Business career:In the 1980s, together with Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, Naomi Campbell, Paulina Porizkova and Cindy Crawford, Macpherson became part of the new generation of "supermodels". In 1994, she left her agency, Ford Models, to work more lucratively for her own company, Elle Macpherson Inc. This company would serve as a financial and organizational base for her later endeavors.
MacPherson soon went on to produce her own highly popular series of calendars, each of which was accompanied by a "making of" television program in 1992, 1993, and 1994. She used this success as a springboard to create the "Your Personal Best -- The Body" series of workout videos.
Macpherson later diversified her portfolio of businesses, and in 1990 launched her eponymous lingerie collection Elle Macpherson Intimates in partnership with Bendon Limited Apparel. Intimates met with remarkable international success, becoming the single best-selling lingerie line in both Great Britain and Australia Breaking the mold of many spokesmodels, Macpherson took an active role in the development and management of the company, serving as Chief Marketing Officer and later Creative Director. While nursing her second child, she spearheaded the development of a signature maternity bra line. Intimates has retained a high brand recognition into the 2000s, appearing as a featured brand on America's Next Top Model.More recently, MacPherson created her own label of beauty products: Elle Macpherson - The Body. She has launched or served as spokesmodel for campaigns by Boots, Invisible Zinc, and Hot Tuna.
The BBC-TV series The Money Programme aired a documentary which followed the supermodel-turned-entrepreneur Macpherson through her day-to-day business as she continued to develop her international lingerie business.
In March 2008, Elle signed a three-year spokesperson deal with Revlon cosmetics. She has since been featured in print and advertising campaigns for that company.
Acting career:Macpherson made her movie debut playing an artist's model in the 1994 Sirens, which also starred Hugh Grant, Sam Neill, Tara Fitzgerald, Kate Fischer, and Portia de Rossi. Macpherson gained nine kg (20 lbs.) to disguise her athletic frame for the period role. After Sirens, Macpherson followed with a to-year series of acting roles, appearing in films such as Woody Allen’s Alice, Batman & Robin alongside George Clooney, The Edge with Anthony Hopkins, and The Mirror Has Two Faces with Barbra Streisand.
In 1999, Macpherson appeared in five episodes of the American TV series Friends, as Joey's roommate and girlfriend, Janine Lecroix. Macpherson went on to act in the movie Jane Eyre with William Hurt, and she has also appeared alongside Ben Stiller and Sarah Jessica Parker in If Lucy Fell. Her most controversial acting was in the Showtime cable network miniseries, A Girl Thing, in which she plays a woman experimenting with bisexuality along with Kate Capshaw.
Elle played the modeling agent, "Claudia Foster" in the "CW"-network drama series, The Beautiful Life, appearing with Mischa Barton, Sara Paxton and Corbin Bleu. The show centered on aspiring models working for a modeling agency, trying to make it big in New York City, and in the Fashion World. The show was canceled after two episodes.
Extortion attempt:On July 12 and 23, 1997, William Ryan Holt and Michael Mischler broke into Ms. Macpherson's Los Angeles house while she was away on business in Chicago. This pair of criminals stole an estimated $100,000 worth of jewelery, $6,000 in cash, and some nude photographs. The two were arrested on August 4, 1997.
Mischler, 29, pled guilty to one count of attempted extortion and one count of burglary. He received a six-year and eight-month prison sentence. Holt, 26, a former U.S. Air Force enlisted man and a military-justice convict out on parole, pled guilty to one count of extortion, and he was sentenced to one year in prison.
Humanitarian and philanthropic work:
Macpherson is a European Ambassador for RED, an initiative set up by Bono and Bobby Shriver to raise money and awareness for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to help eradicate AIDS for women and children in Africa; she is also an ambassador for UNICEF. In her native Australia, she is an ambassador for the Smile Foundation, which helps the families of children with rare diseases and organizes government research grants.
