Donyale Luna (1945-1979) was the first black supermodel, cover girl and the first model of ethnic origin to appear on Vogue, appearing on the March 1966 issue.
Born Peggy Anne Freeman on Jan. 1, 1945, Luna was described by a relative as “a very weird child, even from birth, living in a wonderland, a dream.” Her mother wanted her to be a nurse, but after being discovered by British fashion photographer David McCabe, Luna became the first black woman to be featured on a U.S. fashion magazine: the January 1965 issue of Harper’s Bazaar.
According to her birth certificate, Luna was born to Peggy and Nathaniel Freeman, but she insisted her biological father’s last name was Luna and her mother was Mexican. Her reportedly abusive father was murdered when she was 18 and after meeting McCabe, she moved to New York City. Described as having “the tall strength and pride movement of a Masai warrior”, Luna was under exclusive contract to famed photographer Richard Avedon.
Time Magazine published “The Luna Year” in 1966 following the Vogue cover. The article revealed that Luna’s mother was against her move to New York. “She told me, ‘He’s trying to get you to New York to make a bad girl of you.’” It also detailed her toll instant success took on her: “A month after hitting New York, she married a young actor, divorced him after ten months and now will not even give his name.”
“I love New York,” she said. “But there were bad things. People were on drugs or hung up on pot. There was homosexuality and lesbianism and people who liked to hurt.”
“For reasons of racial prejudice and the economics of the fashion business,” said Avedon in the April 1975 issue of Playboy (for which Luna also posed), “I was never permitted to photograph her for publication again.” Luna then fled to Europe.
She was happier there, filling her days with work & eating and her nights with discothèques. The 6’2″ model also appeared in several movies. One critic described Luna as “pure diva, presenting a delicious mobile excess of mannerism”.
Her success, however, could not shield her from her problem with her heritage. In “Luna, Who Dreamed of Being Snow White,” Judy Stone described her as:
“secretive, mysterious, contradictory, evasive, mercurial and insistent upon her multiracial lineage — exotic, chameleon strands of Mexican, American Indian, Chinese, Irish, and, last but least escapable, Negro.”
Media interest in her racial heritage caused her enormous discomfort. When asked whether her appearances in Hollywood films would benefit the cause of black actresses, Luna replied, “If it brings about more jobs for Mexicans, Chinese, Indians, Negroes, groovy. It could be good, it could be bad. I couldn’t care less.”
During an interview in the late ’60s, Luna expressed her fondness for LSD:
“I think it’s great. I learned that I like to live, I like to make love, I really do love somebody, I love flowers, I love the sky, I like bright colors, I like animals. [LSD] also showed me unhappy things — that I was stubborn, selfish, unreasonable, mean, that I hurt other people.”
Around 1976, Luna had a daughter, Dream, with Luigi Cazzaniga, who shot her Playboy pictorial.
Her unprofessional behavior, though, signaled the end of Luna’s career. Beverly Johnson recalled that Luna “[didn't] wear shoes winter or summer. Ask her where she’s from — Mars? She went up and down the runways on her hands and knees. She didn’t show up for bookings. She didn’t have a hard time, she made it hard for herself.” In 1979, Luna died of a drug overdose in Rome.
View candid photographs of Donyale Luna and of her modeling.
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Concrete Loop will feature ‘Black History Spotlights’ each week. These features honor black people through the years and submissions are welcome.
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Oh man, this was interesting, but very depressing.
Personally, one thing I like most about myself is being black. I love it. I’m black.
I feel bad for her, imagine not being happy about being black?
I know back in the day, being black wasn’t the best thing, but she disliked it to a point where she went crazy and died.
Fuck this bitch. She didn’t even admit to being black.
didn’t know this
@dats_da_truth wow prejudiced much? there’s nothing wrong w/being bohemian. it doesn’t mean you’re being white. if anything, bohemian nature is closer to native american than white but that’s beside the pt. you can’t go around generalizing. not all bohemians take drugs or have “sexual deviances”. most of the ones that i know don’t.
@tabby sorry to break it to you but paula abdul never was black. ppl thought she was and she probably didn’t say anything so that she could get black support but she’s syrian. and katherine zeta is white. she’s welsh.
I can’t believe so many of you are being so harsh on her for not owning her blackness. From what I’ve researched, her father beat her, as did an ex-boyfriend who was black, so that could be why she never wanted to be with a black man.
She did have mental issues, and she was a long-term heavy drug user. She died, broke and addicted to heroin, in 1979.
