Dorian Leigh - Life After Modeling

Life After Modeling

Living in France with her baby son Kim, Dorian was nearing 40. Her career as a model was coming to a close so Dorian began the first legal modeling agency in France to support her son. She also had lent the financially irresponsible de Portago about $15,000.

De Portago, still married, was now dating Linda Christian in early 1957. On April 23, 1957, Dorian's 40th birthday, de Portago told Dorian that he was supposedly finally divorcing Carroll so they could be legally married. He told her that he was entering the famous Mille Miglia car race in Italy on May 8, and Carroll was supposed to sign their divorce papers on May 9. Instead, on May 8, Dorian received a phone call from de Portago's mother Olga, informing Dorian that Fon's tire on his Ferrari race car had blown up because he did not stop in time for a tire change. Fon and his co-driver Edmund Nelson were mutilated and killed. When the tire exploded, he lost control of the car and killed 10-13 spectators as well, including several children. This catastrophe ended the Mille Miglia forever. Carroll did not sign any divorce papers since he was dead.

A few days after Alfonso de Portago was killed, Dorian's sister Suzy, making a movie with Cary Grant, told famous gossip columnist Louella Parsons that Dorian had a son with de Portago and she was estranged from her sister because of it. Dorian was shocked that Suzy leaked this secret and Dorian's parents only learned about this child reading it in the newspaper. Dorian's parents were furious and told Dorian that she would never have custody of her children. They also refused to accept Kim.

In 1957, Dorian returned to Florida and visited Young at her parent's home. Dorian then took Young and fled to Paris. She remained mostly in France for the next twenty-one years. Dorian's two older children had graduated high school. Dorian continued her modeling agency in Paris and became pregnant by yet another man in 1958. While in the hospital in Paris on June 6, 1958, Dorian received news that Suzy and her father had been in a serious car accident. Suzy's father supposedly did not see or hear a train and drove onto the tracks where the train slammed into his car. Their father was killed. Suzy had broken arms and was hospitalized for three months. Dorian then had her gynecologist, Serge Bordat, abort the baby. Days later, she suddenly married Bordat.

Although Dorian already had four children by three different men, she wanted another baby. Bordat claimed he was too young. Dorian moved out of their apartment, but they remained married. Dorian was so busy with her Paris modeling agency that she now had branches in Hamburg, Germany and London. Dorian often traveled to these offices. During a solo ski vacation to Klosters over Christmas 1960, Dorian craved a baby and slept with four men in one week. Three months later, her husband found out through one of Dorian's models that she was pregnant by one of these men. In September 1961, Dorian gave birth to her fifth child, Miranda in France. Dorian thought that a young ski instructor at Klosters was the father. Dorian then divorced Bordat. Dorian did not tell Miranda that Dr. Bordat was not her father until she was a teenager and despite never meeting him, she kept his last name.

In 1964, 47-year-old Dorian met 23-year-old Israeli writer Iddo Ben-Gurion and they were married. Dorian discovered Iddo was a drug-addict who was embezzling money from her modeling agencies. Dorian divorced him in 1964 and she remained single for the next forty-four years of her life until her death in 2008. Dorian eventually had to close her agencies because so much money was stolen by Iddo. Most of her modeling fortune had been spent recklessly or stolen.

In 1972, Dorian became a born-again Christian at the urging of her sister Georgibell and her daughter Young. Living in Paris, Dorian studied at Le Cordon Bleu and opened her own restaurant, Chez Dorian, from 1973 to 1975. She tried to get cooking jobs in Corsica and Orleans as well. By 1976, Dorian was broke.

In 1977, Dorian received a phone call from the New York City modeling agency Stewart Cowley asking her to work as his office manager. Dorian agreed to return to New York where her son Kim was staying. Kim's half-brother Anthony de Portago also lived in New York City and the two actually had become good friends. Dorian soon discovered that her 21-year-old son was a serious drug addict. Only six months after she re-settled and re-united with Kim in New York, he jumped thirty-three floors from his apartment window to his death, leaving a suicide note behind. On March 6, 1990, Kim's half-brother Anthony died of AIDS.

After Kim's death, Dorian lived in Pound Ridge, New York, where she made pâtés for delicatessens and specialty food shops, according to a profile in The New York Times by Enid Nemy. She also worked with Martha Stewart in the early 1980s.

Dorian wrote two cook books, Pancakes: From Flapjacks to Crepes, in 1987 and Doughnuts: Over 3 Dozen Crullers, Fritters and Other Treats, in 1994 at the age of 77.