Casablancas: The Man Who Loved Women

Ladies and gentlemen, here's a man after my own heart.

He jumped into a new business, taking on tough competitors.

All he had to start with was

his ambition, determination, and an eye... for beautiful women.

Our next guest is known as the man behind the models.

He is founder and president of Elite Model Management

and represents such supermodels as Iman...

The man who masterminds their careers.

He's the founder of Elite Model Management...

I can't say I understand this whole beauty thing,

but if ever there was man who did, it would be my first guest.

He's a hunter, stalking big game,

in search of magnificent animals.

He's the hottest thing to hit the modeling scene in years.

His name is synonymous with professional modeling throughout the world.

It's my great pleasure to introduce the president of Elite modeling,

Mr. John Casablancas.

I've been approached many times by people

wanting to tell my life story.

Good evening.

I've been discovering, developing, and working with models

all over the world for almost 20 years.

So I'm always amused when someone says,

"Your job is easy.

You surround yourself with beautiful women."

But there's more to it than that.

I wasn't really sure that the subject, while amusing,

deserved so much attention.

My life seems at times full

and exciting, or merely futile and superficial.

Was it successful and filled with adventures?

He made Cindy Crawford, Karen Mulder and Linda Evangelista.

Definitely. But does it add up to something meaningful?

I really don't know.

Nothing I've done changed the world,

but by God, have I had fun doing it!

You have the best job in the world.

- I do. - Thanks for being here.

CASABLANCAS THE MAN WHO LOVED WOMEN

I'm a Catalan born by chance in New York.

My family's from Barcelona.

My grandfather, Fernando Casablancas,

invented a machine that would spin cotton into thread.

He was a respected industrialist.

When the Spanish civil war began in July 1936,

my parents were on a beach,

on the Costa Brava,

with my oldest brother, Fernando.

As soon as they heard about the coup,

they gathered their things, jumped into the car,

and headed for France.

My family were now refugees,

like roving gypsies with a taste for first class travel.

When Germany started invading her neighbors,

my father decided it was time to run away again,

across the Atlantic this time.

This is how in December 1942,

on a very snowy and cold day in the suburbs of New York City,

I came into the world.

Shortly after my birth, my mother contracted TB.

Doctors recommended a dry climate.

The family packed up once again,

and we moved to a big house in Mexico City.

My first years were spent

going between New York and Mexico by train.

We used to rent an entire first-class carriage.

I would stare out of the window, hoping to see cowboys

galloping on their horses beside the train.

I have wonderful memories of these journeys.

At the end of the 40s,

Europe had settled enough

for my homesick parents to visit again the Old Continent.

Finally, we moved to Geneva.

Culturally, I have always thought of myself as a Frenchman.

Actually, I have a Catalan soul,

a French mind, and an American nationality.

After my eighth birthday, doctors discovered I had anemia.

My parents decided to send me to an exclusive boarding school,

called Le Rosey.

Le Rosey school is set

in a 16th-century castle,

surrounded by gardens,

and all sorts of sports fields and equipment,

such as an Olympic-sized swimming pool,

among acres of forest by the lake, on the side of the mountain.

From Christmas to Easter,

the entire school moved to the huge chalets in Gstaad.

There, we were able to ski a few hours

every day between classes.

Le Rosey was protecting us

from the harsh reality of the outside world.

We lived a simple life.

Our main concerns: girls and soccer.

As years went by, more and more girls and a little less soccer.

These were some extremely happy years.

I lost my virginity at the age of 15

on a summer night in 1958, in Cannes,

on the French Riviera.

We spent summers in the south of France.

I remember it as a magical time.

One day, as I was lying at the pool,

suntanning with my mom,

a man walked by staring at us.

His name was Albert. He was an old, decadent playboy

that my mother knew from Buenos Aires

20 years earlier.

Two beautiful ladies were accompanying Albert.

Twenty-seven, 28 years old,

a gorgeous Danish brunette and Désirée,

a beautiful Swedish blonde with blue eyes.

A few days later, I was having an ice cream on the Croisette

when Désirée walked by.

"Hi, Johnny, how are you?"

I was embarrassed. I didn't have a penny on me

to offer her even a drink.

But I was also lucky.

A convertible 190 Mercedes drove by,

driven by my sister's friend.

"Johnny, jump in."

We jumped in the back together, I put my arm around her,

and we started kissing.

Désirée asked me if I wanted to swim.

I said I didn't have a suit.

She started laughing. "Me neither."

We took off our clothes and jumped in.

After a few moments, we got out of the water

and made love.

The only thing preventing us from being seen by tourists

wandering along the Croisette was the darkness.

It was so exciting.

It was my first lesson in love,

and a fantastic lesson it was!

I started meeting her friends.

One was a beautiful German brunette, called Margaret.

We also started having an affair.

She was very naughty, and introduced me to more of her friends.

I discovered a group of young, beautiful women

looking for a rich lover, or even a husband.

In no time, I had quit going to the beach and playing tennis.

I had gone from total virginity

to a dominating but delicious appetite for sex.

I was a lucky boy.

Most of my friends had awful first experiences

with hookers, or ugly girls, in awful places,

at the end of long, drunken nights.

I had a first experience which illuminated mine.

When summer ended,

I went back to school a changed man.

I was destined to fall in love

very passionately and very regularly.

A new temptation was waiting for me.

The school had hired a new maid.

Her name was Priska.

Blue eyes, blonde, big breasts...

She was a doll.

I was out one afternoon when I ran into her in town.

I invited her for a chocolate and we started talking.

There was a strong sense of excitement between us.

Sometime after I left the school, my father showed up one morning

with a letter from Le Rosey in his hand.

He was pale, shaking.

"You're disgusting.

You're a horrible human being.

You will never be able to talk about your time at Le Rosey.

Your name doesn't exist there anymore."

I didn't understand what was happening. What had I done?

He handed me the letter.

It started with a very simple sentence.

"Dear Sir,

Your son slept with the maid."

And then it got worse.

"Your son has betrayed our trust.

He has betrayed everyone here.

We don't want to know him anymore.

All letters of recommendation are immediately suspended."

To be admitted to a good American college,

to Harvard or Yale, where I planned to study,

I needed these recommendation letters.

My fatal attraction for a beautiful woman

had changed dramatically the course of my life.

I was utterly demoralized.

I decided to follow a road

taken by thousands of disaffected young men before me.

I decided to join the US Marines.

I had seen many based in France

during my summers in Cannes.

These guys were well dressed, had jobs on the land

and seemed to have great lives.

I went to the embassy and discovered I had to pass a test.

The test was like nothing I'd seen before.

According to the man representing the army and the embassy,

my results were so bad that he wouldn't even register me.

He told me:

"These results show you to be stupid,

but in the medical sense of the word."

While I was continuing my education,

my sister Sylvia

was turning into a high society celebrity.

She had met Karim Aga Khan IV,

heir of the Aga Khan dynasty.