Carré Otis

Carré Otis (born September 28, 1968) is an American model and actress.^[1]

Early life

Carré Otis was born in San Francisco, and raised in Marin County, California along with her older sister Chrisse and her younger brother Jordan. She attended Marin Academy in San Rafael, California and the John Woolman School in Nevada City, California.^[2]

Career

Early modeling career

Otis began modeling at age 16. Discovered in San Francisco, she was initially signed to Elite Model Management by John Casablancas. She first achieved fame while working for Elite in Paris, when she appeared on the cover of French Elle in April 1986. Over the next several years, she appeared on covers in the American and foreign editions of Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, Allure, Mirabella, and Marie Claire.

Otis appeared in ads for Guess jeans (1988), Calvin Klein jeans (1991), the 1996 Pirelli calendar, and also posed for the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition (2000). Otis was also featured in 1990 and 2000 issues of Playboy magazine.

Acting career

In 1990, Otis made her acting debut in the film Wild Orchid. The film became notorious due to unsubstantiated rumors that she and co-star Mickey Rourke filmed an unsimulated sex scene. Stills from the film's climactic sex scene were sold to Playboy, and were the subject of a lawsuit filed by Otis.^[3] Otis would later appear in another Rourke film, Exit in Red.

Later modeling career

After the end of her marriage to Rourke, Otis gradually resumed modeling. In 2000, she became one of the oldest models to appear in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, although in 1989 Christie Brinkley who was 34 and Cheryl Tiegs at 42 were featured prominently in the 25th Anniversary edition of Sports Illustrated. Shortly thereafter, she began recovering from anorexia nervosa. As part of her recovery, she experienced a weight gain that offered her the opportunity to work as a plus-size model, most notably as the face for iconic Marina Rinaldi clothing (of MaxMara Group) and in commentary and editorials for Mode Magazine; since then Otis has served as a spokesperson for National Eating Disorders Awareness Week in 2003. She also appeared periodically as a correspondent on Channel 4 News in San Francisco.^[2]

In 2005, she represented the Breil jewelry line.^[4] Otis is the model on the poster above the character Rusty Griswald's bed in the 1989 film National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. The poster is signed "Georges Marciano", the co-founder of the clothing company Guess.^[5]

Otis developed three holes in her heart during her modeling career.^[6] She is on the advisory board of the Model Alliance and an ambassador for the National Eating Disorders Association.^[6]

Personal life

Otis was married to Wild Orchid co-star Mickey Rourke from June 1992 to December 1998.^[1] In 1994 Rourke was arrested for spousal abuse. The charges were later dropped. The couple reconciled and also starred together in Exit in Red, but their marriage ended in December 1998. She married Matthew Sutton in 2005 and has two children.

Otis and writer Hugo Schwyzer co-authored Beauty, Disrupted: A Memoir, an autobiography that detailed Otis' marriage to Rourke that was published in October 2011 by HarperCollins.^{[7][1][8][9][10][11]}

References

External links

• Carré Otis at the Internet Movie Database