Henrietta Allais, Helmut Newton model (10 images)

Her image sold for $310,000, a record for a nude photograph. She made $75 from the shoot. The Playmate speaks 25 years after she modeled for Helmut Newton.
Her image, naked and defiant, appears on book covers, magazines, billboards; a quarter century after she posed for famed photographer Helmut Newton. Recently, one single print sold for a record $310,000 at auction; but the woman who took her clothes off got less than 70 Euros for the shoot, from Paris Vogue.

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Her image sold for $310,000, a record for a nude photograph. She made $75 from the shoot. The Playmate speaks 25 years after she modeled for Helmut Newton.
Her image, naked and defiant, appears on book covers, magazines, billboards; a quarter century after she posed for famed photographer Helmut Newton. Recently, one single print sold for a record $310,000 at auction; but the woman who took her clothes off got less than 70 Euros for the shoot, from Paris Vogue.

We found Henrietta Allais, Playboy's Miss March from 1980, in Ojai, California, and asked her how she felt that her eight-foot-tall image would sell for so much. How has her life been since then? Twenty-five years after she posed for Newton, her naked body has been on billboards two stories high in major cities around the world, promoting the book "Sumo", which is being billed as the world's largest and most expensive book ever (one single copy costs $5000, and goes to $6500 in less than a month).

A single mother of three children, she works now as a physical massage therapist. It would take her six years to earn the money paid for that single print. The opportunities promised to her, back in 1980, never appeared, and fortunes have been made from those images; but she's not bitter. Rather, she offers a backstage view of Helmut Newton, the man, as well as a very profound and frank look at an industry that glamorizes youth and beauty but doesn't always want to pay for it.

Now a karate expert and yoga student, her strength and courage still radiate. At age 51, the spunk and verve that give life to the original photograph are still apparent, and have perhaps matured to a fine blend of self-confidence and humility. She's found her calling in bodywork, and enjoys a happy life with dear friends, family, and her beautiful children. Despite the intrigue of the subject (celebrity, big money, lust, betrayal), she stands for all women to be appreciated, respected and celebrated.
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