5.
Donyale Luna attended the Detroit High School of Commerce, where she studied data processing, and Cass Technical High School, where she studied journalism, performing arts and languages, and was in the school choir.
6.
Donyale Luna was said to have spoken "not with a broad A or a French R, but in an accent she'd invented".
7.
Donyale Luna's mother said its tone "was like she was singing".
8.
The name Donyale Luna has been speculated to have been chosen for its "symbolic dimensions, reflecting her yearning for complete, far-flung autogeny", or a reference to the Space Race.
9.
Donyale Luna took roles such as Cherry in Paint Your Wagon, Ariel in The Tempest, Chastity in Anything Goes and Jean in Stage Door.
10.
Donyale Luna looked like an oddball to the run-of-the-mill student.
11.
Donyale Luna received the news three months after the fact, and stayed in New York, which is said by psychologists to be a common coping mechanism for familial loss and trauma.
12.
Donyale Luna doesn't know that I have already been hurt.
13.
Donyale Luna professed during the filming of Salome in 1971 that she wished to quit modeling and focus on acting, and that she "professo la magia y el'amore e vivo en el mondo vio, deliziomente surreale" having become heavily influenced by Surrealism and New Age thought by this time; however, she continued accept modeling work in the 1970s.
14.
In 1963, near Detroit's Fisher Building, Donyale Luna met English photographer David McCabe.
15.
Donyale Luna persisted, and her mother facilitated her moving in with an aunt near the New York Harbor in New Jersey.
16.
In October 1964, Donyale Luna contacted McCabe, and he sent out her photographs to various agencies.
17.
Donyale Luna's first job as a model was a shoot for Mademoiselle starring Woody Allen.
18.
In November 1964, Donyale Luna moved out of her aunt's apartment and into an apartment on Broadway in New York City, sharing the space with a roommate.
19.
In 1964, working as a model for Paco Rabanne, Donyale Luna witnessed American journalists spitting in the face of Rabanne because his fashion show used only Black models.
20.
Donyale Luna's career began to slow down when she met with the color bar of print publishing at the time.
21.
Donyale Luna did not have a style that other women could adopt.
22.
Donyale Luna rented an apartment near the Thames River and bought a pet Maltese dog she named Christianne.
23.
Donyale Luna was like a mirage, or some kind of fantasy.
24.
Donyale Luna is only 20, a Negro, hails from Detroit, and is not to be missed if one reads Harper's Bazaar, Paris Match, Britain's Queen, the British, French or American editions of Vogue.
25.
Donyale Luna then appeared on the cover of Harper's Bazaar UK in June 1966.
26.
Jet described the Donyale Luna-inspired mannequins as "unmistakeably Negro, excellently sculpted and posed, and dressed in the London Mod styles" and reported that Adel Rootstein had paid Donyale Luna to pose for the work at $105 per hour.
27.
Donyale Luna was noted to be working in New York for a short period in September 1967, but her flatmates "thought they were all going to get kicked out soon because Donyale was making about $500 worth of calls to Europe every month".
28.
Donyale Luna was shot in Rabanne by Peter Knapp for The Sunday Times.
29.
Donyale Luna was initially supposed to cover Vogue Paris before British Vogue when she arrived in Europe in December 1965.
30.
Edmonde Charles-Roux who had fostered the talent of William Klein, had shot Donyale Luna for the cover, but prior to release, the cover was changed overnight to that of two white models, in an effort to avoid offending readers for its capacity to "shock" because Donyale Luna was a woman of color.
31.
Donyale Luna was put forward for the cover by the French editor Charles-Roux who was fired on the charge of Si Newhouse for attempting to put a Black model on the cover, a feat which would take another 22 years when Naomi Campbell was put on the cover, but even then only on the grounds that YSL would otherwise withdraw advertising revenue.
32.
Donyale Luna appeared on the cover of Elle for July 1966 shot by Ronald Traeger in a long toga dress by Galeries Lafayette and in beach shoot with Jill Kennington.
33.
Donyale Luna appeared on a catwalk in Sydney for the "Donyale Luna spectacular" fashion walk.
34.
Donyale Luna appeared in the Italian magazine Amica in a number of animal print and fur coats in 1966 and Vogue Italia shot by Gian Paolo Barbieri.
35.
Donyale Luna modelled later in a number of camera advertisements in 1968.
36.
Donyale Luna bought an apartment in Italy in 1970, and drove around in her Cinquenta car, and "fold herself into like an accordion, squeezing her knees up to her chin" to get to new modeling shoots.
37.
When Donyale Luna moved to Italy in 1974 she was a collaborator with her husband in photographic shoots and other media such as a "hand-illustrated fairy tale, avant-garde film scripts and beautiful coloured prints" which remain unpublished.
