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thejetsetblog · 7 years

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Short Models Matter Too

Standing at a whopping 5′2″, I am 2 inches shorter than the average height in the United States. You might be thinking, “You’re not a midget, you’re not that short.” It surprised me a little to find out that the average height of women in the U.S. is 5′4″. With my family roots being Vietnamese, statistically I am actually not that short. Ironically, in all my circle of friends growing up I was either the shortest or among the shortest of the group. So why is the minimum height for most modeling agencies strictly 5′7″ - 5′8″? In the fashion industry, especially runways, beauties from across the globe stun the crowd in gorgeous designer outfits and bikinis. All are tall and thin, gracing the stage with their noticeably long legs. Even in my most recent trip to Miami Swim Week, all the models were considerably taller than the average American woman. However, certain companies were not as strict to the height rule. For the most part, it should be noted that the majority of the models were indeed at least 5′7″ without heels. One particular runway line caught my eye, however. In fact, I think they caught everyone’s eye. For me, this was the first time I witnessed a fashion runway and saw plus size models. I was truly grateful to see at least one company break the standards, and bring not only diversity to the stage but almost history.

I started my modeling career via Instagram. The camera I used to start capturing my modeling photos was my iPhone 5. At the time, my photo shoots consisted of me turning to my friend at the time and say “Hey! Can you take my picture really quickly?” or I set my GoPro on a timer and walked back and forth in front of it until I got the shot that I liked. When I first started playing the Instagram game, it was still relatively new. Most people have not downloaded the app, and the term “Insta-famous” wasn’t even relevant. I had a few friends who have already been doing photography at the time, but I was too scared to tell everyone that I wanted to be a model. I was in my second to last year of college, and I had so many things I wanted to accomplish and was too afraid too. Growing up, I was always very shy and slow to warm up to. I was super uncomfortable with myself, had trouble making friends, and I always wanted to be somebody besides myself. I loved sports and I let that be my rock, school was my forte, and I did meet some very good people but I was still on a soul searching journey. I’ve always wanted to be a role model where girls like me could look up to. I needed something to help me break out of my shell, I needed something to help me gain my confidence. I wanted to help and inspire people, whether or not I was in a medical field. I wanted to see someone go out there and break the standards, because kindness became rarer and rarer every day. We needed more kindness in the world. I wanted girls to see someone who not only earned a degree, but earned a degree while chasing their dreams too.

Upon starting my Instagram, I renamed my original account and vamped it up to become my modeling platform and portfolio. At the time, Alana Blanchard ( @alanareneblanchard ) was (and still is) my biggest inspiration. She is dubbed “the world’s hottest surfer” and not only is she a stunning model, she is also a talented athlete. She really inspired me, and I basically learned how to model from her. I ultimately taught myself to model, and I slowly became more comfortable in front of the camera. Not only did I teach myself how to model, I also taught myself how to surf. I whipped myself into tip top shape, I strengthened my shoulders by paddling 2 miles at beach every day for almost an entire summer. I created my own routine at the gym, and got into the best shape since my basketball years. I gained my following very quickly. I posted photos of my every day lifestyle. I had surfing shots, and even skimboarding shots. I snapped shots of my outfits I put together, and mainly I had beachy and bikini lifestyle shots. I just made my Instagram fun, and I wanted people to share in it too. Slowly, I wrangled in about 70 - 100 followers almost every day. It was all an organic following. In addition, companies started collaborating with social influencers so the bikinis and e-mails started pouring in. The more I kept creating, the better and better I became. I learned as much as I could every step of the way. I eventually caught the eye of some big companies. Sun Bum scouted me out to bring me on their team, and I won an amazing contest with O’Neill Women’s (see the links at the bottom of my page). I went to my first surf expo in Orlando and it felt so amazing to hear people be so in love with my work and congratulate me on how far I’ve come. Everything started to fall into place. I slowly started believing in myself as I created my dream career, and starting achieving my goals. I found myself in modeling, and I fell in love with it. I loved creating something beyond words. My content and photography started to become my world, and I couldn’t have been happier. Everything comes with their challenges, however. With all good things come the haters, and a lot of scam artists. Unfortunately for them, they never ended up breaking my spirits and I have always found a way to be stronger and better.

