Christy Nicole Turlington Burns is an American model currently representing Calvin Klein's
Eternity campaign and Maybelline. In 2013, Christy was one of 2013's Glamour Women of
the Year recipients, and in 2014 was named as one of Time's 100 Most Influential People
of 2014. In 2010, Turlington founded Every Mother Counts,
a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to making pregnancy and childbirth safe for
every mother. Every Mother Counts informs, engages, and mobilizes new audiences to take
actions and raise funds that support maternal health programs around the world. EMC was
founded after the completion of Christy's documentary, No Woman, No Cry, a film about
pregnant women and their caregivers in Tanzania, Bangladesh, Guatemala, and the United States.
In 2013, she directed the documentary film, Every Mile, Every Mother which explores Every
Mother Counts' participation in long distance running to highlight distance as a barrier
for women to receive quality care.
Early life Christy Turlington was born on January 2,
1969 in Walnut Creek, California, the middle of three daughters born to Dwain Turlington,
a pilot for Pan American World Airways, and María Elizabeth, a flight attendant from
Cojutepeque, El Salvador. She was discovered by local photographer Dennie
Cody while she was riding a horse in Miami, Florida, where her father was working as a
training captain for Pan Am. Turlington began modeling after school from age 14 to 16 and
during summers while she attended Monte Vista High School. After turning 18, she moved to
New York City to model full-time, and later graduated from high school. She went back
to school in 1994 and graduated cum laude in 1999 from the Gallatin School of Individualized
Study of New York University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with a concentration
in Comparative Religion and Eastern Philosophy. She continued her studies at the Columbia
University Mailman School of Public Health. Career
Modeling During the 1990s, she appeared in Unzipped,
a documentary about fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi, and the fashion mockumentary film
Prêt-à-Porter by director Robert Altman. Additionally, she was featured in Catwalk,
a documentary about her life on the fashion runways by director Robert Leacock. She was
presented on the November 1999 Millennium cover of American Vogue as one of the "Modern
Muses". Turlington also appeared in two music videos.
Fellow model Yasmin Le Bon got her husband Simon Le Bon of Duran Duran to feature Turlington
in their "Notorious" video in 1986, at the age of 17. In 1990, singer George Michael
drew inspiration from Peter Lindbergh's January 1990 British Vogue cover for his "Freedom!"
video. The video featured all top 5 female models along with their top 5 male counterparts,
lip-syncing the song. The video was shown during George Michael's 2008 concert tour
while he sang. Turlington starred in her fashion documentary
Catwalk and Isaac Mizrahi's Unzipped. She was added on as the fourth model investor,
after Elle Macpherson, Naomi Campbell and Claudia Schiffer of the now defunct Fashion
Cafes.
She has appeared on over 500 magazine covers and has been featured in several professional
photobooks, including Peter Lindbergh's 10 Women, the cover of Arthur Elgort's Model Manual,
Herb Ritts Man/Woman, and Karl Lagerfeld's Off the Record. In 1993 she posed nude for
PETA's anti-fur campaign. In honor of Turlington's fortieth birthday,
W magazine put together a collection of iconic images from her career, from runway shots
from the late eighties to today. In 2008, casting agent James Scully said in regards
to Turlington: Turlington was one of the faces to land in
one of the fourteen covers of V magazine September 2008 issue. Each cover boasts a
head shot of a famous model, either from the new crop of leading models or the supermodel
era, it was lensed by duo Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin.
She featured in the Bally spring/summer 2009 campaign alongside Oriol Elcacho.
Other business ventures In the 2000s, she has become a partner in
a variety of business ventures: an ayurvedic skincare line, Sundari, and two clothing lines
produced by Puma, an active women's clothing line; and a women's yoga-wear line.
She has contributed writings to Marie Claire, Yoga Journal, and Teen Vogue along with contributions
to the Huffington Post, Canada’s Globe and Mail, and the UK’s Evening Standard. She
has also contributed to NBC’s Today Show as a guest correspondent, which included reporting
on the status of girl’s education in Afghanistan in early 2002 and an interview with H.H. Dalai
Lama at his home in Dharamsala, India. Humanitarian activities
In 2005 Turlington began working with the international humanitarian organization CARE
and has since become their Advocate for Maternal Health. She is also an Ambassador for Product
Red. After suffering complications in her own 2003
childbirth, and upon learning that over 500,000 women die each year during childbirth, Turlington
was inspired to pursue a Master's degree in Public Health at the Columbia University Mailman
School of Public Health. Turlington visited Swaziland in May 2007 on
behalf of Product Red, and El Salvador and Peru in 2005 and 2008, respectively, on behalf
of CARE. Her involvement with CARE was influenced by her mother, Elizabeth, who has been a longtime
CARE supporter through her former flight attendants’ organization, World Wings. The FEMME project,
a coming together of CARE, Columbia University, and local government, brings health-care practitioners
together to find better methods of serving the large number of women needing assistance
who are too intimidated to seek help in a clinic or traditional hospital.
