Chameleon

Anita Russell is the Lone Ranger of the modeling world. Everybody knows her work, but almost nobody has "seen" her face. Actually, Anita's anonymity is her fortune. She's a character model whose wild, even bizarre portrayals have earned her a top spot in the New York modeling sorority. Anita was the gold digger on the cover of New York and one of "the sexiest girls in America" on the cover of Esquire (above). She was also the girl on the billboard for the Rolling Stones' album Black and Blue (left)--portraying the sex object in a not-so-subtle S/M tableau that featured her bound and bruised and anything but beautiful. She almost missed out on the assignment because head Stone Mick Jagger thought she was too pretty. Anita assured him that she could also look ugly--and was so convincing that Mick himself helped tie her up. Cries from outraged feminists over that one gave her career an unexpected publicity boost, but the controversy surprised Anita. "People should have more of a sense of humor," she observed. When not on the action side of the lens, Anita busies herself with acting and dance classes. Weekends, she rides her chestnut thoroughbred, Ocean Warrior, to the hunt. Anita has her heart set on a film career. Her obvious physical attributes would seem to make her a sure bet for the "sex symbol" label, but that doesn't bother her: "To me, that's a compliment." And, we might add, a well-deserved one.