Chelita Secunda

Chelita Salvatori was born to a wealthy white Trinidadian family - her mother, Connie, was English, and her father's family were from Corsican origin. As a girl, Chelita was sketched by Pablo Picasso, and was educated at the Lycee in South Kensington, London, and in Paris, from where she ran away because, as her childhood friend Barry Powell recalls, "she hated the nuns". When she was 18, her father died from burns after his yacht had blown up. Returning to London in 1963, Chelita Salvatori was taken up by the photographer Norman Parkinson, a family friend whose introductions helped launch her into the fluid 1960s society. Parkinson also introduced her to Harpers Bazaar, beginning a career in journalism during which she worked for IPC (as features editor for Woman), and as fashion editor of Nova. She also met and married the pop manager Tony Secunda. In 1966, when the designer Ossie Clark's collection combined blue and green, Secunda "dyed her hair blue to celebrate and became her PR". She joined Clark and Alice Pollock's venture, Quorum, as promoter of Clark's designs, and would work with Sir Mark Palmer in his model agency, English Boy. Soon Chelita was on phone number terms with The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, and was responsible for hiring such models as Amanda Lear. She pre-empted glam rock with her "mad rainbow eye make-up - green and orange, her cheeks highlighted in pink, and over that, reflective diamonds and sequins". In 1970 Chelita was engaged by Marc Bolan's wife June as PR for Bolan's group T. Rex. In 1972 Chelita made a cameo appearance in Bolan's film, Born to Boogie (1972), dressed as a nun. She was T.Rex' Mickey Finn's lover during the heyday of T.Rex, and like him she battled serious addiction to heroin for many years. In 1979 Chelita left London for Trinidad with the intention of "escaping the smack stigma and setting up a small hotel," She did recover, attending Narcotics Anonymous; in 1988 she went to the Wiltshire clinic "Clouds", and kicked the habit. In the mid-1980s she became the London correspondent for the Parisian magazine City; and later performed the same role for the influential Japanese magazine Hanatsubaki. Derek Jarman gave her a part in his 1986 film Caravaggio (1986). Chelita organized the Alternative Miss World competitions for Andrew Logan, who had known her since the early days. Logan's 1987 portrait shows her clad in a bright yellow turban, with a heart containing a portrait of her daughter, Tallulah. Chelita had only recently moved to Marrakesh, where she had been working single- handedly to open a hotel, an effort which may have brought on the heart attack that killed her.