Nena von Schlebrügge

In 1963, she got introduced to eccentric psychiatrist, Timothy Leary, through Salvador Dali and in the following year on December 12 she tied the knot with him in Millbrook in the mansion of William Hitchcock.

The marriage event was captured by Donn Pennebaker in a documentary film titled ‘You're Nobody Til Somebody Loves You’. However, she divorced Leary in 1965.

She got married again in 1967, this time with American Buddhist writer, scholar, ex-monk and academician, Robert Thurman. The couple has four children - eldest son, Ganden, born in 1967; daughter, Uma, born in 1970; second son, Dechen, born in 1973 and youngest son, Mipam, born in 1978. The couple has seven grandchildren as well.

Nena von Schlebrügge was born Birgitte Caroline von Schlebrügge on January 8, 1941, in Mexico City, Mexico, to Colonel Baron Friedrich Karl Johannes von Schlebrügge and Birgit Holmquist.

Her father was a German monarchist who served as cavalry officer during the First World War. He ventured into business in Berlin during the 1920s and 1930s. The National Socialists incarcerated him at the time of the Second World War for not rejoining the armed forces and also for protecting Jewish associates and friends.

Her mother, a Swedish national, married her father while the latter was in jail. Birgit then got her husband out of jail using her Swedish national privilege and the two moved to Mexico where their children, Nena and Björn were born.

Birgit posed as model for Axel Ebbe's famous 1930s statue ‘Famntaget’ (‘The Embrace’). It is a nude statue of a woman facing the harbor of Smygehuk in Sweden.

She has one older half-sister from her father’s side who happens to be German-Swedish football player Max von Schlebrügge’s paternal grandmother.

She was first noticed by famous English fashion and portrait photographer Norman Parkinson in 1955 while he was on a tour in Stockholm, Sweden.

A couple of years later in 1957, Nena relocated to London when Parkinson made arrangement for her to model for ‘Vogue’ where he was serving as fashion and portrait photographer. Gradually, she made a position for herself in the world of high-fashion modelling in England.

She then accepted the invitation of Eileen Ford, co-founder and executive of the American international modelling agency, ‘Ford Modeling Agency’ (now ‘Ford Models’), to come to New York City to further her modelling career.

She boarded the ocean, liner Queen Mary, now retired, to reach New York City during the snow storm of March 1958. There, she worked with ‘Harper’s Bazaar’ and ‘Vogue’ thriving to achieve position as one of the top models.

Parkinson photographed her in 1960 for the UK based fashion company ‘Jaeger’. She also posed for many other renowned fashion photographers of that time like Bert Stern, William Klein, Richard Avedon and Gleb Derujinsky.