38.
Donyale Luna was said to be the most creative as a content creator of art in this period of her life.
39.
Donyale Luna appeared on the cover of Warhol's magazine Interview for October 1974.
40.
Donyale Luna then appeared in a nude photo layout in the April 1975 issue of Playboy, photographed by her husband Luigi Cazzaniga.
41.
Donyale Luna seemed not only at ease with her nudity, but completely beyond societal structures and moral rectitude.
42.
Donyale Luna didn't have a hard time, she made it hard for herself.
43.
Donyale Luna did have a regular walk for the catwalk, defined as "a free-form, hip-popping strut", but she was known among the high fashion circles for her unconventional walking styles still used by models like Pat Cleveland.
44.
Donyale Luna was known for her eccentricity since childhood which derived from her time in acting doing local and experimental theater in Detroit.
45.
Donyale Luna was often drawn to "radical creatives", avant-garde artists such as Dali and Warhol and she extended these influences to her model career.
46.
Donyale Luna's Method modeling background was more rooted in theater technique, and as such was a derivative of performance art.
47.
Donyale Luna initially planned to work in theater, having acted in Detroit after school hours, including bit parts in Detroit's repertory theaters.
48.
Donyale Luna appeared in several films produced by Andy Warhol, including his series of short Screen Tests in 1965.
49.
Donyale Luna appeared in the feature length Camp in 1965, Warhol's "satire of his own world" where she dances to the Ramsey Lewis Trio instrumental "The 'In' Crowd" wearing a backless dress and fur stole.
50.
Donyale Luna is the eponymous star of Warhol's Donyale Luna, a 33-minute color film in which she plays Snow White, wearing blue contacts.
51.
Donyale Luna appeared in The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus as the assistant of a circus performer's fire-eater act.
52.
Donyale Luna then appeared in the 1970 Happening documentary film Soft Self-Portrait of Salvador Dali, a biography narrated by Orson Welles for French TV.
53.
Donyale Luna's last acting role was the title character in the 1972 Italian film Salome, directed by Carmelo Bene.
54.
Donyale Luna was survived by her husband, Luigi Cazzaniga, and her 18-month-old daughter, Dream.
55.
Donyale Luna was known to be a muse of Salvador Dali, and acted in many of the ways Dali did in accord with the philosophy of Surrealism.
56.
Donyale Luna could be found "lying on a bed of fresh fish" in Dali's home.
57.
The alter ego of Donyale Luna was created in what Freeman termed future visioning, a New Age approach culminating when she attended Central High Theater in Detroit.
58.
Donyale Luna was believed to have met the artist Mati Klarwein through Sam Rivers, at an "occupational gathering" for Miles Davis in New York in 1964 where her likeness appears in his painting Time, of a circle of gold leaf surrounded by scimitars representing the earth and sky.
59.
Donyale Luna anticipated a "armageddon" she called "The Great Division" due to her perception that other peoples lack of understanding between themselves would lead to this great divide in the future which she foresaw.
60.
Donyale Luna often made up tall tales to make her seem more grandiose, part of the character of Donyale Luna she began in her teenage years, including beguiling stories designed to shock or amuse such as losing her parents in a car accident and being adopted, or replying to the question of her heritage with the line "I'm from the moon darling" which some have construed to mean she denied her heritage as a Black woman.
61.
Donyale Luna responded that "the civil-rights movement has my greatest support, but I don't want to get involved racially".
62.
Donyale Luna's response was to wear the mask [of one of Giacometti's skeletal sculptures] and.
63.
In 1968, Donyale Luna was purportedly dating the Australian pop artist Martin Sharp.
64.
Around 1969 Donyale Luna was romantically involved with German actor Klaus Kinski; however, the relationship ended when Kinski asked her entourage to leave his house in Rome, concerned that their drug use could damage his career.
65.
Donyale Luna later married Italian photographer Luigi Cazzaniga after having met him at a party in Italy.
66.
Donyale Luna converted to Catholicism as an adolescent, from her family's Presbyterian roots.
67.
Donyale Luna's career has thus been described as a "meteoric ascent to fame and freefall into anonymity [which] frequently morphs into bodily speculation and social isolation".
68.
Donyale Luna has appeared in the 2008 all-Black Vogue issue and was recognized by Naomi Campbell in her CFDA acceptance speech in 2019, and Nan Goldin dedicated the Exhibit Sirens for her.
69.
Donyale Luna was the inspiration for Pat McGrath for her sixth edition of her Mothership makeup palette.
70.
The HBO Max documentary Donyale Luna: Supermodel was released in September 2023, co-produced by her daughter Dream Cazzaniga.