Supermodel christie brinkley at 71: ‘i’ll always love billy’ | members only

What’s it like to be Christie Brinkley? Pretty darn good, readers of her engaging new memoir, _Uptown Girl_, are likely to conclude. She grew up in California, where she studied French and

longed to be an artist, then at age 19 followed her dream by moving to Paris with just a backpack and her fresh-faced California-girl look. She was soon discovered by a photographer who’d

noticed her on the street — launching her dizzyingly successful career as a model. Brinkley’s awe and gratitude toward her good fortune shine through on the pages, which also detail some

darker times. Nearly all of them are tied to her relationships with men — beginning with her biological father, Herb Hudson, who regularly beat her with a belt before leaving for good and

giving up all parental rights when she was 8 years old. (Her mother later married Don Brinkley, a kind man who became Christie’s true father.) She’d go on to marry four times, most famously

to Billy Joel, her second husband (1985–1994). His drinking problem made their partnership unbearable, Brinkley reveals, and was a major reason for their split — although she describes them

as lifelong friends and co-parents to their daughter, the musician Alexa Ray Joel, 39. Brinkley later had a son, Jack Paris Brinkley-Cook, 29, with her third husband, real estate developer

Richard Taubman. She has another daughter — Sailor Brinkley Cook, 26, who has modeled and looks remarkably like her mom — with architect Peter Cook. That final marriage ended in a bitter

divorce; Brinkley writes that he referred to her as “the cash cow” behind her back. Brinkley, 71, who sounds as warm and sunny on the phone as she appears onscreen and on paper, spoke with

AARP about her book and her life. WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO WRITE A MEMOIR? My dad always said, “Christie, promise me that someday you’ll write about your life — at least write about Paris.” So

at first I thought I would write a book just about my years in Paris, because it was so magical and wonderful and romantic. Then I was cleaning out some drawers and came across some of my

journals. I showed them to Lisa Sharkey [director of creative development] at HarperCollins, and she wrote me an incredible letter about why [the book] needs to be my life story. Her letter

was so good, I was like, “Well, if you’ll write it with me…” Have beret, will travel: Brinkley's 1968 school photo from Le Lycée Francais de Los Angeles. She moved to Paris shortly

afterward. Courtesy of Christie Brinkley YOUR EXPERIENCE IN PARIS DOES SOUND LIKE A KIND OF FAIRY TALE. It was a great time in my life. To leave home with a backpack and no hotel

reservations is truly the greatest luxury of all, I think — to travel without a plan and without baggage and go and be footloose and fancy-free.