If Jerry Hall, Rupert Murdoch’s new fiancee, looks familiar, it’s no wonder. The willowy ex-model was not only once married to Mick Jagger, but she’s appeared on album covers, been the face of cosmetics and used to pop up on David Letterman’s old NBC talk show.
Here are five things you may not know about the soon-to-be Mrs. Murdoch:
1. She’s from Texas, which is obvious from her voice.
She was born in Mesquite in 1956 and has a twin sister named Terry. Jerry isn’t a nickname: According to the UK site The Genealogist, her truck-driver father wanted boys.
Jerry Hall grew up tall — she stands 6-foot even, which means she’s taller than the 5-foot-10 Murdoch — and became a model when she was discovered by a scout on the French Riviera on her first trip to Europe, paid for with money she received after treatment for a car crash. She was about to turn 17.
She’s also never lost her drawl. A 2010 Guardian article described her voice as “full of unpredictable stresses.” Letterman used to have great fun talking to her in the ’80s.
2. She was one of the leading models of the ’70s and was in demand for many years.
Her career took off immediately, with her first session conducted by famed photographer Helmut Newton. She appeared on the cover of UK Vogue six times in 1975-76 alone, as well as covers of Cosmopolitan, Interview, French Elle and — in the mid-’80s — Australian Playboy.
She’s also been in ads for Dior, Revlon and Thierry Mugler’s Angel perfume, the latter in 1995, when she was in her mid-40s.
3. Before Jagger, there was Bryan Ferry.
Bryan Ferry, the suave lead singer of Roxy Music, met Hall in 1975 and was immediately taken with her. She appeared on the cover of the band’s 1975 album “Siren” and in the video for his solo song “Let’s Stick Together.” He even, according to some sources, gave her an engagement ring.
But the romance didn’t last. She started seeing Jagger while she was still with Ferry. The breakup with Ferry was painful, she wrote.
“Mick just had this charm, and I was really crazy about him. I was so fickle,” she said, according to a Washington Post profile. “I went back to Bryan, but when you have an affair with someone you care about, it’s never the same. It ended up quite badly.”
4. Jagger was a good father. Not so much of a husband.
The two were together for more than a decade before getting married in Bali in 1990, a marriage that was later annulled. The couple had four children: Elizabeth, James, Georgia May and Gabriel.
She was asked to write a memoir about her life but ended up returning the advance when the publisher decided it wasn’t gossipy enough. “I just can’t remember bad things. I guess I’m just lucky!” she told the UK Evening Standard in 2014.
“He has wonderful relationships with each of the children. He takes a huge interest in their education, and he’s very keen on physical fitness, good manners. He’s quite old-fashioned in his way,” she said.
But Jagger’s eye for other women finally did their marriage in.
“Mick is a restless one, a bit of an alley cat,” she told the Guardian. She knew it was over after the birth of Gabriel, their youngest. “I thought, ‘Right, done that, he’s served his purpose.’ “
5. She’s been in a reality show.
Sure, these days, who hasn’t? Hall’s was called “Kept.” It premiered on VH1 in 2005 and lasted all of 10 episodes.
The idea was that Hall would interview 12 men and then pick one to become, essentially, her boy toy. The winner was a man named Seth Frye, who told a South African website that he won $100,000 but never saw anything else afterward — including Hall.
The point is academic now, thanks to Murdoch.
