
"A bizarre question, I know, but back in the late sixties/early seventies,
I recall a very prolific brunette model whose looks I liked. She was not high fashion/magazine cover material, rather she appeared in countless catalogs and I seem to recall her on Goody hair products as well as other advertisements. She had a very pretty oval face with wide eyes and a mouth in a perpetual open lipped expression - it was rare to see a photo of this model smiling or showing any emotion. She was brunette, often with a good basic Quant style cut & approximately 5'6 or 7". I've scoured the photos here and don't believe that I see her - but here she is on the cover of a book on
60s fashions:"
- message board, MiniMadMod60s
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"OK everyone who was reading Seventeen magazine in the early 70s, remember
those ads? Or Lucy Angle? Colleen Somebody? The very young Cybill Shepherd?"
- alt.fashion newsgroup
"There is who I believe to be the famous model Colleen Corbett on the front cover."
- eBay auction description
"1960s Forest Hills Sexy Model Photographs (UPI Photo & Press Release).
Colleen Corby, the pretty model from Forest Hills, Queens, Long Island that appeared in all the late 1960s fashion magazines. Never a household name like Twiggy but widely recognized by that generation. I believe she was also known as Mollie Corby."
- eBay auction description "I thought I remembered seeing the Corby Sisters on different magazines, one was Cathy Corby and I can't remember her sister's name."
- message board, MiniMadMod60s
"Yes, I remember the Cover Girl commercial. It aired in 1969 or prior, and the one thing I remember from it was her saying, 'Yes, it is my real name,' when referring to her name. I guess some people thought it was a stage name."
- message board, The First Colleen Corby Fan Community |
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"I went to school with her [at] Quintanos on 57St NYC. She was beautiful and boney."
- You Tube comment
"… skirts crept their way up (way up) from the mini (mid-thigh) to the micro (up to the wahoo). Twiggy came out about this time (at 5’6” and 92 lbs and wrecked it for all us gals – Colleen Corby, you did too! At 5’7” and 96 lbs, you should’ve ate more!)"
- Fashion Show
"possibly Colleen Corby - Except I don't remember Colleen Corby having a rack like that."
- forum, Portal of Evil |
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"Oh gosh, I have been looking for anything on her for years, and this is now the first! I used to see her all the time in Sears and she drove me nuts because she was everywhere! and I wasn't particularly fond of her. ... I don't know anything about her, but I emailed some people to ask what her appeal was, what did 60's girls find so attractive about her? Years later, I understood Jean Shrimpton or Twiggy, but not Colleen Corby. And yet she was everywhere. Please explain it. I do keep things on her because I am so curious that she was so huge, and she is pretty. She just seems very, very distant in every picture, like a cardboard model."
- message board, The First Colleen Corby Fan Community
"Colleen if you do read this I just want you to know what a role model you were for me growing up. We would sit in our high school library and treasure each and every one of your photos in Seventeen magazine and then try to recreate your look. I still have one of the dresses you wore in an ad. I saved my money and sent off for it through the mail. I still love that dress to this day. You did more than just model clothes and makeup, you inspired a generation of young women."
- message board, The First Colleen Corby Fan Community
"They always used top models because they sold the patterns as well as they sold the magazines. Colleen was a brand and her picture on a product assured a sale."
- model Linda Morand, MiniMadMod60s
"About my avatar: I get a lot of questions about my avatar. No, she's not me, although she looks like my image of myself. I didn't know who she was until I'd been using her image for a while. Someone told me that she looked like the 1960s model Colleen Corby. I did a websearch, and sure enough, that's who she is."
- blog, StumbleUpon
"Now that I've found this kindred group, I'll have to take my 'TEEN magazines out of their frames and scan the ones that are missing from the gallery. I kid you not... I have framed Colleen 'Teen Magazines hanging on my bathroom walls."
- message board, The First Colleen Corby Fan Community
"I have a folder absolutely stuffed with a collection of photos of her that I have kept all these years. I used to cut them out of mags and catalogues all the time. My best friend and I were always waiting for the new issues every month just for the photos of her .... I have never been able to bear to part with them so they are stored away in the closet. I also have a scrapbook I made of any articles I could find about her. As I said, I was quite a fan!"
- message board, The First Colleen Corby Fan Community
"I remember when I was growing up, my sister and I used to cut up the old Sears catalogs, used to cut out the models, use them for paperdolls. The model I had cut out I later found out was the famous model Colleen Corby."
- blog, MatchDoctor
"At a young age her only source of fashion and beauty was gathered from the pages of Seventeen magazine. Close to her Bible, it was the second best book in her mind. Her role model in Seventeen was Colleen Corby, a very popular model in the 60s. 'I wondered how she had such beautiful dark hair and camera-ready makeup,' says Christi. Christi dreamed of having that same poise, grace and beauty."
- Christi Harris
"She was as cute as a bug's ear, and even though I was just a little thing...I always had to smile at how adorable she was ...."
