The Beauty of Retrospect: Cynthia King Week, Part Three

Cynthia King was in such great demand as a model, some advertisers couldn't get enough of her. Look at this photo from a cigarette ad showing six images of her in one picture.

In a startling Bob Mackie dress, I might add. :-)

In a fantasy world, you'd find six women with the same unique combination of beauty, elegance, and coolness as Cynthia King. But there's only one of her.

Because only she could project a lovely image like in this 1987 black-and-white photo . . .

. . . and show off some tough-cookie sex appeal in this 1984 color shot . . .

. . . while still being Cynthia King. :-)

The Ohio-born Ms. King started modeling as a way to pay her college tuition when she took part in a convention sponsored by the Wilhelmina modeling agency, who discovered and signed her.  She told Ebony magazine in 1984 that people had asked her about what type of look modeling agencies were looking for.  "There isn't a set sort of characteristics," she said.  "It all depends on what the public responds to, and that changes from time to time."

But real beauty never goes out of style. ;-)

The photo immediately above is from that Ebony piece.      

The Beauty of Retrospect: Cynthia King Week, Part Two

Cynthia King was a versatile model in the eighties, having done work for numerous catalogs and ads. The reason is obvious.  As these two pictures show, she could look sweet and charming with a smile and a headscarf . . . 

. . . or look serious and professional.

And even with her serious look, she could still be charming. :-)

Both of these pictures are from 1986.

The Beauty of Retrospect: Cynthia King Week, Part One

I still can't believe that I haven't featured Cynthia King, one of the loveliest black models of the 1980s and one of the loveliest models of the 1980s, period, since August 2010!  Well, I should be able to make up for lost time easily, starting today with these two pictures.

Cynthia King was one of the brightest stars of the Wilhelmina agency in the eighties, and she was a constant presence in ads for certain cigarette brand.  Both of these photos are taken from said ads, though, as always, the brand is not mentioned here and the offending carcinogenic appendages are edited out.   

I haven't found out a great deal about Ms. King, though, because she inexplicably failed to become a big star in the modeling world. But I do know this; she became an artist and is a prolific painter.  I'll add a little more info about that later. :-)