Lauren Hutton recalls rise from rejection to modeling icon

Lauren Hutton was 82 when CBS News Sunday Morning aired a Jan. 25, 2026 interview in which she said she still held the record for the most American Vogue cover appearances. The segment, anchored by Jane Pauley and featuring Anthony Mason, returned to the same detail that once made agencies hesitate: Hutton’s gap-toothed smile.

In a CBS News transcript, Hutton recalled what she heard in the 1960s: "You've got that space between your teeth, your eyes are crossed a lotta the times. I had improper … everything." CBS News said Hutton was discouraged early on from showing the gap and was made to wear a $300 plastic piece to cover it, a fix she said she would sneeze out and lose. Eileen Ford eventually gave her a chance at Ford Modeling Agency, and Hutton’s face became one of the defining images of late-20th-century fashion.

That career shift carried real money and influence. As the face of Revlon, Hutton became the highest-paid model in history. ABC News reported that in 1973 she signed a Revlon contract worth $250,000 a year for 20 days’ work, and Forbes later described a 1974 cosmetics deal as the first million-dollar multiyear contract for a model. Her rise widened the range of what beauty and advertising could sell, turning a feature once treated as a flaw into a signature.

Hutton’s public image also rested on motion, risk and a refusal to sit still. CBS News described her as having lived among the "bushmen of the Kalahari," and she spoke to Anthony Mason about a life she framed as one of no regrets. That included a near-fatal motorcycle crash on Oct. 22, 2000, during a celebrity group ride near Las Vegas with Dennis Hopper and Jeremy Irons. The Los Angeles Times reported that Hutton suffered multiple leg fractures and was listed in serious condition; a 2001 Times story said she had traumatic amnesia and woke from a coma about 2 1/2 weeks later.

Even after that crash, Hutton kept the same line. "I'd do it again in a second," she said.