- message board, Perfume of Life
"Every girl I knew in high school wanted to be Colleen. She was perfection to us."
-You Tube comment
"I am glad she was a brunette and not a blonde. She wouldn't have been so striking. She could project a look of complete innocence, or look like an exotic gypsy. I wanted to look just like her."
- message board, The First Colleen Corby Fan Community
"She had looks, and specifically lips, that boys could dream about, but she also seemed like she could be your pretty best friend."
- "Colleen Corby, The It Model of the '60s You've Never Heard Of", BrixPicks
" ... the most incredible thing is that she had a kind of presence that reached out beyond the two dimensional page, like a familiar friend in a photograph. That is a God given gift!"
- message board, The First Colleen Corby Fan Community |
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"I'd love to know what was truly going on behind those eyes. Was she loving her life? Was she as confident as she seemed? Was there ever any self-doubt... like so many of us faced in those critical teen years? People are often not what they seem. I have to wonder what the real Colleen was like."
- message board, The First Colleen Corby Fan Community
"I sent a letter to Colleen before Xmas, but as yet have had no reply. Maybe she felt it was an invasion of her privacy. But will let everyone know if she does write back!"
- message board, The 60s Supermodels
"I'm not at all taken back or offended by her lack of participation. I mean... that was a different time... a different life entirely. I'm guessing that there's a very real possibility that the Colleen from ... 30-40 years ago is as much a stranger to the 2004 Colleen as she is
to us."
- message board, The First Colleen Corby Fan Community
"I think that Colleen is probably a very practical person and has put her past behind her. Some people are just not that into nostalgia. It probably seems like centuries ago to her."
- model Linda Morand, The First Colleen Corby Fan Community
"Colleen had a younger sister, Molly, who also had a twin brother, Bobby. As a close friend of Molly's in the late 60's and early 70's, I was a frequent visitor to their apt on 57th St. I recall Colleen as being quite self-absorbed. She barely ever acknowledged my presence in her family home. Guess I was invisible."
- You Tube comment
"Once somebody from the Colleen site asked me if I had ever met Colleen and I said no. Then someone sent in a picture of us together! Then it came back to me. It was a Kodel ad where they were shooting several ads in one day. It was all a blur. I must have had three shoots that day. I did see her in the dressing room and was secretly thrilled because she had been an inspiration to me, and one of my favorite models, but we were not introduced and she was not the chatty type, although perfectly polite and friendly. She was perfectly made up and looked great in real life...just like she did in the photos. We stepped onto the set together and 1-2-3 it was over and I never saw her again."
- model Linda Morand, MiniMadMod60s
I was a teen model in the mid sixties for Montgomery Ward and with our tutor, Marilyn Brasher, attended a fashion show in Chicago at a disco somewhere and met this young lady. Very impressed by her poise, yet she was real - real people if you know what I mean. Not snotty like some of the models we met.
- You Tube comment
"Who I'd like to meet: Open-minded people of similar interests. Also, anyone who knows the retired fashion model, Colleen Corby Bernuth. I am a lifelong fan of her's. A Psychic once told me that she and I used to be neighbors and best friends in a past life. LOL But she followed her husband on a quest and left me behind to die in childbirth. Maybe that's why I have never had children in this life. LOL"
- MySpace page
"... as you know Col has a great sense of humor so would love the idea of the bobbleheads, but as Col also has a Lion's dignity would pass on the licensing. LOL"
- model Terry Reno, The First Colleen Corby Fan Community
"I explained that it was 'all in good fun' and that Colleen had an excellent sense of humor. I am certain that she would be the first to admit to even more 'worst photos'."
- message board, The First Colleen Corby Fan Community
"I cannot imagine who modelbrat is; it does not sound like Colleen. She and I spent so much time together, she was a great friend ..."
- model Mona Grant, MiniMadMod60s
"I started this site because of my past love for Colleen. Just to make matters simple and not to get 'heavy' about it. I was abused as a child, probably would have ended up as a teen suicide, but Colleen kept me alive. ... Poor Colleen, I gave her a lot of trouble all those years ago I'm afraid ..."
- message board, The First Colleen Corby Fan Community
"OMG, I loved Colleen Corby ... it sometimes seemed she was the only brunette in a sea of California blondes. And she had a great smile ... so many times in her pictures,
she didn't smile."
- You Tube comment |
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"You see fan sites for just about anybody who was anything back in the 60's and 70's. The fact that Colleen has essentially zero footprint on the Web makes me more curious as to what became of her. My hunch is, and that's what this is, only a hunch, is that she got tired of the rat race of the model biz and dropped out of modeling and retired her professional name. I'm sure she did collect quite a nest egg, and it's my impression she would not be the type to blow it all or become a total burnout like many almost-models. LOL - she could have very well moved to Peoria, got married, lived in anonymity in a tract home with a white picket fence with 2.27 children and .436 dogs, and by now, possibly 2.89 grandchildren.
Maybe she found religion."
- alt.fashion newsgroup |