Born Peggy Ann Freeman (1945-79), in Detroit. Later, by her
own hand, she becomes Donyale George Tyger Luna. 6’2”. Slim. Her parents
married and divorced on four separate occasions. In January 1965, her mother
fatally shot her father in self-defense. Luna stayed away.
First Black model to appear on the covers of Vogue and
Harper’s Bazaar—although Harper’s likened her to a Masai warrior. A supermodel
before the term was born.
She said: “I wasn’t accepted because I talked funny, I looked funny, and I was a weirdo to everyone. I grew up realizing I was strange.”
Sometimes, she told people she was Polynesian or Mexican. Some thought she was Indian. Whatever they wanted her to be… She could wear colored contacts and once expressed a desire to be white, blonde, and blue-eyed. Did it really matter? Never a shapeshifter because she always controlled the light.
She palled around with Andy Warhol, Otto Preminger, Salvador
Dali and Federico Fellini. Restless, pursued by demons from long ago and far
away.
She joked that her home was in the cosmos, hence ‘Luna’.
Possible, for her beauty was untethered and somehow intellectually seductive. Very
rare. Great photographers know that beauty itself is banal and strictly limited—just
a matter of proportions: behind every great face there must be a greater
spirit.
Eccentric, even for a model, she spoke of her love for LSD and
had a habit of not wearing shoes while walking on city streets.
The end came from drugs. Too many, too soon. Luna is gone.
When asked in 1966 about what her success might mean for
other people of color, she said, “If it brings about more jobs for Mexicans,
Chinese, Indians, Negroes, groovy. It could be good, it could be bad.” She
thought for a moment. “I couldn't care less.”
Cosmic for sure—because the
farther up you go in the sky, all of the Earth looks blue.
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