Model Nena von Schlebrügge

Nena von Schlebrügge was born in Mexico City to a German father, who was a cavalry officer for the Kaiser in the First World War, and a Swedish mother.  That's not the most interesting thing about her.

Nena von Schlebrügge's parents fled to Mexico to escape fascism in Europe.  She went to Europe after the war, where she became a teenage model, eventually moving to New York to pursue modeling as an adult. She found herself working with the top photographers in the fashion business, including Norman Parkinson (who discovered her) and Gleb Derujinsky, and she appeared in Vogue and Harper's Bazaar.  The picture below is from Vogue, from March 1962 and taken by Horst P. Horst.

She later appeared in filmmaker Edie Sedgwick's Ciao! Manhattan, but her scenes were cut.  By then, 1967, she married Buddhism expert Robert Thurman, and she embraced his cause to preserve Buddhist and Tibetan culture. They are still married today.

And yes, she's the mother of actress Uma Thrman, an earlier honoree on this blog.  She sired three other children as well.

Nena and Robert Thurman founded the Tibet House US Cultural Center of H. H. the Dalai Lama, whose purpose is to present and preserve the heritage of Tibet. Since 2001, Nena von Schlebrügge has been the managing director of the Tibet House-owned Menla Mountain Retreat, which is the home of a medicinal spa.

Not just another pretty face.  Below is a picture of her today. 

And if you think all of that is astonishing, here's another fun fact for you - before she met Robert Thurman, she'd been married to Timothy Leary for a year.