| A TALL, slim fomidably exotic seventy-five-dollars-an-hour fashion model, Dovima prefers comic books and hearthside to her glittering life as the highest paid model in the business. She was discovered in a lobby, and her first modelling assignment paid her $17.50 an hour. Her rate has risen steadily ever since. Originally planning to be an illustrator ("I wanted to be like Jon Whitcomb"), she has been photographed around the world. Her travels include a booking in Egypt, which, she was informed, was in Africa. Her reply was, "If I'd known that, I'd have doubled my rates." Her svelte frame appeared briefly in the film Funny Face, and she slinks through almost every haute couture publication on the stands.
Born Dorothy Virginia Margaret Juba in 1927 in New York City, she is known, among other things, for her name- derived of Do for Dorothy, vi for Victory and ma for Mama. The five-foot-eight-inch beauty, who resembles a silent movie Nefertiti, has married and divorced John Golden, and has subsequently married Alan Murray (1957). They have one daughter, Alison.
During one of her sojourns, Dovima had a narrow escape while posing for Richard Avedon. In an excess of dramatic fervor, she nearly toppled from the top of the Eiffel Tower; such hazards, although infrequent, perhaps justify her astronomical fees, and although she complains about being "showed around...as if I was a prized piece of horse flesh," Dovima remains one of the best known and most highly marketable models on the American fashion scene. She is considered the ultimate in slick magazine elegance.
(b) Plaza Five Model Agency, 65 E. 55th. St., New York, N.Y.
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