Top 10 Interesting Facts About Wilhelmina Cooper

Wilhelmina Cooper By Edgar de Evia –Wikimedia Commons

Top 10 Interesting Facts About Wilhelmina Cooper

Born on 1st May 1939, Wilhelmina Cooper is a recognized Dutch-American model who was known professionally as Wilhelmina or Willy to her closest people. Her full original name being Wilhelmina Gertrud Frieda Behmenburg Cooper. She started her modeling career with Ford Models where she made her debut.

She thrived and led a successful modeling career becoming a fashion Icon. At the peak of it, she went ahead and founded her very own agency. The agency, Wilhelmina Models, was founded in New York City in 1967.

Wilhelmina Cooper became one of the most famous models of the 1950s and 1960s. She was on the cover of numerous magazines including high-profile magazines like American Vogue.
Below are interesting facts about Wilhelmina Cooper that you should know;

1. Wilhelmina Cooper Has Lived In Three Different Countries As A Child

Child hoding the globe by Ken Teegardin- Wikimedia Commons

She was born in Culemborg, Netherlands to father Wilhelm Rober Kahl Behmenburg who was a German butcher and mother, Klasina van der Straten. Wilhelmina Cooper had a younger brother, Walter Behmenburg who passed away at the age of three in 1945, after a very unfortunate accident where he was hit by a car.

Wilhelmina’s family 1942 moved and lived in Utrecht from 1942 to 1944. Thereafter, they moved to Oldenburg, Germany after World War II ended. The family later immigrated to Chicago, Illinois. This occurred in 1954 and from then on Wilhelmina became intrigued and obsessed with fashion magazines.

2. She Went To Model School And Joined The Models Bureau

After moving to Chicago, she devoured every word and picture of her new idols and models from the fashion magazines that she read. Cooper would go to the lengths of going to buy the old issues from second-hand stores and get inspired by the content in the magazines.

She became serious about her modeling and in 1956 borrowed her father’s money to enroll in a modeling school. During this time Wilhelmina Cooper took on the stage name Winnie Hart. She went on to join the Models Bureau after she had graduated from High School in 1958.

3. Wilhelmina Had To Lose 20 Pounds Twice To Become A Successful Model

After joining the Model Bureau, she was advised to lose 20 pounds and do away with her stage name Winnie Hart if she ever wanted to become a successful model. This was instructed by Patricia Stevens who at the time was a booker for another agency. Wilhelmina Cooper went on and lost weight as instructed and changed her stage name and traveled to New York.

In New York, she joined Ford Modelling Agency where Eileen Ford informed her that Wilhelmina needed to lose 20 pounds and then she would be able to go to Paris. Cooper did so and headed to Paris.

4. She Took Diet Pills To Maintain Her Model Body

Diet pills by Patrik Nygren- Wikimedia Commons

Even though Cooper was on continuous diets she was regarded as fat when it came to modeling even though in reality she was not. While in Paris, a fellow workmate introduced Wilhelmina to diet pills. She only ate twice per week with cigarettes and black coffee in between.

Her eating habits were messed up but she had a bowl of soup or a piece of cheese on a cracker to prevent her from getting sick. On Sundays, she would have a small fillet mignon without any sauce or salt.

5. Wilhelmina Cooper Appeared On The Cover Of 255 Magazines

Vogue Header 1902 by Vogue Magazine- Wikimedia Commons

She was featured on the cover of L’Officiel of the December 1960 issue before moving back to the U.S. and becoming one of the most well-known models of the 1960s. Cumulatively in her modeling career, she had appeared on the cover of 255 magazines and traveled to model in India, Hong Kong, South America, and Europe. At the peak of her career, she made $100,000 each year.

During her time in France, she worked for big labels including Coco Chanel and Christian Dior. Wilhelmina appeared 27 or 28 times in the American Vogue holding the record for most covers. The New York Journal American during a series in 1964, Private Lives of High Fashion Models, said Wilhelmina was a top model out of the 405 other models contracted under the top five New York agencies. Subsequently, her modeling life was also discussed in Chicago Sun-Times.

6. She Influenced The Aristocratic Look

Adepiction of the Aristocratic look by Philip de Laszlo –Wikimedia Commons

At the time of Wilhelmina Cooper’s cover girl days, she gloated according to her obituary in Time Magazine, that she was among the few high-fashion models built like a woman. She influenced the high society look of the 1950s and 1960s with her 5ft 11 inches, large brown doe eyes, curvaceous figure, delicate cheekbones, and a mane of upswept dark hair.

7. Wilhelmina Married The Former Producer Of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

She tied the knot on 5th February 1965 with Victor Bruce Cooper who at the time was the former executive producer of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. They went on to have two children, Melissa Wilhelmina Cooper and Jason S. Cooper

8. She Founded her own Modelling Agency

At the height of Cooper’s career, in 1967 she founded her own Modelling Agency called Wilhelmina Models. It becomes one of the leading agencies alongside Ford Models and even surpassed it years before other agencies began.

The business greatness is showcased when Wilhelmina’s photo appeared on the cover of Fortune magazine’s December 1979 issue and becomes one of the few women to appear on the cover alone.

9. Wilhelmina Cooper Died Of Lung Cancer

She died of Lung cancer on 1st March 1980, 40 years of age, at the Greenwich Hospital, Greenwich, Connecticut. Wilhelmina’s daughter Melissa told Michael Gross, author of Model: The Ugly Business Of Being Beautiful, that she believes her mother decided to kill herself with cigarettes instead of facing and fixing the harsh truths of her life enduring abuse from an alcoholic husband.

10. Wilhelmina Models aided to launch Naomi Sims’ Career

Sims began her modeling career in the mid 1960s but could not find work despite her breakthrough appearance in the New York Times fashion supplement in1967. Naomi went on and approached Cooper and made an agreement. Cooper would send out copies of the Times supplement to agencies and obtain a commission from any work that Sims would get from it.

Within a year Sims was swamped with work earning $1000 per week and even appeared on the cover of the Ladies Home Journal and Life magazine. Simms was credited as the first African-American supermodel and Wilhelmina Models played a crucial role in her career.

Wilhelmina Cooper was a fashion Icon and even received a tribute in the American Sitcom Ugly Betty with the antagonist named after her.