Peggy Moffitt, the iconic ’60s model who was also a contract player at Paramount and who appeared in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up, died at her Beverly Hills home on Saturday from complications of dementia. Her son, Christopher Claxton, confirmed the news to the New York Times. She was 86.
Moffitt’s wide-ranging influence can be traced to the persona she created, often in collaboration with others. Her gamine, modern look was a construct made up of her signature pale skin, harlequin eye makeup, five-point Vidal Sassoon haircut and a sense of humor, all of which she never abandoned.
She had a cultural moment when, in 1964, she posed in a topless swimsuit from designer Rudi Gernreich. The controversial look referenced a schoolboy’s shorts, with thin suspenders rising in a “V” between the cleavage, but nothing else above the waistline. The resulting image, which ran in publications across the world, was condemned by authorities as various as the Vatican and the Kremlin.
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The photo was taken by her husband William Claxton, famed for his portraits of Jazz musicians and, more singularly, Steve McQueen. The duo had married in 1959 and remained together until his death in 2008.
Among their other collaborations was a short he shot called “Basic Black: William Claxton w/ Peggy Moffitt.” Created in 1967, it is regarded as the first fashion video has a place in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Moffitt originally wanted to be an actor. In the ’50s, she studied acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York under instructors such as Sydney Pollack and Martha Graham and alongside classmates were such as Robert Duvall and Suzanne Pleshette.
During that time, she had a short-term contract at Paramount and appeared in supporting and sometimes uncredited roles in movies with name stars. Those include You’re Never Too Young with Jerry Lewis, Meet Me in Las Vegas with Cyd Charisse, Up Periscope with James Garner and Girls Town with Mamie Van Doren and Mel Tormé. She also appeared in Who Are You, Polly Maggoo?, fashion photographer William Klein’s seminal 1966 mockumentary spoofing that world and its excesses. On the small screen, she appeared on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Alcoa Theatre the ’60s-era Batman TV series.
Moffitt was born at Hollywood Hospital, raised in Hancock Park and attended Marlborough School for girls there, just steps from the Paramount gates.
Her father Jack Moffitt was a screenwriter on dozens of films during Golden Age of Hollywood and later a film reviewer for The Hollywood Reporter.
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Moffitt turned to modeling after Gernreich approached her at Jax, a Rodeo Drive boutique called where she worked. The duo became nearly synonymous as Gernreich’s avant-garde designs gained influence, if not popularity, in the ’60s. They continued to collaborate — often with Claxton making the photos — until the designer’s death in 1985.
None other than the face of Swinging ’60s London, Twiggy, credited Moffitt’s influence.
“She taught me how much more a model puts into her work than just a pretty face,” the Brit wrote in Twiggy: An Autobiography. “She consciously controlled the sort of shape she presented to the camera.”
That influence is likely among the reasons Moffitt was tapped for a small part in Antonioni’s 1966 Palme d’Or winner Blow-Up, which follows a fashion photographer in Swinging London.
