Biography for
Veruschka von Lehndorff More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

14 May 1939, Königsberg, East Prussia, Germany

Birth Name

Countess Vera Gottliebe Anna von Lehndorff

Height

6' (1.83 m)

Mini Biography

Her father was a Prussian count (Count von Lehndorff-Steinort) who was involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler in 1944 and hanged that year, when Vera was three. Her mother was arrested, and Vera and her sisters spent the rest of the war in Gestapo camps. They were reunited with their mother after the war, but the family was destitute, and ostracised by other Germans for their father's treachery. She ended up studying textile design in Florence, where a fashion designer first asked her to model. She had first travelled to New York in 1961 as plain old Vera, but failed to secure a single booking. After retreating to Milan for a spell, she returned to take Manhattan under her new name.... Veruschka!

IMDb Mini Biography By: Paula Jo

Trivia

A picture of her (under the name Verushka) was used by British pop group Suede as the cover for their single "The Drowners" (1992). She's nude, sitting on a chair and body-painted like a man wearing a suit.

Vegetarian

Was ranked #23 in Channel 5's "World's greatest supermodel".

A Bert Stern picture of the model and her frequent 1960s photographer, David Bailey, was used as the jacket cover for author Michael Gross' acclaimed 1995 hardback: "Model - The Ugly Business of Beautiful Women.".

Personal Quotes

After returning to New York after changing her name to Veruschka: "I dressed all in black and went to see all the top photographers, like Irving Penn, and said, 'I am Veruschka who comes from the border between Russia, Germany and Poland. I'd like to see what you can do with my face.' "

Where Are They Now

(February 2003) Lives the life of an artist in a rundown area of Brooklyn, with her lover Micha Waschke, a musician who doubles as her assistant.