Prairie Rose

Jerry and Bryan:

Jerry hanging at Studio 54... check out the chick on the left. Looks curiously like Bianca to me.

"You're Daddy's rich and your Ma is good lookin'..."

Jarring and jaw-dropping, the former Mrs. Jagger, Jerry Hall, was born on July 2, 1956 in a little town called Gonzales, Texas - about 50 miles outside San Antonio. She was raised in the Dallas/Fort Worth area suburb, Mesquite, Texas with her four sisters (all of whom are older except one - a twin named Terry). Soon after she completed high school, she got in a car accident that proved quite fortuitous - the settlement awarded her $800 and with that, she moved to the French Riviera. Let's assume Jerry moved to France when she was 18 - that would have made it 1973. How funny is it to think that a mere two years earlier, Sir Mick Jagger too was in the south of France; in fact, all the Stones were, for the recording of Exile On Main St., of course.

Jerry was discovered whilst sun bathing in St. Tropez (the spot where Mick married Bianca on May 12, 1971). Standing an incredibly long and lean six feet tall, Jerry was said to be a natural model, with perfect limbs and that fantastic blonde mane. After being discovered, she moved to Paris to start her career and lived with fellow then-model Grace Jones. Next she moved in with photographers Antonio Lopez and Juan Ramos. Jerry loved the Parisian nightlife and was said to perform late-night cabaret acts with Grace and spark up everywhere she went with her utter fabulousness.

In 1974, Hall, now a full-fledged working model, met future boyfriend, Bryan Ferry, the lead singer of hot '70s band Roxy Music. I used to think that they supposedly met the day Jerry showed up to model on the '75 album, Siren, where she appears as a mystical blue mermaid. However, that cannot be the case, as I learned a couple of years ago when I fell in love with the song "Prairie Rose", the coda on Roxy's 1974 album Country Life (ya know, the one with the awesome cover). The song is an ode to Jerry, and one of the most sincere and beautifully vulnerable love songs I've ever heard, with lyrics like, "Texas, oh that's where I belong, it seems to me. Lonesome star, shine on the big country. With open skies, and you for company. Oh, Prairie Rose, how happy I should be. Hey, hey, you could take it from me..." and my personal favorite lines, “I will compose in fancy rhyme or just plain prose, a song of praise to you, Prairie Rose. Though I’m not sure I can explain your strange allure. Oh, Prairie Rose, a crown of thorns, a scented flower…”

Anyway, five months after the infamous Siren album cover shoot, Bryan proposed to Jerry and they were engaged all the way up until she left him for Mick Jagger in 1977. During Bryan and Jerry's relationship, she appeared in a couple music videos, including his solo hit "Let's Stick Together", which was probably written about her too. Jerry was in top form in those days, at her modeling peak, commanding as much as $1,000 per day. By 1977 she had already had 40 magazine covers to her credit, big ones too, like Cosmo and Vogue. It must have been absolutely devastating for Brian when Jerry left him, but after all, how is one supposed to compete with a casanova like Mick? Even now though, Bryan rarely ever mentions Jerry. In fact, the only thing he's really said about her as far as I know is writing the song "Kiss And Tell", after Jerry published her memoirs, which included a lot of personal info about her relationship with Bryan. But despite that, he seems to have held on to that devastation. Sad, but pretty romantic, don't you think? Anyway, Mick was still very much married to Bianca at that point, but that was going sour for a while, and when he met Jerry at a Manhattan dinner party, it proved too irresistible for either of them. Mick and Jerry were all over New York, hanging with the Warhol and Bowie crowd at Studio 54 and generally making a scene. Bianca began filing for divorce.

At least one Stones song was written about Jerry, 1978's "Miss You". The couple were thinking about getting married for quite a while, but always ended up pushing back the date. In 1984, they welcomed their first child, a bound-to-be gorgeous girl called Elizabeth Scarlett (Lizzy) Jagger. In 1985, Jerry appeared in a bizarre and hilarious film that Mick made for his first solo album, She's The Boss. In 1989, she was in Batman. Mick and Jerry finally wed on November 21, 1990, but it was to be a troubled union. Jerry filed for divorce in 1999 after years and years of Mick's seemingly endless infidelity. The final straw, I'd assume, was when it was confirmed that Mick had impregnated a young Brazilian model.

Currently, Jerry is part of the Spring 2009 Chanel ad campaign. She looks as fabulous as ever.