After I graduated college and earned my Bachelor’s degree in Biology, I tried my best to make modeling a full time job. I managed to get booked by very cool companies, I got to meet and become friends with some amazing people, and I became so confident in front of the camera. I continued to find myself, and who I wanted to be. And I wanted to keep inspiring and helping people. It became easier for me to constantly create photos and set up my own shoots. It basically became second nature, and if I couldn’t figure something out I constantly worked at it until I improved. I became established and respected, but I’m still not at the point where I’m constantly booking modeling gigs or I wasn’t always paid for my posts on my Instagram. Instagram started changing its algorithm as it became more and more common for girls to become “Instafamous.” Though there is a lot of negativity that stems from social media, there is a lot of good that can be brought from it. Instagram breaks the height barrier that most modeling agencies implement. In my photographs, most people cannot guess what my actual height is. Most people have told me that they thought I was a lot taller. Some companies don’t even use modeling agencies to book their models, and a lot of the models they actually book are shorter than 5′7″. Recently, I contacted a few agencies and even visited one in the hopes of making my dreams a full blown career. Friends that have visited agencies gave me advice saying that seeing a model in person is considerably different than an e-mail. So I decided to visit a couple. My first one seemed promising, I received very good feedback. Sadly, I didn’t receive a callback. I visited one in Miami while I was traveling in south Florida. The first person that saw me, she turns her chair towards me and says “How tall are you?” I reply “5′2″ and she contests and asks if I had called the agency before coming to their office. I reply with “No” and they told me about their strict height requirement. So all in all, they refused to talk to me any longer, refused to look at any of my photos because I was “too small.” They gave me the names of local commercial agencies because they do not have a strict height requirement and sent me on my way. I think I lasted about a total of 2 minutes. Deflated, I left as fast as I possibly could only to get stuck in a flash flood in my car.

I was extremely disappointed with my experience at the agency. Though there is other types of modeling besides high fashion and runway, I was disappointed to get rejected. With so many other beautiful models out there especially on Instagram, booking gigs has become difficult. It has made it very competitive especially in Florida, since we do not have as progressive of cities like L.A. and N.Y.C. so it takes a little bit of digging around to continue networking. Regardless, I learned to take my experience with a grain of salt. I couldn’t let one bad experience ruin everything I have accomplished so far. Just because my path was a little rockier than others, it didn’t mean that it was all for nothing. Ashley Graham is currently the most famous plus size model, who graced the cover of Sports Illustrated. With plus size models hitting the runway in Miami, it was only a matter of time until a model shorter than 5′8″ hit the runway. With companies like Hollister Co. changing the look of their models completely, the standard for models have changed and made quite the step forward to be a realistic representation of women. In their newest campaign, all the women look real. There is not one specific look, or one specific type of girl. And most importantly, they look happy. In addition, Aerie campaigns don’t use any photoshop on their models. So who’s to say the runway and high fashion is only for the tall models? With all the progress that I’ve seen over the years, It’s only a matter of time until modeling changes its standards across the boards. I’ve come so far beating the odds, and it just takes that one opportunity to change everything. So until that day, I still aspire to be a model even if it’s not with an agency. There’s a lot of professional and other types of fashion I can model for. I’ve already done it. So please, share my story. I hope I continue to inspire others to chase their dreams too.

#antm #Model #storytelling #dreams #inspire #truth #modeling #tyra banks

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auburnfamilynews · 4 years

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Roy Tatum, 75, says he almost got the Bo Duke gig in The Dukes of Hazzard. They called him in for three auditions, but eventually went with a much younger, much blonder John Schneider. No hard feelings. He wound up as FBI Agent #3 in the second episode.

He had some pretty big parts over the years (and even starred in 1983’s Don’t Change My World), but save his stint as Bigfoot, most roles were like that — nameless, law enforcement types. Cop #1 in Door to Door (1984) starring Jane Kaczmarek. Cop #2 in Our Winning Season (1978) with Dennis Quaid. Deputy Jason in The Great Bank Hoax (1978) starring Ned Beatty. He was also Connecticut Patrolman, the first cop to let the law-flouting, cleavage-flaunting Lamborghini Girls (Adrienne Barbeau and Tara Buckman) off the hook for doing 160 mph in Cannonball Run (1981).

He’s only done one film in the past 25 years, a 2007 horror flick called Chupacabra. He played Police Officer #1. Wasn’t even credited. Things have changed.

These days, Tatum’s only connection to showbiz is Christian broadcasting on mission trips to central and South America with his Marietta, Ga. church, and occasional appearances on Friends and Neighbors, a Christian TV show produced in Atlanta and hosted by his wife, Sherry. He and Sherry currently live in Cartersville, Ga. They’re both ordained ministers. They actually met in Opelika, on the set of Norma Rae (1979). Sherry was Velma Stockhouse, the woman who faints right before the vote to unionize. Roy played Woodrow Bowser, one of the mill bosses…

… and Bart Raynolds, the role that launched his career.

“Yeah, Bart Raynolds” he laughs. “I mean, I wasn’t going to forge the man’s name.”

But he had to do something. Because when the cast broke for dinner on his first day on set, a squealing mob was outside waiting, and not for Sally Field.

“I walked out there and all the gals came,” Tatum says. “I’m not saying I’m anybody. They’re just assuming, because Sally Field was there, that I’m the guy (Burt Reynolds).”

The Guy and Field had just started dating. That the Guy was popping into town to see his new girlfriend was no secret. Opelika was abuzz.

