Eileen Ford
Eileen Ford (née Otte; March 25, 1922 – July 9, 2014) was an American model agency executive and co-founder, in 1946, with her husband, Gerard "Jerry" Ford, of Ford Models, one of the earliest and internationally best known modelling agencies in the world.
Early life
Eileen Cecile Otte was born in Manhattan and raised in suburban Great Neck, Long Island, the only daughter of four children of Loretta Marie (née Laine) and Nathaniel Otte. Eileen had been a model during the summers of her freshman and sophomore years at Barnard College, modeling for the Harry Conover Modeling Agency, one of the first in the United States. She graduated from Barnard in 1943.
The next year, she met her future husband, Gerard "Jerry" Ford, at a drugstore near the Columbia University campus and eloped with him, marrying in November 1944 in San Francisco. Shortly thereafter, Jerry, who was in the Navy, was shipped out for World War II. In his absence, Eileen became photographer Elliot Clark's secretary, then later a fashion stylist, copywriter, and fashion reporter for The Tobe Report.