Let me also say that the “groundbreaking” issue of Vogue is nothing Vogue should be proud of – for Christ sakes, they’ve got her covering more than half of her BEAUTIFUL face with her hand. Ashamed to have a black woman on your cover, Vogue?
And Tyra Banks – can I come over and borrow a cup of EGO?
Donyale could out-model Tyra any day of the week.
I just come from her website. She was a beautiful woman! But why do so many fall into drugs? Sad.
agree w/ 7 & 1O
why should we honor her
she FRONTED on being black….
the nicest thing I can say is that the story WAS interesting….
She did appear to onloy be 1/2 black. She looks mixed with Mexican.
Wow! I’ve never heard of this woman before and I see alot of others havent either. She was goregous!
Oh, and she reminds me of Keri Hilson in some her photos.
Some of you need to consider the time period she grew up in, and why she felt they way she felt. It’s no excuse but it is something to be considered. Im sure during that time due to racism alot of ppl wanted to jump out their skin even if they didn’t want to admit it. Thats why people use to “pass”. This was very interesting Thank you Concreteloop im always open to learning more about history.
Thanks, this really was interesting. God made us how he wanted us to be. I hate to hear of people who do not want to be who they are.
Great job again CL!! J. Dakar great work!!
judah, are you refering to tyson?lol
Wow, and I always thought Iman was the first…
@97 she’s not half black she just a pretty white woman look at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Abdul
@97 again catherine just another pretty white woman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Zeta-Jones
i read that eryka smokes marijuana. she is crazy as hell herself. that stuff is probably laced with something. she wears crazy clothes and the crazy hair. she claims she does not smoke marijuana, that it is another herb they found. “yeah, marijuana.” i hear it goes by many names. i hear the young kids talk about the many names. it all sounds sick to me. anything that will add on to your craziness, you should leave alone. actually drug abuse has been known to bring mental illness to the forefront in some people. it was already there, but the drugs made that person’s mental instability clear to others. btw mentally disturbed people think they are just fine and that everyone is just jealous of them or batty themselves.
Thank u for this info CL! Love the site and the focus on Black history makers.
I co-sign with #27.
This chick hated her heritage and NEVER claimed to be black so we shouldn’t celebrate her. I would rather call Beverly Johnson the first black model because at least she did it with pride.
iF YOU DO NOT CLAIM TO BE BLACK OR ARE ASHAMED (TIGER) SHOULD YOU BE CONSIDERED APART OF BLACK HISTORY?
Cl Thank you for these posts! They are educational…you all have stepped up your game.
PS
Black Girls Rock……..
I went to her website and she wasn’t all that to me. Her pictures are a work of art though. Her statement was right, she’s an artist not a model. I just see a skinny women with an overbite. Nothing striking about her at all. She could dress her ass off though. It’s funny to see the same thing they wore back then, they are wearing thi in 2008. I have a few of her outfits and wigs.
@Thinkaboutit
Sis, Oprah is a topic all to her own, lol. She had an episode highlighting and praising the white man’s newest abomination, transgender impregnation, but she cannot have an episode highlighting the government induced gang, drug, education, housing, and crime problems in the black community. Whatever money she donates is for interference purposes to hide the fact that she MUST follow the orders given to her by her caucasian backers or her closet will be opened.
wow, she reminds me of one of my friends. down to the face, the weird actions, and drugs, with the exception of the racial denial part. she is very interesting though. I would have loved to meet her. her daughter is very pretty.
That CHICK PEGGAH WASN’T LIGHT SKINNED. I WISH SHE COULD READ THIS NOW
IN THE WORDS OF HAPPO FROM THE COLOR PURPLE….YOU BLACK , YOU PO’ AND YOU UGLAH!
@144 Oprah is doing the something for the black community, she is a positive role model. Oprah had Bill Cosby on her show a few months ago. She is a Bill Cosby supporter. We all know the controversy Bill sparks. There where more blacks against his realness than for him. And with that said, Oprah is doing the right thing. The people that YOU, and I once thought, where the “black community” don’t want to do better. The ones that do, they go out and get what’s out there for them. There is all sorts of help concerning, gangs,housing and jail. You have to want to do better. I’m hittin all over the place, because I’m trying to say this nicely. Every nigger can not be saved. Nor do they want to. I’ve tried for years. You can try and try until your blue in the face. Some will get it and most won’t. I know one black person Oprah helped, that person is I. Now, I hear some of the same things people say about Oprah, minus her money being said about me. You can’t win. I hate the fact that some Black Americans think Oprah is the answer or problem because she has money. She is doing alright by god and that’s all right with me. Now the ones that should be blasted (black politicians) for not helping black aren’t. Oprah isn’t a politician, it’s not her job to make America a better place for blacks. And what’s wrong with following orders? In order to become a success, sorry, you have to listen to someone.