“There’s, like, 15 girls there and I’m thinking that I’ve walked into something here that I might not be able to back away from,” Tatum says. “They’re wanting autographs, and I’m like, how am I going to get out of this?”

Tatum was used to stares, especially out in L.A. But he could usually convince his waitress–except that one in Montgomery that time; “just don’t tell anyone I’m in town,” he finally told her– or the person sitting next to him on the plane, that his name was, in fact, Roy Tatum. This was different. He adapted.

“I gave them what they wanted,” he says. “But instead of writing Burt Reynolds, I wrote Bart Raynolds.”

They bought it. And why wouldn’t they?

For one brief, mustachioed moment, Roy Tatum was the world’s premier Burt Reynolds look-alike, at least according to Aunt Billie and her favorite tabloid.

“My aunt lived in Florida, and she would always tell me I looked like Burt Reynolds,” Tatum said. “At the time, I really didn’t know who Burt Reynolds was.”

The time was the mid-1960s. Burt Reynolds career was then mostly confined to television, which Tatum didn’t have much time for. College football keeps you busy, especially if you’re as good as Tatum was. He was a blue chip defensive tackle out of Flomaton who turned down offers from several SEC schools to go to Auburn. Four years later, he turned down a Canadian Football League contract to stay on the Plains as a graduate assistant.

His senior season, 1967, was by far his best. He finished with 45 individual tackles and 49 assists, good enough for second for Auburn’s Headhunter award–and frequent praise from Auburn head coach Shug Jordan.

“From the start of fall practice until the end of the season, Roy Tatum was the biggest surprise on the defensive unit,” Jordan told a reporter. “He gave us a great effort every week and graded higher than anyone else in the defensive line.”

(Oh, and he got Bear Bryant to admit that Auburn should have won that damn game.)

There was no denying Tatum’s talent. There was also no denying the resemblance, which was so uncanny, it eventually won Aunt Billie $25.

After taking an insurance job in Atlanta in 1970, Tatum began dabbling in modeling. He started taking some theatre classes at Emory. He signed on with a talent agency. He got some portfolio photos. Aunt Billie was thrilled.

“She said ‘send me a picture of you,’ so I sent her a picture,” Tatum says. “And I said, ‘what are you going to do with this?’ And she said ‘well, there’s a newspaper down here called the National Enquirer.'”

Tatum had never heard of it. But the man who called him a month later sounded real enough. His name was Stuart Lichtenstein, a top publicity rep for the Enquirer, which had recently started holding celebrity look-alike contests — and which had never seen a Burt Reynolds as good as Roy Tatum.

“I thought he was pulling my leg,” Tatum said. “He said ‘no, this is a legitimate deal.’ He said ‘of all the pictures we have, yours looks more like him than anyone else’s.'”

The picture ran on page 26 of the paper’s Jan. 20, 1974, issue, along with an interview about Tatum’s burgeoning acting career. It didn’t stop there. Lichtenstein flew Tatum to Los Angeles for a media tour, including an episode of The Merv Griffin Show. Tatum walked out and the audience thought he was Burt Reynolds. He knew that was a big deal. He didn’t realize how big until he got back to his hotel room.

“My agent called and she said ‘I got half a dozen calls here for you to work, to do jobs,'” Tatum said. “I was like, ‘you got to be kidding me, Kathy.’

“So that kind of started a film career for me.”

But despite that career actually including speaking roles in one of his films (and a film starring his girlfriend), Bart Raynolds only met Burt Reynolds one time.

“He was in the July 4th parade or something here in Atlanta, and a buddy of mine here knew him down in Florida when (Reynolds) was (a football player) at Florida State,” Tatum says. “My buddy said ‘you need to meet him, you look just like him.’ I said ‘I don’t want to do that.’ He said, ‘yeah come on, let’s go down there.’ So we went down and there he was, sitting up on the floats, and we looked at one another and it was like ‘golly, we really do look alike don’t we?’ I shook his hand and that was it.”

Tatum was fine with that being it.

“I did some national commercials and stuff, and they played off the similarity,” Tatum says, “but it was never my intent to wander around America posing as Burt Reynolds.

“It was fun to play along with, but it did get old after a while.”

In 1983, Tatum got a part in The American Snitch, which IMDB describes as a “satire spoof about a ‘National Enquirer’-type tabloid featuring a cast of celebrity look-alikes.”

He wasn’t one of the look-alikes.

He played a guard.

Keep Reading:

Burt Reynolds surprising connections to Auburn

How former Auburn football player Roy Tatum found God, stopped cussing, and changed the script of ‘Cannonball Run’

The Finest Tackle of ’67: An Iron Bowl Story

from The War Eagle Reader https://www.thewareaglereader.com/2020/04/former-auburn-football-star-got-acting-start-as-worlds-premiere-burt-reynolds-lookalike/

#IFTTT #Blogger #auburn #auburn fast #wareagle #AuburnFamilyNews #war eagle #sec #football news #aubu

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