Models Who Turn to Acting

Are these the Oscar winners of tomorrow? Or tramps on ramps? Hollywood harbours mixed feelings about Models-Turned-Actors or, MTAs, as they are often called. But whether they're being groomed for leads in three-picture deals or exploited as living blow-up dolls, MTAs are sashaying in droves from the catwalk to the casting call. With a hall of fame that includes Cybill Shepherd, Sharon Stone and Kim Basinger, the MTA has long helped put the tinsel in Tinseltown.

But this decade has produced a new breed that starts younger and no longer hides its product-pushing past. The modelling agencies which discover MTAs aren't too thrilled about their moneymakers flying the coop, but there's not much they can do. Beautiful, ambitious and ready for their close-ups, MTAs are auditioning as fast as they can.

Take Famke Janssen. She made a memorable film debut as a Bond girl who crushes her victims to death between her thighs in GoldenEye before moving on to more meatier roles, for instance in Rounders with Matt Damon. Then she played a frumpy English teacher who turns into a sex-crazed vamp in the sci-fi teen flick, The Faculty with Elijah Wood and directed by Robert Rodriguez of From Dusk Till Dawn fame and starred in Woody Allen's picture, Celebrity alongside Kenneth Branagh and Melanie Griffiths.

Shunning the bimbo parts (like Christie Brinkley played in National Lampoon's Vacation) isn't easy, but for the most part, it's what distinguishes the new generation of MTAs. They are storming Hollywood with acting certificates, and Hollywood is interested. For model agencies, losing one of their big money-earners to the film industry is a set-back but there is a certain satisfaction in knowing that they were responsible for giving a girl her start.

As the face of Lancome, Isabella Rossellini was one of the few who managed to successfully maintain both acting and modelling careers, with acting parts since the late 1980s in films such as Blue Velvet and Wild At Heart. But since the cosmetics giant dropped her for a "fresher" face, few have matched her success.