In September 2010, Turlington participated in a CARE Learning Tour to Ethiopia to investigate
the work being done to reduce maternal deaths. Turlington currently serves on the Harvard
Medical School Global Health Council, and as an advisor to the Harvard School of Public
Health Board of Dean’s Advisors, She is a member of White Ribbon Alliance for Safe
Motherhood and Mother’s Day Every Day. An ex-smoker whose father died of lung cancer,
Turlington is an anti-smoking activist. No Woman, No Cry
Turlington made her directorial debut on the 2010 documentary film No Woman, No Cry. The
60 minute documentary profiles the status of maternal health and focuses on four cases:
from Tanzania, Bangladesh, Guatemala, and the United States. The film made its world
premiere at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival in the United States, and the U.S. television
broadcast premiere aired on the new Oprah Winfrey Network on May 7, 2011. The documentary
earned Turlington a nomination for the Do Something With Style Award from the VH1 Do
Something Awards. Every Mother Counts
Concurrent with the debut of her documentary No Woman, No Cry, Turlington launched Every
Mother Counts, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to making pregnancy and childbirth
safe for every mother. Every Mother Counts informs, engages, and mobilizes new audiences
to take actions and raise funds that support maternal health programs around the world.
EMC currently supports programs in Haiti, Uganda, Malawi, Indonesia, and the United
States. Turlington completed her first New York City
Marathon in 2011, running with Team Every Mother Counts to raise awareness for maternal
and child health. She also ran the 2013 ING NYC Marathon with Team EMC and 2013 Hood to
Coast Relay, which is featured in her documentary film, Every Mile, Every Mother.
Albums Every Mother Counts is a compilation album
that was released in 2011 exclusively to Starbucks, with a proportion of the proceeds to be donated
to CARE and the Every Mother Counts organisation to support its maternal health care programs
in coffee growing countries worldwide. The contributing artists on the CD are: Carla
Bruni, Gwyneth Paltrow, Madonna, Patti Scialfa, Toshi Reagon, Angelique Kidjo, Ani DiFranco,
Dixie Chicks, Rosanne Cash, Sheryl Crow, Jennifer Lopez, Karen Elson, Sinéad O'Connor, and
Martha Wainwright. Every Mother Counts 2012 is a compilation
album that was released in 2012 in partnership with Starbucks. The contributing artists on
the CD are: Bono and The Edge, Eddie Vedder, Paul Simon and Edie Brickell, Faith Hill,
Sade, Lauryn Hill, Rita Wilson, Diana Krall, Seal, Dave Matthews Band, Sting, Alanis Morissette,
Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, David Bowie, Cedella Marley, Beck, Rufus Wainwright,
Patti Smith, and Coldplay. U.S. $8 from the sale of each CD in participating Starbucks
stores during 2012 is "to be given in support of Every Mother Counts".
Personal life
In 2000 Turlington met actor, director, and writer Edward Burns at a Hamptons party, and
by the end of the year they were engaged. In 2002 and just months after buying a New
York property together, they decided to split up. The couple reunited and were married in
June 2003. Despite numerous erroneous media reports, Turlington was not given away by
good friend Bono. Bono attended the San Francisco wedding but Christy said, "He was there, of
course, but I gave myself away. I mean, I was 25 weeks pregnant at the time. Eddie met
me halfway down the aisle." Burns and Turlington have two children: a daughter Grace born in
2003, and a son Finn born in 2006. Christy's sister Kelly is married to Edward's brother
Brian Burns, and together they have a son born in early 2008.
Turlington is involved in yoga and practices a style known as Jivamukti Yoga. She is the
author of the book Living Yoga: Creating A Life Practice. She went back to school in
1994 and graduated cum laude in 1999 from the Gallatin School of Individualized Study
of New York University where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with a concentration
in Comparative Religion and Eastern Philosophy. She has been a Roman Catholic since childhood.
She used to be a vegetarian. See also
References Citations
Sources
External links Official website
Christy Turlington at the Internet Movie Database Christy Turlington at the Fashion Model Directory
Christy Turlington and Cedella Marley for Every Mother Counts