Janice Dickinson: Breaking the Mold

IFQ’s Nicole Holland sits down with Janice Dickinson during NATPE 2007 (National Association of Television Program Executives) in Las Vegas as she promotes The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency. Produced by Krasnow Productions and FremantleMedia North America, The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency is in its second season on Oxygen, the only cable network owned and operated by women, and is currently available in over 58 million homes.

The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency series is already a huge hit worldwide, having now sold into a massive 19 territories right across the globe. LIVINGtv, UK, Kanal 4, Denmark; Kanal 5, Sweden; TV Norge, Norway and OnMedia, South Korea will soon be joined by a vast array of brand new broadcasters.

Set to launch The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency are: TV3, Eire; Fox 8, Australia; Canwest Media Works in Canada; MTV3, Finland; RTL4, Holland; VT4 Belgium, IBC, Iceland; Hot Vision, Israel; KTN, Kenya; Mnet, South Africa; TVB, Hong Kong; Media Prima, Malaysia; ABS-CBN, Philippines and UBC, Thailand.

In this candid interview, Janice opens up about her modeling agency, Studio 54 and her role in the independent documentary The Self Destruction of Gia. Janice is the executive producer and star of The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency, an accomplished best-selling author, the world’s first supermodel, an AIDS activist, a caring mother and she is fashionable, witty and brutally honest. This interview takes you on the other side of the camera.

IFQ: How did the concept of The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency evolve?

Janice Dickinson: The concept evolved by meeting Stuart Krasnow (Krasnow Productions and executive producer of The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency). I wanted a producer who would get in back of me and support me as a team player so that I could go for another eight years on the show. I always wanted to be in the modeling industry, always being the world’s first supermodel, photographer and author and I always wanted to remain in the industry of fashion. As the way you look Nicole, I mean you are fashionable – Louboutin-ed, Dolce and Gabbana-ed and Balenciaga-ed out. I love fashion.

IFQ: What will we experience on The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency?

JD: You are going to experience more honesty, drama, hotter men, better models and I’m finding and grooming the next Kate Moss. I’ve got J.P. (Calderon) and Sorin – just a whole bunch of fun.

IFQ: What’s your opinion on the caliber of models on America’s Next Top Model?

JD: No! No!

IFQ: Vs. The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency?

JD: I accumulate models and then they [ANTM] eliminate them. I don’t. Our show is not a contest.

IFQ: With today’s new crop of girls, who do you think defines “model”?

JD: Well, I’ve got a girl from the Sudan, Nyabel, who has the most graceful walk. I have a baby Naomi Campbell who is going to blow Naomi off the map. Being in the industry for 32 years, I know what works and I know what doesn’t work. Well, you work! You have an IT factor, obviously. I only can tell when I see it, when I look in someone’s eyes.

IFQ: Whose 15 minutes has expired?

JD: K-Fed and Britney.

IFQ: What’s your opinion on the celebrity model trend?

JD: I don’t buy into it. I’m doing an agency to put models back on the covers of magazines where they belong and back in the advertising campaigns as oppose to Julia, Sarah, Halle Berry, Mischa Barton. They are not models. I want models to model like back in my day when I was on the cover of every magazine and in the advertising. So I’m just trying to assist in getting J.P. and Sorin work for male models and elevate them to the next level because they deserve to be getting the rates that females are getting and as much attention because they work twice as hard.

IFQ: Sum up your experience regarding the reality TV shows-The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency, America’s Next Top Model and The Surreal Life.

JD: Reality television has put food on the table for my children, assisted in the payments for their private education and it’s given me a wider range and a larger voice to promote the issues and the topics underlying being the world’s first supermodel and who I am and what I’m trying to create and my legacy. They all stem from the books that I have written – New York Times Best Sellers.

IFQ: Yes, I read No Lifeguard On Duty.

JD: No Lifeguard On Duty, Everything About Me Is Fake and Check, Please! I’m just doing three more books and entitled Avalanche of Time, Janice and Her Men and They Loved to Be Left Standing in the Rain. It’s all about truth and honesty and always encompassing the fashion industry.

IFQ: Can you talk about your upcoming books that you are writing?

