Photo Album of African American Models, with Many from Ophelia DeVore’s Grace del Marco Modeling Agency

New York City: Bruno of Hollywood and other uncredited photographers, 1960. Photo album measuring 9 ¼ x 11 ¼ inches, containing forty-seven photographs, mainly 4 x 5 inches and smaller with some 8 x 10. Most photos loosely affixed with some having detached. Overall excellent. An album of photographs of African American models from the 1950s and 1960s, many with stamps verso from Ophelia DeVore’s Grace del Marco Modeling Agency. DeVore’s was among the first agencies for African American models and was highly influential, with talent including the first Black supermodel Helen Williams, Shaft actor Richard Roundtree, and pioneering actresses Diahann Carroll and Cicely Tyson. Identified models in this album include Trudy Daniels (Haynes) and Lourdes “Lulu” Guerrero. Guerrero was a cover girl for Ebony and Jet magazines, and had a role on The Jackie Gleason Show in 1958, making her one of the first Black women to have a role as a regular performer on national television. Trudy Haynes had a brief modeling career before becoming the first African American TV weather reporter, working with WXYZ-TV in Detroit in 1963. There is also a photograph of radio DJ Pat Connell; though not a fashion model, Connell was the first African American hired as a staff announcer by CBS. Of interest to historians of African American fashion and media.