I think many of you missed the point. This women created her own elaborate heritage in an attempt to deny her blackness. She was not accepting all of cultural background (Mexican, Chinese, Indian etc); she down right lied about her background.
Even if she “tried” to hide her background, any one not on LSD at the time could tell she was black. It was all in her head. I don’t see Mexican when I see her. I see a black women with Indian in her family. Just like every other black with southern roots.
never heard of her, but interesting bio.
I think should would have sustained a successful career and life had she only took time to be comfortable with herself.
I knew about her from my professor who taught photography, He said he had the displeasure of meeting her when he was interning for a few different photographers in NYC. He said she was nuttier than a seven ton bag of squirrel poop. He said that Bev Johnson was the nicest of all the models he ever met though.
Thanks for everyone that visited my visited my site to see my old post on Donyale and my post on the first black movie star. I was torn between finding Donyale’s story interesting and also sad she did not embrace her black heritage and agree with a lot of you that a movie on her life story would be a great idea. The truth is although it’s sad she did not embrace her being black, she was not the only person during that time that did the same. Good job Concreteloop on your coverage!
YES!! I read about her several months ago after my mom and I had a debate on who the first Black supermodel was. Such a beautiful woman, such a tragic story.
Aa lot of people commenting don’t think this woman should be honored or part of a black history lesson but this article is on point. You can’t expect to only here the good that came from our history in America. I find this a good lesson to those who haite themselves b/c of their color. This is a good example of “look how far we’ve come but no so far at all”. Today, blacks still hate on one another, tear each other down b/c one is a red bone, too black, or looks like a white person. No matter what we as a people have to accept ourselves and leave the hate behind. I pity this woman who, as the article stated, at the beginning of her life was “weird” b/c of her dreams. It touched me b/c I was a big daydreamer and people like that aren’t always accepted in our community. It was hard for me in my younger school days b/c of the way I talked and my interest in art, poetry and so on… things most blacks are not interested in. I.E. no one wants to listen to opera with me or to go see one. This woman was born too soon. Had she been born today she most likely would not have had the same feelings about her heritage. But I won’t say she would have completely embraced her heritage b/c, as I said before, many of us can’t do that at present. Use this as a lesson a way to teach our young self love, black love.
WOW!! this was one cool ass article!! Very intresting
I like this article. shows and tells how black people felt back then.
I’m up early posting because I’m restless on the topic of Dr. King and many of our other slain heroes.
Dr. King once remarked to Jesse Jackson and I must paraphrase “I wonder if I am leading my people into the fire” meaning his non-violent turn the other check approach and integration of backs with whites would cause blacks a greater deal of suffering.
Fast forward 40 years later and Dr. King understood his approach needed to change and his message of “acceptance” into the white world could not be further from what he envisioned.
As “minority” we can’t simply want acceptance, we must want equality, we must want the same freedoms of those who enjoyed the fruits of our ancestors(black and brown)We must seek to remove all traces of ignorance and racism by first rebuilding our selves back to the Kings and Queens that we are.
We have allowed ourselves to be prostituted on television, our misery and ignorance has helped to water the seed of racism, we must pull the weed of racism from the Earth by reclaiming the knowledge of self and refusing to stand for the nonsense that we see today.
Men, we must live up to our title as men, we can no longer sit back and watch our women suffer and our babies grow in a world where ignorance reigns. Kings reclaim the thrown that has vacant for too long.
Women, stop answering to the call of bitch and hoe and be the strong, nurturing Queen that you are. Our youth are suffering because we lead them astray by the bs we put out on television and radio. Queens rule side by side with us so we can build a foundation that will last an eternity.
The world of today is not what Dr. King, Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, Fred Hampton, John Africa, and many others have died for. Obama 2008 Yes We Can, of course we can but do not look to others for help, look in the mirror, look at your children, this is where it starts. We have a voice that must be heard!!!
quita in the S.K.Y with diamonds
Thursday, April 3, 2008 /
i’ve done a lot of research on her cool ass. her ass did not ever like or admit to being black. she’s a forgotten traitor. screw her.