JD: No. Not yet. But when I do, I’ll give you the first interview.

IFQ: Also, why did you decide to write No Lifeguard On Duty?

JD: I decided to write these books because I had unresolved issues as a child, from a fucked-up family, and I wanted to come out and help other people and share my experiences, hopes and dreams. If it can help one person, then I’m doing my job as a human being.

IFQ: How do you multi-task motherhood, run a business, write books, photography and mold up and coming models?

JD: I just do. I do it, like the Nike ads. Just do it.

IFQ: How do you deal with fashion and entertainment criticism?

JD: Entertainment criticism is not the word as far as fashion. Vogue, Bazaar, Allure, Marie Claire, Glamour – magazine editors and designers are the word of fashion, certainly not the entertainment industry.

IFQ: You are not the typical American blonde girl next door, so how did you break into the fashion scene when the Marcia Brady look was in demand?

JD: Through a lot of pounding the pavements in New York City and clawing my way to the top. I was discovered by Lorraine Bracco, Jacques Silverstein and Dominique Silverstein on a go-see. I just knew that my ethnicity and my ethnic looks were just as good as the Marcia Brady types and the girl next door. I just believed in myself.

IFQ: Compare and contrast the modeling scene in the ’70s vs. present day.

JD: No comparison. It was way more fun back then.

IFQ: Can you tell me a little bit about your Studio 54 days?

JD: Yeah, I went there every night. It was the epicenter of hedonistic fun and every night you would see Halston, De Niro, Bianca Jagger, Diana Ross. You would see everybody who was anybody trying to get into the door. That’s the premise of book four: They Love to Be Left Standing in the Rain. People would be waiting hours in the rain to get into the epicenter of hedonism. Fuck LA, fuck Vegas – it was Studio 54. You would sit down and pull out cocaine (reaches behind couch cushion) and there was sex down in the basement. It was fabulous.

IFQ: Who was your favorite person to party with back in the day?

JD: Iman.

IFQ: You were featured and gave an emotional, heartbreaking account in JJ Martin’s phenomenal independent documentary The Self Destruction of Gia (2003). Why did you decide to take part in the documentary?

JD: (Pauses)

IFQ: Not many people have seen this film.

JD: I co-wrote Gia (1998) with Jay McInerney, which made Angelina Jolie a star at the Golden Globes. Gia – I feel responsible for her because I broke the ethnicity mold for Cindy Crawford, Gia, J. Lo and the rest of those ethnic looking chicks and gave them a kick-start. I get a lot of criticism from my family, from friends, from people who I work with because when you ask me questions, I don’t edit, I answer with the truth. I’ve lived from experience.

I did that project [The Self Destruction of Gia] because Gia was not depicted in a proper light in Gia (1998). They did not depict Gia, how Gia truly was – a light, airy person – also, like me. She was the first documented lesbian in the industry who died tragically because agents did not get her the help when she began shooting heroin. She became a junkie and tragically died when she contracted the AIDS disease, which I’ve lost millions of people already…well, thousands of people. I could sob. It’s so sad. That, I really remember. It evokes a memory of a girl who should have lived.

IFQ: You are involved in charity work, as well, right?

JD: I’m an AIDS activist. It’s a tragic disease. I will do anything I can to help someone who has less than I do or doesn’t have the right values, to the dangers of drug addiction. It’s (HIV/AIDS transmission) through blood transfusions or sharing needles or having unprotected sex.

IFQ: Describe your typical day – “the day in the life of Janice Dickinson.”

JD: I wake up every morning with a smile on my face and I get down on my knees and you know what, I try to do the best job I can. I just got off the phone with my son Nathan. No matter what I do, he’s 19 and he has an opinion that I’m not doing things properly. I’ve learned just to say, you know what I’ve had enough of you. I’m learning as a parent that I’m never going to be good enough in their eyes. Ever. I was the same. I hated my parents in my teens, but now when I look back as fucked-up as my family was and dysfunctional, I really miss that type of family, being a part of. Now I have my own family, but it’s horrible to learn how to function within dysfunction. But don’t forget the word “fun” as in “function,” so I’m trying to have fun in a dysfunctionally functioned functional lifestyle. Capiche?