Take Us Back Christie Brinkley

In a new book, the classic bombshell shares stories from her 'unbelievable' modeling career, marriage to love of her life Billy Joel, the set of National Lampoon's Vacation and so much more

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Her breathtaking beauty aside, curiosity is what brought Christie Brinkley to modeling. Invited to visit to an agency, “I was picturing all these models in gorgeous clothes sitting there waiting for somebody to come in and hire them,” she tells Us with a laugh. “There’d be little hors d’oeuvres, and of course they wouldn’t be eating because they were too elegant. So I [thought], ‘I’ve gotta go see it for myself.’” The rest is, as they say, history. There were personal milestones, including three kids — “the joy of my life” — and four husbands. “I like to say I had two great marriages and two duds,” the 71-year-old jokes of Jean-François Allaux, Billy Joel (the great ones), Richard Taubman and Peter Cook.

In Her Memoir Era

“I’ve always kept journals — they became pretty elaborate for a while, with illustrations” — the perfect foundation for her new memoir, Uptown Girl. Brinkley walks Us through some memorable moments.

Childhood

1950S AND '60s

Michigan-born but California-bred, Brinkley writes about being “whipped, spanked [and] made to gag on soap” by bio-dad Herb Hudson. Those years, she tells Us, were “a black-and-white film [that kept] breaking and skipping ahead.” When she was 8, mom Marjorie (above) divorced him and wed kind TV writer Don Brinkley, who adopted her and older brother Greg. “Our whole life became Technicolor.”

Paris!

1970s