- Nena von Schlebrügge
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Birgitte Caroline 'Nena' von Schlebrügge (born 8 January, 1941) is a Mexican, former fashion model of the 1950s and 1960s and is now the managing director of Menla Mountain Retreat.
She was born in Mexico City in 1941, the daughter of a Swedish mother, Birgit Holmquist, and a German father, Friedrich Karl Johannes von Schlebrügge. Her maternal grandmother's parents were German and Danish. Her mother served as Axel Ebbe's model for Famntaget (the embrace) - a 1930s statue of a nude woman that overlooks the harbor of Smygehuk in Sweden.
On her father's side she has an older half sister, who was the paternal grandmother of Swedish football player Max von Schlebrügge.
In 1955 at the age of 14, Nena was discovered by Vogue (magazine) photographer Norman Parkinson when he was on a tour in Stockholm, Sweden. In 1957 Nena moved to London, England to pursue a career in high fashion modelling. She found immediate success and was invited to New York City by Eileen Ford of the Ford Modeling Agency to continue her modelling career.
In the snow storm of March of 1958, at the age of 17 She arrived in New York City on the Queen Mary. In New York City she continued her modelling career as a top model, working at Vogue (magazine), and Harper's Bazaar.
She married Doctor Timothy Leary in 1964. D.A. Pennebaker documented the event in his short film You're Nobody Til Somebody Loves You. The marriage lasted only a year before Von Schlebrügge divorced Leary in 1965.
In 1967, she married Indo-Tibetan Buddhist scholar, and ex-monk Robert Thurman. In the same year Nena and Robert's first child Ganden Thurman was born.
In 1967, she played a part in the Edie Sedgwick film, Ciao! Manhattan. The film took four years to make and drastic changes were made from the original story causing the film-makers to remove many scenes shot in 1967, which included Nena's scenes. These deleted scenes can be found on the DVD version of the film.
The Thurmans lived in Massachusetts from 1973 to 1988. During which time Nena did an M.Ed in creativity, and an all but dissertation doctorate in counseling psychology.
In 1970 Robert and Nena's second child, Uma Thurman was born.
From 1987 to 1989 Nena was the program director at the New York Open Center, and from 1991 to 2002 was the managing director of Tibet House US, where she oversaw the construction of Tibet House, the educational programming, and with Philip Glass initiated the annual benefit concert at Carnegie Hall, as well as the annual benefit auction at Christie's.
Since 2001 Nena has been the managing director of Menla Mountain Retreat where she has overseen the construction of a state of the art Tibetan medicinal spa facility and business.
References
External links
Categories:- 1941 births
- Living people
- Mexican female models
- Mexican people of German descent
- Mexican people of Swedish descent
- People from Mexico City
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