Yes, that is kind of scary--we were just swimming a few weeks ago, and now we are talking about the only day of the year that we pray for snow.
Somehow, I am going to segueway this out to our topic of conversation today, so here goes ...
Today is Cheryl Tiegs' 71st birthday today, and whatever this lady was wearing--a snow suit or a skimpy for the time bikini--she looked great in it.
Did I succeed in my segueway? Who cares! Let's get back to Tiegs!
Tiegs is often thought of as America's first supermodel, and whether that is correct or not, she was certainly the first supermodel whose method of delivery--television and magazines--put her in the upper level of her craft in the 1960s and 1970s.
Born in Minnesota, her family moved to California when Tiegs was a young child.
This became a fortuitous move, as Tiegs, while in high school, posed in a swimsuit ad for bathing suit maker Cole, and the rest is history.
She became as synonymous with the emerging California lifestyle as the Beach Boys did, and her All-American looks and figure ended up gracing probably thousands of bathing suit ads in both magazines and television during the next 20 years or so.
Whether it was for Glamour or Seventeen or Elle magazines, Tiegs was a hall of fame cover girl, turning male heads and often female heads too.
And she was the cover model for other types of magazines, including Time and People, covers she graced several times each.
She was the first model to appear twice on the cover of Sports Illustrated's annual Swimsuit issue, and was featured in this special issue in a range of bikinis, from your standard two piece to a fishnet version, which certainly turned a lot of heads.
But perhaps Tiegs became most famous for her work with Cover Girl. She may have been the first American model to get a $1 million modeling contract, and with Cover Girl being a cosmetics brand, the direction of that campaign was more on her face than on her figure.
But honestly, her figure and how she looked in a swimsuit were her calling cards, and even way past her peak years, when she was in her 50s and 60s, she continued to appear in magazines in swimsuits, breaking age barriers for such models in the process.
Tiegs was named to the "50 Most Beautiful People" list in People magazine in 2008, and has since appeared in a number of other publications, including Men's Health.
She has also designed clothing, acted in numerous TV shows and movies, and even appeared on TV's Celebrity Apprentice.
She has been married four times, and has three sons.
Tiegs' legacy is a great one. She was the true California girl that both the swimsuit and cosmetics industry wanted to promote in the 1960s, the All-American girl with a great look, top to bottom.
Later, she broke all barriers as she continued to ply her trade well into her 40s, 50s, and 60s, demonstrating that there is no age limit for beauty.
And to this day, she is probably one of the only American fashion models that people know by name.
Happy birthday to Cheryl Tiegs, who probably still looks great in a bikini into her 70s.
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