page_title: Amanda Lear
section_title: 1965–1974: Modelling and the Swinging London period
hierarchical_section_title: Amanda Lear / Career / 1965–1974: Modelling and the Swinging London period
caption_attribution_description: English: Salvador Dali with his pet ocelot, Babou, and cane.
context_page_description: Amanda Lear is a French singer, lyricist, painter, television presenter, actress and former model.
  She began her professional career as a fashion model in the mid-1960s and went on to model for Paco Rabanne and Ossie Clark, among others. She met the Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dalí and would remain his closest friend and muse for the next 15 years. Lear first came into the public eye as the cover model for Roxy Music's album For Your Pleasure in 1973. From the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, she was a million-album-selling disco queen, mainly in Continental Europe and Scandinavia, signed to Ariola Records. Lear's first four albums earned her mainstream popularity, charting in the top 10 of European charts, including the best-selling Sweet Revenge. Her biggest hits included "Blood and Honey", "Tomorrow", "Queen of Chinatown", "Follow Me", "Enigma", "The Sphinx" and "Fashion Pack".
  By the mid-1980s, Lear had positioned herself as one of the leading media personalities in Italy where she hosted many popular TV shows.
context_section_description: In Paris, Amanda Lear was introduced to the eccentric Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dalí. The self-proclaimed enfant terrible in the world of art, before at the time some 40 years her senior, was struck by her looks and found a soul mate in her. She has since described their close and unconventional relationship as a "spiritual marriage" and remained Dalí's confidante, protégée and the closest friend through the next sixteen years. She would spend every summer with Dalí at his home at Port Lligat in Catalonia and accompany him and his wife on trips to Barcelona, Madrid, Paris and New York. She also took part in his art projects, posing for a number of Dalí's drawings and paintings, including The Dream of Hypnos (1965), Venus in Furs (1968), Angélique Rescued from the Dragon and Bateau Anthotropic.
  On 11 December 1965 in the UK, she married Morgan Paul Lear, a Scottish architecture student, and adopted his name. After showing up at Lucie Daouphars' parisian model school (known as Lucky), she is sent by Gérald Nanty to Karl Lagerfeld's then model maker at Jean Patou's. Amanda Lear is runway model for Lagerfeld and meets Catherine Harlé, the head of a modelling agency, who offered her a contract. With her modelling assignment, she walked for rising star Paco Rabanne in 1967. Just as Harlé had predicted, her looks were very much in demand. Soon after her debut Lear was photographed by Helmut Newton, Charles Paul Wilp and Antoine Giacomoni for magazines such as Beau (1966), mr. (1966), Le Nouveau Candide, Cinémonde (1967), Scandal, Marie France (magazine), Nova, The Daily Telegraph, Stern, Bravo and Vogue. She modelled for fashion designers including Yves Saint Laurent and Coco Chanel in Paris and Mary Quant, Ossie Clark and Antony Price in London. After some time, Lear dropped out of art school to model full-time and went on to lead a bohemian and flamboyant life in the Swinging London of the Sixties.  Lear's acquaintances included The Beatles and fellow top models Twiggy, Pattie Boyd and Anita Pallenberg. In late 1966, she began dating Brian Jones whom she first met prior through Tara Browne. Their relationship inspired Mick Jagger and Keith Richards for the track « Miss Amanda Jones» from Between the Buttons, alluding the romance between Jones and Lear as she's described as "Ms. Jones". She became a "stalwart of London's demimonde", an exotic name on the nightclub circuit and a regular fixture in the gossip columns. The model was arrested in 1967 by the police with drugs belonging to The Rolling Stones. Lear appeared in several advertisements for major brands, modelling among others for a Chantelle underwear range and the Detchema fragrance by a French company Révillon Frères in 1967, and in 1968 played a minor role in a French comedy film Ne jouez pas avec les Martiens and made an appearance in the 1968 British psychedelic film Wonderwall.
  In 1971, Lear modelled for a special Christmas issue of the French edition of Vogue, edited entirely by Salvador Dalí, and was photographed by David Bailey. She performed in a short-lived play along with the singer P.J. Proby in an Islington pub in London and 1972 saw her first on-stage appearance when she introduced Roxy Music and Lloyd Watson at the Rainbow Theatre in London in August. Lear has been briefly engaged to Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music and was famously depicted posing in a skintight leather dress leading a black panther on a leash on the cover of the band's classic rock album For Your Pleasure, released in March 1973, an image that has been described as "as famous as the album itself". Following the exposure to the music world she gained from the album cover, Lear went on to have an affair with the married David Bowie and appeared in the live performance of his hit song "Sorrow" in The 1980 Floor Show held on October 1973, broadcast on November 1973 as part of The Midnight Special TV series. Lear then contributed to the Dalí Museum, opened in the painter's home town Figueres in September 1974, by producing a series of collages decorating the doors of the museum, and was 
caption: Salvador Dalí had a profound impact on Lear's painting career as well as her personal life.[50]
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