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I have to laugh at talk like this. You want to attack people who suffer from this self hatred but you don’t want there to be such a problem. This woman was born and raised in an era in American culture that you will never know. She wasn’t a teenager or young girl with women of color like Beyonce and Ciera and Halle Berry. She didn’t have a lot of role models out there that said to respect and love who you are and your skin color. Instead of bashing her, questioning her “authenticity” to be a pick for Black History month, perhaps you can learn from her life. There are people out there that hate themselves for any number of reasons. Attacking them for it doesn’t help anything. When will people in the Black community understand that you can do a hell of a lot more with LOVE than you can do with hate. Grow up already.
LOOK at the Vogue cover, people!
I’m still wondering why no one has mentioned the fact that she is hiding her face on the “groundbreaking” cover of Vogue.
Geez, if the photographer, editor, or whomever it was told her to cover more than half her face with her hand, that would definitely send a signal that owning her blackness was not cool with them.
Seems like too many people are not even thinking about the era in which this woman lived. It was a LOT different.
I don’t know if Luna had flipped her lid or was just trying to keep the work coming in. Or both.
Cut her some slack.
youtube video with Donyale…kind of strange…but you can see what a graceful beauty she truly was:
i can’t believe you didn’t talk abut joséphine baker !!
She’s beautiful.
Wow, I don’t know the age group that participates on this website, however it is quite apparent that the bloggers are young and don;t have a complete education on racial times or black history. Okay let’s go the media during the sixties was quite racist and still is. Tupac let you know that. Her appearance to Judy Stone the author of the Times a RUSSIAN JEW IN 1968… in a blonde wig and contacts was SATIRE Look white woman and America I am a white woman NOW, Take my Picture.. Josephine Baker deployed the same thing in the thirties… How about in the blog it tells you that she was not recruited to include ethnic beauty or celebrate it.. Segregation was still in place when a Sketch of her appeared on Harpers Bazaar and the photographers and Magazine was threatened by the REDNECK subscribers to cut the minstrel show!!! ANd they cut her from work and her achievement immediately, Black people did not show up to attack them for it or defend her. Why because she didn’t seem to resemble them enough either and to be a model was frowned on by out race it was considered low class . Oh yea and we still take issue with pigment and hair as a race..Black Movement took place in 1968 after she was gone to Europe like so many of our artists prior to her.. How bout there was no Black solidarity or African-American, Black is Beautiful prior to this.. How about the NAACP did not like the term BLACK and wanted to continue to be Negro or colored? How about this woman didn’t have a Black Agent or manager like Berry Gordy? Nor did she have a crew to protect her, no people like hip hop has!!! Her father was dead and could not see about her like Beyonce’s dad. She came from Detroit which was hard because she was different she was tall and had interests in the arts , not a popular thing growing up, because you know we tease to hell. And I do not believe the WHITE RACIST WRITERS THAT HER FAMILY CALLED HER WEIRD TO THEM!!! They don;t give a name of the family member, do they? SHIT people in the neighborhood would have been proud that her ass was on a cover of a BIG TIME magazine for white people only until her!!!!!!She managed to TRAILBLAZE on her own and get more money per picture than any other woman in the world NOT just AMERICA and its white chicks!! How bout it is true that she didn’t want to answer each interview from sarcastic, ugly white people about her family and heritage. Nor did she want to be advocate of the racism that they set forth, she was spiritually enlightened ALL people of color she have opportunity.. And who is really trapped Black people are the only race that cuts down those that proceeded them and that is the only reason we are DISRESPECteD by other races… This woman did something that paved the way for there to be a Beverly Johnson and she immediately played the game and trashed her.. Which is what the White man knows we will always do..Yea , she saw opportunity for herself.
And her achievements do not match this womans!!!! FASHION IS BIGGER IN EUROPE!!!!!and always has been. This woman did her own Makeup which was EGYPTIAN from the day she stepped out!!!!! AND she was only 20 years old alone in other countries in a completely white industry alone and managed to deliver to you a open door domestically and internationally to style in and produce art in. I think it would be good to start reading some books about what people had to endure to give your generation a future. This woman lost her life trying to give you an opportunity to live a little easier and freer.. And what do you do LYNCH them for it when they are dead… UNBELIEVABLE???
All those black people putting her down have no idea why she hated being black. Read her biography – she had a very abusive black father – Duh!!
I find it extreme double standards that black people can attack her, when her very own views on being black are shared by millions of ordinary black women today. How many times do black women spew brainwashed garbage like “she’s too pretty to be black” or “is she mixed with something?” When a black woman is dark skinned, or has kinky hair or something like that, all kinds of vulgar and dirty statements are made against her.
Like everyone went on a witch hunt against Soulja Boy (Africa/slavemaster comments) and Yung Berg (dark skinned women), but the fact remains that many black people hold those beliefs they purported.