Christy Turlington

Early life Turlington was born in Walnut Creek, California, She was raised in the Catholic faith of her mother along with her sisters and continued to practice the religion into adulthood.

She was discovered by local photographer Dennie Cody while she was riding a horse in Miami, Florida, where her father was working as a training captain for Pan Am. Turlington began modeling after school from age 14 to 16 and during summers while she attended Monte Vista High School in Danville, California.

At age 20, she signed a record-breaking million-dollar contract as the new face of Calvin Klein (1989–2007). In 1992, she also became the face of Maybelline. The following year, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York named her the "Face of the 20th Century" and created a line of mannequins based on her likeness.

She also appeared in two music videos. Fellow model Yasmin Le Bon got her husband Simon Le Bon of Duran Duran to feature Turlington in their "Notorious" video and album cover in 1986, at the age of 17.

Turlington has appeared on international fashion magazines that include Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Elle, Marie Claire, L'Officiel, Tatler, Glamour, Cosmopolitan and Allure. In 1990, singer George Michael drew inspiration from Peter Lindbergh's January 1990 British Vogue cover (which features Turlington, Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Cindy Crawford, and Tatjana Patitz) for his "Freedom!" video. The video featured all top 5 female models along with their top 5 male counterparts, lip-syncing the song. The video was shown during George Michael's 2008 concert tour while he sang.

She was added on as the fourth model investor, after Elle Macpherson, Naomi Campbell and Claudia Schiffer of the now defunct Fashion Cafes.

More recently

In honor of Turlington's 40th birthday, W magazine put together a collection of notable images from her career, from runway shots from the late eighties to today.

Turlington Burns closed the Autumn Winter 2019 walk for fashion designer Marc Jacobs.

Turlington is featured in a four-part Apple TV+ docuseries titled The Super Models. Having premiered on September 20, 2023, the series also features Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, and Linda Evangelista and is directed by Roger Ross Williams and Larissa Bills.

In February 2026, Turlington was named a global ambassador for Lancôme, who appointed her due to her "innate femininity, proactive advocacy, and spirited outlook."

Other ventures In the 2000s, she has become a partner in a variety of business ventures: an ayurvedic skincare line, Sundari,

She has contributed writings to Marie Claire, Yoga Journal, and Teen Vogue along with contributions to the Huffington Post. She has also contributed to NBC's Today Show as a guest correspondent, which included reporting on the status of girl's education in Afghanistan in early 2002 and an interview with H.H. Dalai Lama at his home in Dharamshala, India.

Humanitarian activities

In 2005, Turlington began working with the international humanitarian organization CARE and has since become their Advocate for Maternal Health. and El Salvador and Peru in 2005 and 2008, respectively, on behalf of CARE. Her involvement with CARE was influenced by her mother, Elizabeth, who has been a longtime CARE supporter through her former flight attendants' organization, World Wings. The FEMME project, a coming together of CARE, Columbia University, and local government, brings health-care practitioners together to find better methods of serving the large number of women needing assistance who are too intimidated to seek help in a clinic or traditional hospital.

In September 2010, Turlington participated in a CARE Learning Tour to Ethiopia to investigate the work being done to reduce maternal deaths.

Turlington serves on the Harvard Medical School Global Health Council, and as an advisor to the Harvard School of Public Health Board of Dean's Advisors. She is a member of White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood The film made its world premiere at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival in the United States, and the U.S. television broadcast premiere aired on the new Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) on May 7, 2011. The documentary earned Turlington a nomination for the Do Something With Style Award from the VH1 Do Something Awards.

Turlington completed her first New York City Marathon in 2011, running with Team Every Mother Counts to raise awareness for maternal and child health.

The charity released a short film series entitled Giving Birth in America sometime a little before May 2015.

Albums Every Mother Counts is a compilation album that was released in 2011 exclusively to Starbucks, with a proportion of the proceeds to be donated to CARE and the Every Mother Counts organisation to support its maternal health care programs in coffee growing countries worldwide.

Every Mother Counts 2012 is a compilation album that was released in 2012 in partnership with Starbucks.

Honors

She was one of fifteen women selected to appear on the cover of the September 2019 issue of British Vogue, by guest editor Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.

Personal life

Christy Turlington Burns and Edward Burns have slightly different accounts of how they first met. In an interview with HuffPost, Edward Burns said they initially crossed paths when Christy appeared on a taping of Entertainment Tonight, where he was working as a production assistant. According to him, he got her a cup of coffee.

However, in 2020, Turlington shared a different version in an interview with Grazia UK, saying they first met in the late 1990s at a basketball game at Madison Square Garden. At the time, she noted that she was in another relationship, and that their meaningful connection only happened later, when they re-encountered each other at a charity event in 2000. She went on to note that Burns, the groom, "met me halfway down the aisle". Turlington's sister Kelly is married to Edward's brother Brian Burns.

An ex-smoker whose father died of lung cancer in 1997, Turlington is an anti-smoking activist.

Yoga Turlington is a practitioner of yoga, specifically a type of yoga known as Jivamukti. Within an article published April 15, 2001, she stated she practiced three times a week, during the morning time. She credits yoga with bringing her closer to her Catholic faith.

She is the author of the book Living Yoga: Creating a Life Practice, first published in 2002, is now within a third edition (2002, 2003, 2005). The 2002 text has a foreword by Robert Thurman. Turlington was involved in the editing of the January–February 2001 edition of Yoga Journal.